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

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00:00 Welcome to Mojo Plays and in this super installment of Versus, we're putting Marvel's Spider-Man

00:12 2 against Batman Arkham Knight.

00:21 Before we begin, we publish new content all week long, so be sure to subscribe and ring

00:26 the bell to get notified about our latest videos.

00:30 Round 1 - Combat

00:39 Marvel's Spider-Man can trace a lot of its gaming lineage back to the Arkham games, which

00:43 changed what narrative-driven superhero games could be back in 2009.

00:47 The Arkham games had fast, fluid combat, a combo system that felt rewarding to master,

00:52 and a lot of gadgets for Batman to use against his enemies.

00:56 Arkham Knight iterated on this even more, but it certainly didn't reinvent the wheel.

01:00 Plus, quite a lot of Arkham Knight's combat doesn't revolve around Batman at all, but

01:04 the Batmobile.

01:11 Love it or hate it, it's there a lot and you can't really avoid it.

01:15 However, Arkham Knight also has dual takedowns during certain combat sequences, allowing

01:20 you to take control of Robin, Nightwing, or Catwoman and play as them with new animations

01:25 and unique movesets.

01:36 Spider-Man 2 definitely makes use of its dual protagonist system to have the Spider-Men

01:40 team up, and you can do double takedowns with Peter, Miles, and some other characters like

01:45 Black Cat, but it's not quite on the level of switching between the Bat Family in the

01:49 heat of battle.

01:56 Other than that, the combat is an absolute blast, even if you do have fewer gadgets at

02:01 your disposal than in the 2018 game.

02:03 Miles and Peter now have extra abilities unique to them, and multiple skill trees to invest

02:08 in.

02:09 It's all more streamlined and more dynamic than the combat in the first game, making

02:13 Spider-Man 2 even more exciting, something we didn't think was actually possible.

02:21 Ultimately, the combat in Spider-Man 2 just has more variety and more meat to it than

02:29 in Arkham Knight, which is why we're giving this point to Spidey.

02:33 Winner, Spider-Man 2.

02:38 Round 2, Stealth.

02:48 Spider-Man 2018 definitely emphasized stealth more, with Peter being much weaker in combat

02:53 than he is in this sequel.

02:55 There were many stealth arenas that were definitely drawing from the tradition begun in Arkham

03:00 Asylum, something that was also replicated by Marvel in Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions.

03:05 But stealth in Spider-Man was never as good as in Arkham, and Insomniac moved away from

03:10 stealth significantly for Spider-Man 2.

03:14 Yes, though it does have stealth arenas and Miles can turn himself invisible, you never

03:23 really need to use stealth.

03:26 Even in the maligned MJ sequences, she's now got a gun and can easily take down enemies.

03:32 It's comical in these areas.

03:41 On the other hand, though Arkham Knight is the most powerful version of Batman we ever

03:45 see in the series, he still has to rely on stealth.

03:49 Even with all that new armor, you'll still regularly have to stick to the shadows and

03:54 work hard to stay undetected, as only a few goons with guns can dispatch the Bat for good.

03:59 Stealth is also much more complex in Arkham Knight, with medics, drones, jammers, and

04:04 enemies that can detect your use of detective vision all existing in arenas at once.

04:12 Finally, Arkham Knight added an iconic mechanic that gets used liberally throughout the game,

04:19 the fear multi-takedown, letting you select multiple enemies and take them all out in

04:24 quick succession, sometimes avoiding combat entirely.

04:35 Stealth is still there in Spider-Man 2, but Arkham Knight remains one of the best stealth

04:39 games of all time when it focuses on those deep systems begun in Asylum.

04:44 Winner Arkham Knight.

04:51 Round 3, Open World.

05:02 Arkham Asylum and Arkham City had some of the best open world maps in gaming history,

05:06 but Arkham Knight's version of Gotham pales in comparison to its predecessors.

05:11 Most of the Gotham landmarks, including the Asylum itself, but also the Monarch Theater,

05:15 the original Ace Chemical Building, the Courthouse, and the GCPD were already used in Arkham City.

05:21 Arkham Knight's Gotham has plenty of landmarks, but we're not attached to most of them,

05:32 and it is definitely a less interesting world overall.

05:35 As well as that, you'll either be racing through the streets and destroying everything

05:39 in your path in the Batmobile, or gliding so high that you can't see much of the street-level

05:43 detail anyways.

05:46 It's no secret that Spider-Man 2 has some of the best, if not the best, traversal in

05:52 any video game ever.

05:54 Swinging through New York feels even better the second time around, faster, more fluid,

05:59 and with more options.

06:01 The Spider-Men also now have the web wings, which let them fly through the air much faster

06:06 than Batman ever could.

06:13 As for New York itself, it's a lot livelier and dynamic than Gotham.

06:17 Gotham is immediately evacuated for the plot, leaving the city empty so that you don't

06:22 feel guilty about demolishing it during the tank battles.

06:25 It's also been expanded this time around to include Brooklyn and Queens, increasing

06:29 its scope even more.

06:36 Spider-Man's New York is way more fun than Arkham's Gotham through and through, and

06:40 that's why the web crawler wins this round easily.

06:43 Winner, Spider-Man 2.

06:47 Round 4, Main Villain

06:58 It's not really a spoiler to reveal that in the end, Spider-Man 2's main villain

07:02 is Venom.

07:03 He was set up back in the 2018 post-credits scene, after all, and used across the marketing

07:07 materials.

07:08 With Sony even releasing a statue of him fighting the Spider-Man.

07:12 So don't come crying about "ew, spoilers!"

07:15 But Venom's not actually in a lot of the game.

07:17 Pete gets the suit relatively quickly, but Venom himself is barely a threat until the

07:22 very end.

07:24 It's true that Venom is such a popular villain that we don't really need this explaining

07:31 to us, but looking just at the game itself, Venom isn't the omnipresent threat that

07:36 a good villain needs to be, and the less said about Kraven, who also doesn't appear as

07:41 frequently as he should, the better.

07:50 But Arkham Knight isn't perfect with its villains either.

07:53 A lot has been made about the Arkham Knight himself, and yes, he is lackluster.

07:58 But Scarecrow is the antagonist who drives most of the plot, and almost succeeds, multiple

08:03 times, at destroying Gotham and breaking Batman.

08:15 It's through his fear toxin, and Batman's ongoing blood infection from Arkham City,

08:20 that the Joker reappears as the final villain Batman needs to face in the game.

08:25 Scarecrow also regularly appears on billboards to talk about how he's going to fill Gotham

08:29 with his toxin.

08:31 Even if you don't like Scarecrow all that much, you still know he's always there,

08:36 watching you.

08:46 This round is definitely a very close call, with both games' approach to villains being

08:50 somewhat flawed, but we're giving this one to the Dark Knight, because you're at least

08:54 aware of the villains for the entire game.

08:57 Winner, Arkham Knight.

09:07 Round 5, Story

09:20 The story of Arkham Knight has a lot of issues.

09:23 Years later, and people are still talking about how obvious the plot twist of the Arkham

09:27 Knight's identity was, and that is very true.

09:30 Though you could say you predicted from the beginning that Scarecrow would almost win,

09:35 and that Batman's identity would be revealed to the world.

09:38 It has a lot of emotional story beats, like Oracle's fake-out death and the heroic demise

09:43 of Poison Ivy, as well as the culmination of the Joker blood storyline, and Batman preparing

09:48 his allies for his assumed death.

09:54 But it's clear that Arkham Knight suffered by not involving Paul Dini, one of the most

09:59 celebrated Batman writers of all time.

10:01 It was Dini who made asylum in City so compelling, and without him, Arkham Knight falls flat

10:07 at times.

10:16 Spider-Man 2 has an overall great story, though it's not perfect either.

10:20 The biggest issue with its story is that the characters don't spend as much time interacting

10:24 with each other as they should, especially outside of being Spider-Man.

10:28 In the first game, we saw a lot of Peter's life and spent time with MJ, Aunt May, and

10:33 Otto to develop all these characters and make their roles in the story more poignant.

10:37 But if you do all the side content, you certainly won't be disappointed with Spider-Man 2's

10:41 story and all of its twists and turns.

10:50 It also manages to keep things surprising despite drawing from well-known comic book

10:54 characters, something Arkham Knight failed at more than once.

10:57 Again, it's close, but Arkham Knight's story has way too many problems to beat our

11:02 friendly neighborhood Spider-Man this time.

11:05 Winner, Spider-Man 2.

11:13 Arkham Knight is definitely the least popular of Rocksteady's Arkham games, while Spider-Man

11:18 2 has already been considered to be a drastic improvement on Spider-Man 2018, a game that

11:23 was already just about perfect.

11:26 Because it cleared that high bar, there's no real competition here.

11:29 Spider-Man 2 is undoubtedly our winner.

11:32 Let us know down in the comments which game you think is better, and don't forget to

11:36 subscribe to Mojo Plays for more great stuff every day.

11:48 Thanks for watching.

11:49 If you enjoyed the video, there's more where that came from.

11:52 See you next time.

11:56 Bye.

12:02 Bye.

12:06 (whooshing)

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