My Christmas game, to my great surprise, has been Spider-Man 2. It wasn’t a priority for me this year, especially since I didn’t have a PS5 when it first released, and I wasn’t in any rush to spend a pile of money on a new console when I already had an Xbox Series X. Now that I do have a PS5 though, my partner and I have decided to split the digital edition of the game and play it through the holidays, which disrupted my original plan of binge playing Yakuza: Like A Dragon.

I’ve been enjoying it so far, but I feel safe in confirming that it wouldn’t have made my Game of the Year list, even if I had played it earlier. It doesn’t add much to the game that came before it, which still makes it lots of fun, it just isn’t really innovative or particularly interesting in the face of all the brilliant games I’ve played this year. It’s still great, though – even if they’d just re-released Spider-Man with no changes, it would’ve been a good game. It’s been a while since I’ve stayed up till 3am playing a game knowing I have work the next day, and Spider-Man 2 did that to me.

There are plenty of things to love about Spider-Man 2, but I’ve found myself constantly delighted by one particular event in the game.

Spoilers for the beginning of Spider-Man 2 aheadWhen you first boot up the game, you’ll find yourself playing as the Spider-Men trying to defeat a Sandman who has suddenly become paranoid and volatile. As he destroys part of New York City with his frantic attacks, you try to get him to explain why he’s suddenly acting so violently. After eventually subduing him, MJ tells you he’s in isolation and that he still seems to be behaving erratically.

Then, as one of the Spider-Men, you find a glowing crystal in a building, protected by hostile mini-Sandmen that try to keep you away from it. After defeating them, you get to crack open the crystal you’ve found, which allows you to hear a bit of Flint Marko’s voice talking about what drove him to do what he did. Over time, the more crystals you find, the calmer he gets, and you’ll get periodic calls from MJ updating you on his improving condition.

I don’t care about any of that though – or I do, but that isn’t why I love finding these crystals. Why I really love the crystals is because when you crack them open, you have to press down on both triggers, and the game ratchets up the resistance on the triggers so that you have to push down noticeably harder. It feels so tactile that I get a kick out of it every time – the pushing down until the triggers finally give, the crack as it snaps open, the immediate reward of a snippet of story. It rules.

It feels like opening a gachapon, which is probably why it scratches that itch in my brain so well, but it’s also a testament to the power of a small detail. Insomniac uses the technical improvements of the DualSense controller to the game’s advantage, and somehow a trivial aspect of a big game has become my favourite thing about it. I really love good, attentive design, and Spider-Man 2’s crystals are just that.

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