Struggling With Spider-Man 2's Parries While Falling Hard for Peter Parker's Job Drama

This is my first time playing a Spider-Man game, and hopefully my first time playing any game all the way through, and part two of this playthrough confirmed something: I am here far more for the story than for nailing my timing in a fight. Combat is still rough around the edges for me, but the Peter Parker job drama running underneath it has completely pulled me in.

Struggling With the Parry Timing While Loving Everything Else

The parry prompt tripped me up more than once. At one point I misread the on screen instruction entirely, reading the word parry as prey, before admitting once I actually tried it, "not so good at the Parry there." I did land a kick I liked and called out a perfect dodge, so it was not a total loss, but the timing clearly is not second nature yet.

Away from the actual button presses, I built out a whole bit during the gun club fight, joking that whoever thought putting a gun club in the middle of the city was a good idea should be replaced with something better. "I think I'm going to start a petition replace all the gun clubs with something better like a compliment club," I said, reasoning that a club where people just compliment each other and "don't hurt anyone" would make them "free." I kept the bit going through the fight, throwing out compliments as I threw punches, and called it "cute" once it landed.

Falling for Peter Parker's Job Drama More Than the Superhero Stuff

The side material got me too. When Miles' mom came off as unusually nice, I joked, "are we sure she's Hispanic my mom would have definitely beat me if I was Spider-Man," and stuck by it when the game agreed. On the Sandman thread, hunting down memory crystals tied to Marko's shattered mind, I admitted the whole situation sounded complicated, and noted that more crystals were said to be scattered around the city, which read to me like a side mission worth keeping an eye out for.

But it was Peter's actual job trouble that got the strongest reaction out of me. Watching him get fired over the phone for missing work, then get confronted by his principal in front of MJ's scholarship news, had me saying, "oh man I can't watch this oh no but I also can't look away." I found myself thinking through the practical side of being a hero that superhero movies skip: "this is the stuff they don't show in like the Avengers you know cuz it's like okay yeah it's great your job is saving the world but then also do you have a full-time job and if not does being a superhero pay your bills, these are all very good questions." Between Peter losing his teaching job, MJ facing a newsroom ultimatum after her book sold only 14 copies, and J. Jonah Jameson turning up kidnapped by Sandman, this part of the story pulled me in more than any fight did.

Will Peter actually manage to hold down a job while being Spider-Man, or is unemployment just part of the deal?