Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man 2 is an action-packed video game where players can play as Peter Parker and Miles Morales and save New York from legendary Spidey villain, Kraven, and his hunters. The map is now twice as big as the previous iteration’s, adding Brooklyn and Queens to the game. There are many more suits to the game for both the playable characters. There are also different selectable color palettes for other suits. The game has a sleeker design and a different heads-up display than the previous two games (Spiderman and Spider-man: Miles Morales).
This game introduces the Symbiote suit in Insomniac’s Spider-Man with a different design. This game also increases the speed of swinging and adds webwings to allow you to glide across New York. The game adds more life by nodding towards the comics or the movies. For example, use one of the Tobey Maguire suits from the classic Sami Raimi films. There won’t be web shooters because the Sam Rami trilogy was the first to introduce organic webs. Or if you wear the Spider-Noir suit or any Into the Spiderverse or Across the Spiderverse suits for Miles Morales, there is a setting you could try where your movement changes to 12 frames per second. Also, if you have color blindness, the game adds a feature where you can change the colors of the world around you.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder from Nintendo is an adventure in which the titular Mario and his friends help save the flower kingdom from Bowser stealing the Wonder flower. Unlike the previous titles in the Mario franchise, this game adds more personality to the characters you play by giving them more voice lines and animations. You can play many characters like The Mario Brothers, Peach, Daisy, three different Toads, a variety of Yoshis, and Nabbit. All the different Yoshis and Nabbit aren’t affected by getting hit; however, Yoshi plays differently than each character by getting a flutter jump and getting to use their tongue to get enemies.
You can use many new power-ups like the Elephant Fruit, The Drill Mushroom, and The Bubble Flower. On different levels, there are “Wonder Flowers.” Once you touch one, it changes the state of the world around you. For example, if a pipe is wriggling like a worm, the penalty could be making the player fall or even turning them into jelly. There are also “Wonder Seeds” that you can collect that allow you to play other levels and help you 100% the game.
The game induces a new idea by using Badges. Each badge has a different use, whether giving you a higher jump, having a Super Mushroom at the beginning of a stage, or letting you dash at immense speeds. There are standees in the game for each character that you can collect and place to help people in online games. The game adds more life to the sound effects. If you ground pound, there would be a drum roll and a loud drum hit once you hit the floor.
Both games excel in their respective ways, whether you want an open-world game or a simple, enjoyable 2D adventure game. I prefer playing Spider-Man 2 by myself and Mario Wonder with friends or family. Mario even won an award at the Game of the Year awards for best family game. The two are often considered amongst the best of the year by critics and gamers, alike, with Spider-Man 2 placing second and Mario placing fifth. Popular gaming site IGN rated Mario Wonder a 9/10 and the Opencritic website rated it with a 91% critic score and a 4.2 out five with fans. IGN rated Spider-Man 2 with 8/10. Opencritic rated it a 90%, and the audience rated it a 4.3.
