Insomniac's Spider-Man series has raised the bar for accessibility in video games. With Spider-Man 2, they expanded even more upon genre-best features that make the game playable for everyone. But which are the best?
For disabled gamers especially, the series as a whole has been seen as a standard-setter for accessible gaming, but what is effectively the third game in the franchise improves on both its predecessor’s shortcomings and continues to innovate in ways that have been both award-winning and (no pun intended) game-changing in an industry that can be exclusionary to a player base that could be one of its most loyal given different circumstances.
With that in mind, here are our top 15 Spider-Man 2 settings to improve your gameplay experience.
15. Challenge Level
This one’s a bit self-explanatory. The game has four difficulty levels that make the game progressively harder. Moreover, you can change the levels of different opponents. If you’d like brutes to be harder and your random opponents to be weaker, you can set brutes at a level higher than normal opponents. This gamer believes that games should be played at the level where you can have challenge and fun in equal measure, which is different for everyone, and SM2 makes this fairly simple a task.
How to set: Pause Menu -> Settings -> Gameplay Options
14. Simplifying Puzzles
This setting saves time, and in all honesty, a bit of anxiety in-game, as some puzzles make gamers feel stuck. It’s easy to look up their answers, but it’s easier still when you don’t have to worry about them. As a story-focused gamer, I was all for making this change in the first game and was happy when it was carried over.
How to set:
Pause Menu -> Settings -> Gameplay -> Challenge Level Modifiers (2nd tab on Gameplay settings)
13. Motion Sensitivity preset
Getting into the accessibility settings, instead of going down the entire list of accessibility settings, the game has presets that allow settings to be turned on and off without having to do much guesswork on what is better for you. You can still toggle certain settings the presets turn on and off by yourself, but if you don’t want to work your way down, presets are the way to go.
The Motion Sensitivity preset enables the center dot, and the slow corner timescale, and disables a lot of the camera settings that may make some gamers uneasy, like the motion blur and camera shake.
How to set: Pause Menu -> Accessibility
12. Motor preset
This disables QTEs by making them autocomplete. As a gamer with Cerebral Palsy who struggles with fine motor skills, having to smash buttons in time can be somewhat difficult. It also toggles your aim and air trick modes, UI holds, and Swing & Parkour Modes.
How to set Pause. Pause Menu -> Accessibility
11. Vision Preset
There are a lot more vision-based accessibility options in SM2, such as changing the size and color of captions, and making different classes of characters stand out based on color, (but this changes how they’re seen in the game, which could take away from your experience), changing the size of indicators in-game, and changing the color of your spider-sense based on what enemies are approaching.
How to set: Pause Menu -> Accessibility
10. Hearing Preset:
The hearing preset changes things like subtitles, subtitle background opacity, music volume, and vibration settings.
How to set: Pause Menu -> Accessibility
9. Swing assist
It’s funny the first time you see Spidey go splat on the pavement, but the updated swing mechanics can get annoying, and you will take fall damage. Swing assist is therefore a must for both accessibility and general ease-of-use in-game. I found it difficult to play without it and was incredibly happy when I saw this particular setting.
How to set: Pause Menu -> Gameplay -> Swing Assists
8. Dodge/Parry timing
This can be the difference between dying and getting through a mission You can change this setting and it will drastically change how easy it is to do this. I’ve personally never gotten good at Parrying, but dodging has been essential for my play style.
How to set: Settings -> Accessibility -> Controls
7. TouchPad in combat:
One of the biggest things that annoyed me in the first game is that because of how I play, and the fact that my fingers are quite long, I ended up hitting the TouchPad a lot in the first game, which brings up the character menu. I was pleasantly surprised when this was something you could turn off in SM2
How to set: Settings -> Controls
6. Auto-Heal.
This setting makes it so that focus can be used to auto-heal. If you’re an offense-first player, it’s important to have this on, because healing takes time otherwise when you’re obsessed with beating the crap out of bad guys, (Note: I am obsessed with beating the crap out of bad guys)
How to set: Settings -> Gameplay
5. Chase Assist
Chasing gets annoying otherwise because keeping track of an enemy you have to chase can be difficult so even if you aren’t a disabled gamer like myself, this setting can be useful for different reasons. I hate getting stuck trying to do certain parts of games, and anything that makes that less of a problem is a good thing.
How to set: Settings -> Gameplay -> Challenge Level Modifiers
4. Invert web wings
The web wings, while being very handy for your playthrough, are a little hard to get the hang of at first. They work the same as normal flight controls by default but can be changed by axes so that controls are more straightforward.
How to set: Settings -> Accessibility-> Controls
3. Air Trick Mode
You can turn the air trick settings to automatically activate in a space where you can complete them, turn them off completely, or complete tricks just by pressing buttons. You get an achievement by doing a high-level combo, but the auto setting makes it harder to chain your tricks closer together.
How to set: Settings -> Accessibility-> Controls
2. Icon and Prompt Size
For those who struggle with getting lost in-game, may I suggest larger icons? This game has three sizes for icons to make it especially easy to tell where to go. This setting gets you through the story quicker, but can also sometimes hinder level progression if you only prioritize story missions. That said, all missions have the same size markers once you pick which size you like best, so it can sometimes be best to use your custom waypoints for crimes and side missions.
How to set: Settings -> Accessibility-Visual Assists
1. Ray Tracing
For the best visual experience, Ray Tracing is a must. Performance mode helps the game run smoother, but RT makes the game look and feel more realistic. If you’re a player who likes their screenshots and video clips, RT is especially clutch.
How to set: Settings -> Visual -> Graphics
And that is our Top 15 best settings to improve your gameplay experience in Spider-Man 2. Do you have any other ones you’d like to add? Let us know.
