Marvel's Spider-Man 2 vs Batman: Arkham Knight

Spider-Man 2 VS Batman: Arkham Knight

Welcome to MojoPlays and in this super installment of Versus, we’re putting “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2” against “Batman: Arkham Knight”.

Round 1: Combat

“Marvel’s Spider-Man” can trace a lot of its gaming lineage back to the “Arkham” games, which changed what narrative-driven, superhero games could be back in 2009. The “Arkham” games had fast, fluid combat; a combo system that felt rewarding to master; and a lot of gadgets for Batman to use against his enemies. “Arkham Knight” iterated on this even more, but it certainly didn’t reinvent the wheel. Plus, quite a lot of “Arkham Knight’s” combat doesn’t revolve around Batman at all, but the Batmobile. Love it or hate it, it’s there a lot and you can’t really avoid it. However, “Arkham Knight” also has dual takedowns during certain combat sequences, allowing you to take control of Robin, Nightwing, or Catwoman and play as them, with new animations and unique move-sets.

“Spider-Man 2” definitely makes use of its dual-protagonist system to have the Spider-Men team up, and you CAN do double takedowns with Peter, Miles, and some other characters, like Black Cat. But it’s not quite on the level of switching between the Bat Family in the heat of battle. Other than that, the combat is an absolute blast, even if you DO have fewer gadgets at your disposal than in the 2018 game. Miles and Peter now have extra abilities unique to them and multiple skill trees to invest in. It’s all more streamlined and more dynamic than the combat in the first game, making “Spider-Man 2” even more exciting – something we didn’t think was possible.

Ultimately, the combat in “Spider-Man 2” just has more variety and more meat to it than in “Arkham Knight”, which is why we’re giving this point to Spidey.

WINNER: Spider-Man 2 1 / Arkham Knight 0

Round 2: Stealth

“Spider-Man 1” definitely emphasized stealth more, with Peter being much weaker in combat than he is in this sequel. There were many stealth arenas that were definitely drawing from the tradition begun in “Arkham Asylum” – something that was also replicated by Marvel in “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions”. But stealth in “Spider-Man” was never as good as in “Arkham”, and Insomniac moved away from stealth significantly for “Spider-Man 2”. Yes, though it does have stealth arenas and Miles can turn himself invisible, you never really NEED to use stealth. Even in the maligned MJ sequences, she’s now got a gun and can easily takedown enemies.

On the other hand, though “Arkham Knight” is the most powerful version of Batman we ever see in the series, he still has to rely on stealth. Even with all that new armor, you’ll still regularly have to stick to the shadows and work hard to stay undetected, as only a few goons with guns can dispatch the Bat for good. Stealth is also much more complex in “Arkham Knight”, with medics, drones, jammers, and enemies that can detect your use of detective vision all existing in arenas at once. Finally, “Arkham Knight” added an iconic mechanic that gets used liberally throughout the game: the Fear Multi-Takedown, letting you select multiple enemies and take them all out in quick succession, sometimes avoiding combat entirely.

Stealth is still there in “Spider-Man 2”, but “Arkham Knight” remains one of the best stealth games of all time when it focuses on those deep systems begun in “Asylum”.

WINNER: Spider-Man 2 1 / Arkham Knight 1

Round 3: Open World

“Arkham Asylum” and “Arkham City” had some of the best open world maps in gaming history – but “Arkham Knight’s” version of Gotham pales in comparison to its predecessors. Most of the Gotham landmarks, including the asylum itself but also the Monarch Theater, the original ACE Chemical building, the courthouse, and the GCPD were already used in “Arkham City”. Gotham in “Knight” has plenty of landmarks, but we’re not attached to most of them, and it is definitely a less interesting world overall. As well as that, you’ll either be racing through the streets and destroying everything in your path in the Batmobile, or gliding so high that you can’t see much of the street-level detail anyway.

It’s no secret that “Spider-Man 2” has some of the best, if not THE best, traversal in any video game ever. Swinging through New York feels even better the second time around; faster, more fluid, and with more options. The Spider-Men also now have the “web wings”, which let them fly through the air much faster than Batman ever could. As for New York itself, it’s a lot livelier and dynamic than Gotham. Gotham is immediately evacuated for the plot, leaving the city empty so that you don’t feel guilty about demolishing it during the tank battles. It’s also been expanded this time around to include Brooklyn and Queens, increasing its scope even more.

“Spider-Man’s” New York is more fun than “Arkham’s” Gotham through-and-through, and that’s why the wall-crawler wins this round easily.

WINNER: Spider-Man 2 2 / Arkham Knight 1

Round 4: Main Villain

It’s not really a spoiler to reveal that, in the end, “Spider-Man 2’s” main villain is Venom. He was set up back in the 2018 post-credits scene and used across the marketing materials, with Sony releasing a statue of him fighting the Spider-Men. But Venom’s not actually in a lot of the game. Pete gets the suit relatively quickly, but Venom himself is barely a threat until the very end. It’s true that Venom is such a popular villain that we don’t really need this explaining to us, but looking just at the game itself, Venom isn’t the omnipresent threat that a good villain needs to be. And the less said about Kraven, who also doesn’t appear as frequently as he should, the better.

But “Arkham Knight” isn’t perfect with its villains, either. A lot has been made about the Arkham Knight himself, and yes, he is a little lackluster. But Scarecrow is the antagonist who drives most of the plot and almost succeeds, multiple times, at destroying Gotham and breaking Batman. It’s through his fear toxin – and Batman’s ongoing blood infection from “Arkham City” – that the Joker reappears as the FINAL villain Batman needs to face in the game. Scarecrow also regularly appears on billboards to talk about how he’s going to fill Gotham with his toxin. Even if you don’t like Scarecrow all that much, you still know he’s always there watching you.

This round is definitely a very close call, with both games’ approach to villains being somewhat flawed. But we’re giving it to the Dark Knight, because you’re at least aware of the villains for the entire game.

WINNER: Spider-Man 2 2 / Arkham Knight 2

Round 5: Story

The story of “Arkham Knight” has a lot of issues. Years later, and people are still talking about how obvious the plot twist of the Arkham Knight’s identity was, and that’s true. Though, could you say you predicted from the beginning that Scarecrow would almost win, and Batman’s identity WOULD be revealed to the world? It has a lot of emotional story beats, like Oracle’s fake-out death and the heroic demise of Poison Ivy, as well as the culmination of the Joker blood storyline and Batman preparing his allies for his assumed death. But, it’s clear that “Arkham Knight” suffered by not involving Paul Dini, one of the most celebrated Batman writers of all time. It was Dini who made “Asylum” and “City” so compelling, and without him, “Arkham Knight” falls flat at times.

“Spider-Man 2” has an overall great story, though it’s not perfect, either. The biggest issue with its story is that the characters don’t spend as much time interacting with each other as they should, especially outside of being Spider-Man. In the first game, we saw a lot of Peter’s life, and spent time with MJ, Aunt May, and Otto to develop all these characters and make their roles in the story more poignant. But if you do all the side content you certainly won’t be disappointed with “Spider-Man 2’s” story and all of its twists and turns. It also manages to keep things surprising despite drawing from well-known comic book characters, something “Arkham Knight” failed at more than once.

Again, it’s close, but “Arkham Knight’s” story has too many problems to beat our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man this time.

WINNER: Spider-Man 2 3 / Arkham Knight 2

“Arkham Knight” is definitely the least popular of Rocksteady’s “Arkham” games, while “Spider-Man 2” has already been considered to be a drastic improvement on “Spider-Man 1” – a game that was already perfect. Because it cleared that high bar, there’s no real competition here. “Spider-Man 2” is undoubtedly our winner.

Let us know in the comments which game YOU think is better!