Marvel’s Spider-Man 2follows a structure comparable toMarvel’s Spider-ManandMarvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Moralesin how its narrative reflects changes in gameplay and its open-world New York City. There has always been a third act where the landscape changes to feature riots and enemies who can attack players out of midair while they’re swinging from point A to point B, andMarvel’s Spider-Man 2even introduces a new enemy in its third act when symbiotes run amok. In all that chaos,Marvel’s Spider-Man 2still doles out the samedistrict completion progress bar and associable task listfrom previous games.
Each district’s completion has side missions, collectibles, and other such activities strewn about, and one featureMiles Moralesdebuted was brought back forMarvel’s Spider-Man 2with a new coat of paint—swapping Underground caches for hunter tech loot crates. Unfortunately, whileMarvel’s Spider-Man 2reprising these chests was a great way to repurpose them and give players an exploration-based means of earning upgrade resources, the sequel makes them far less fun to seek out and the next game in the franchise would do right to correct that by taking the whole line back to formula.
Miles Morales’ Underground Caches Make Looting Dynamic and Three-Dimensional
Miles Morales’ Underground cachesearn players tech parts they can then spend on gadgets and mods. Once players are in the vicinity of one they will be notified to send out a ping and locate it further by following a beacon radar telling them how far they are from it. The actual effort of finding these chests is what’s fun about them, though, as few are repetitive in their design. One might have players open and enter a shipping container to find that it hides a tunnel leading to a chest, another may be hidden amid a multi-level parking system, and one may be on a dock guarded by armed Underground mercenaries as only a few of myriad examples.
The level of interactivity involved is high because of how variable they all are, even if players are yanking a garage door open and webbing the gear mechanism in place to hold it ajar, let alone web-yanking a dumpster out of the way to clear a path.
Some of them are much more heavily guarded, too, and become genuine combat encounters themselves with a variety of Underground enemies tossed into the mixture. There are also helpful aids if players can’t immediately discern where their spider-sense pings are leading them, such as Underground graffiti plastered around an area where the cache can be discovered.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Hunter Tech Crates are Simplified to a Fault
Hunter tech crates inMarvel’s Spider-Man 2are fundamentally the same as Underground caches besides the fact that players stumble upon them freely and ubiquitously on rooftops and alleyways. Long gone are the days of putting in a bit of exciting detective work to earn tech parts—they are there for players to simply stop by and grab with no associable catch or gimmick this time around, and thus they’re wholly unengaging.
Plus, once players have unlocked the All Seeing suit tech ability in the traversal skill branch they will be able to see all tech crates on their mini-map as they pass by them in the open world.
Sticking these tech crates in hunter blinds and bases exclusively could’ve at least made them narratively immersive while incentivizing those encounters further, but having them spread around the city seemingly for no purpose other than the Spider-Men to take all their arms can carry is illogical and uninspired. After all, the case could be made that the effort put intoProwler stasheswas Insomniac’s puzzle-focused priority in the open world rather than tech crates.
This would make sense as it lends Aaron Davis some significance inMiles Morales-specific quests and activities, and yet tech crates themselves being underwhelming contributes to needless bloat inMarvel’s Spider-Man 2. The next installment, half-sequel or not, can’t make this same mistake. If chests are reprised with the same premise, they need to be more akin to those inMiles Moralesthan those inMarvel’s Spider-Man 2.
