Highlights
- Marvel's Spider-Man 2 excels at making players feel like the titular superhero with gadgets, side quests, and unique move sets, but crimes may need improvement.
- The open-world of New York City is filled with crime activities that players can choose to help with for rewards, but they can become repetitive and monotonous after a while.
- Bonus objectives add some challenge and variety to the crimes, but the rinse-and-repeat nature of the crimes can still become dull, and it would be nice to see more variations in future sequels.
One of the most important aspects of any superhero game is the feeling players get when they control the titular character. Presumably, they want to feel like the actual superhero that they are controlling. So, developers inject various elements into these worlds like gadgets, side quests, and unique move sets to accomplish all of that. Just like with its predecessor, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 does all of this as well, and it even takes some of the original's best features to new heights. However, one piece of side content may need a bit more work.
While the main focus of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is stopping Kraven and dealing with Venom, the open-world is also filled to the brim with things to do. One of these activities comes in the form of the crimes that litter New York City's streets. Since Spider-Man is a superhero, he must do everything he can to help the people of the city deal with all of these random crimes. As such, it is up to the player to stop them. This can be a lot of fun, but after a while it may feel monotonous, which is never a good look.
Crime in Spider-Man 2's New York Feels Too Similar
As players swing through the streets of Marvel's Spider-Man2's New York City, crime will occasionally crop up. It is entirely optional, but helping stop it can lead to some nice rewards. If players choose to help, then they will be able to earn XP, Tech Parts, and progress on their district progression bar. This means that these tasks can be useful to earn some resources while also giving players the feeling of actually being Spidey. However, some may find it a bit grindy after a little while.
While these crimes can be fun to complete, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is filled with the same exact variations. Players will have to stop dozens of hunter patrols, prevent countless oil tankers from blowing up, and end constant assaults or car chases. Every single time one of these crime activities show up in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, it works just like it did the last time. This means that players will be engaging in the same exact content dozens of times throughout their adventure, which may make some feel a little bored by the system.
To alleviate this a bit, Insomniac Games has thrown in bonus objectives that can challenge even the most veteran of players. Every single crime will have a random bonus objective that will often ask players to utilize certain moves or mechanics to take down their foes. They can sometimes just be combo-based, other times it will ask them to yank a certain number if enemies, sometimes it will be focused on dodging, and once in a while there is even the extremely hard challenge of avoiding damage. Since these are completely optional, however, players can just ignore it and complete the crime however they want.
Even with the bonus objectives, the constant rinse-and-repeat crimes can become a bit dull after a while. There are only so many of the same oil tankers players are willing to save before they choose to avoid the mission type altogether. While it may be too late to spruce them up a bit for Marvel's Spider-Man 2, hopefully the studio considers injecting a few more variations in the eventual sequel. They may not detract from the game too much, but it would be nice to just have a bit more uniqueness to the crimes Spidey has to prevent in this exciting franchise.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is available now on PS5
