Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Fixes The Worst Part About Playing As Mary Jane

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Playing as Mary Jane Watson made for some of the most disappointing segments of the original, but the sequel makes some big changes to address the common complaints. Following more than one perspective in a video game can often be valuable and interesting, even if its taking time away from something as fundamentally enjoyable as playing as Spider-Man himself. The idea of stepping into Mary Jane's shoes was a good one on paper, but the game unfortunately didn't support it well enough from a gameplay perspective for it to ultimately feel worthwhile.

[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Marvel's Spider-Man 2.]

Mary Jane acts as an investigative journalist for the newspaper in the games, as well as being Peter Parker's girlfriend with a rich and complex personal history. The nature of her job opens up avenues for investigative gameplay, which the games have long-proven can be a compelling supplement to superhero fun. In practice, however, milquetoast stealth sections and movement that felt especially sluggish when compared to Peter's nimble techniques left her playable segments feeling average at best and actively detrimental to the game at worst.

The biggest problem with Mary Jane's gameplay in was its general lack of interesting interactivity, as Mary Jane didn't have any real abilities to employ and largely couldn't do much beyond moving around. Although this was an intentional contrast to Peter's segments to some degree, stripping the player of their powers has to be done carefully to avoid simply making things more boring. While a horror game might offer no recourse against monsters to intensify fear, for example, didn't offer the necessary emotion, atmosphere, or level design to elevate things beyond