Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has finally arrived, and for those players who pre-ordered the game and have managed to clear away enough space to install it, you have probably spent countless hours on the game already. But have you encountered some web tech that appears to have been ‘borrowed’ from a previous comic book video game which is held in very high regard?
What makes this comparison even more controversial is that the tech in question is taken from what could be described as Marvel’s fiercest rival. Having been competitors for many years through comic books and more recently film and TV franchises, it is popular in video games where the latest battle is being fought with the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
What has Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 ‘borrowed’ from DC?
A potential Game of the Year contender, the hype for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has been huge, to say the least, and may even top that of Starfield which was released last month. For those who have pre-ordered the game and are already many hours deep into the latest web-slinging adventure, you may have noticed a takedown technique that looks vaguely familiar.
One of the shared skills between Peter Parker and Miles Morales is the Web Line Double Takedown, which is a stealthy move seeing either character performing a Perch Takedown from a web line and taking out two characters. However, if players were to cast their minds back to a certain DC trilogy of games then they may just see a similarity with some of Batman’s tech.
The tech in question is Batman’s Line Launcher, which sees the Dark Knight hang from a tethered line to perform a Perch Takedown. Given that the series of Batman games have been released for some time, this could just be seen as a coincidence. But it does seem to be that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Web-Line borrows heavily from the Rocksteady Studios series.
Whilst we appreciate that there is a necessity for the web-slinging characters to employ covert tactics to take down enemies, do the mechanics have to copy that of another game? The previous Spider-Man titles all employed a variety of takedowns – Stealth, Perch, Wall, Ceiling, but why is there a necessity to implement another?
Just how similar is Batman’s Line Launcher Takedown to Spider-Man’s Web Line Double Takedown?
But it could be looked at another way. Whilst the character of Batman was first introduced in 1939, the appearance of the grappling gun did not appear until the 1989 Tim Burton Batman movie and subsequently in the comic books Batman #458, published by DC Comics in 1991. This piece of bat-tech replaced the batarang and rope which was notably made famous in the Batman series of the 1960’s.
Spider-Man first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15 in 1962 with The Amazing Spider-Man #1 marking his first solo series the following year (1963). That is nearly 30 years of web-slinging and takedowns in the comic book world before Batman’s grappling gun was ever introduced.
So could it be possible that developers looked back at the source material from the comic books, rather than ripping off another title? It’s entirely plausible and fans may hope that is the explanation for the similarity between these two games.
We can understand why there is such a similarity between the two games given how heavily they both utilise a stealth element to the gameplay. So it may be that it is simply a coincidence and that the latest Marvel game unintentionally ‘borrowed’ what has come previously. We’re not sure it merits getting the lawyers involved just yet.
It’s no doubt that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is certainly a GOTY contender but just how does it stack up against some of the other amazing titles that have been released already this year? Some fans will have their favourites but it would be hard to bet against Marvel’s web-slingers on this one.
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