Marvels Spider-Man 2, for PS5, gets GameScavenger's GOTY Award for 2023. Insomniac Games weeps for joy (we assume).
The coveted GameScavenger GOTY award has been granted. It is the one award that all game developers strive to achieve each year, but only one can obtain. We assume, that all great games exist, solely because of our award. VGA move over, we are here.
Ok… so who wins our GOTY award probably doesn’t really matter to anyone but us, but we decided that we might as well give one out anyway. This is GameScavenger’s very first GOTY award, and we are excited to present it to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
I can hear several people lighting torches and grabbing pitchforks, as we did not present this award to Baldur’s Gate 3. I understand it is pretty great, but, it is lacking one requirement to win this award… I haven’t played it yet.
Being a website staff of one, there are only so many games I can play in a year. Most of the time, I don’t even finish the entirety of a game before moving on to another. However, Spider-Man 2 was different.
This is not a review, so I wont go in-depth into all the things that made Spider-Man 2 so great, but here are a couple highlights of what I loved:
It had wonderful gameplay, that had just enough improvements over the previous games, to keep things fresh. They did a fantastic job slowly introducing new abilities as the game progressed, so that the combat never got stale. I felt like I utilized more of the abilities, and gadgets than I did in previous games. Each one felt viable in combat, and didn’t shoehorn me into utilizing what seemed to be most effective for any specific enemy.
The game world of Spider-Man 2 was also the best that I had the pleasure to play in this year. The world, as a whole, did not feel overly different from previous games to me, but the new traversal mechanics in the game kept it exciting. It is not often that traversal across a map can consistently put a smile on my face, but Spider-Man 2 managed it throughout. Even after earning the Platinum Trophy in the game, it is still a joy to jump into and just swing around the city.
Finally, the narrative. Spider-Man 2 took a story that we have heard, several times, and made it something new. I didn’t expect Insomniac’s take on it would give me so much insight into Harry, and his relationship with Peter. The growth that we saw from Miles in this game was also fantastic. Spider-Man 2 provided a great story, while keeping me excited to see what Insomniac puts out next.
If you haven’t played this game yet, and have the ability to do so, We would highly recommend giving it a shot.
[source gamescavenger.com]