Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is looking like a tantalising upgrade on its predecessor, although there are still wrinkles for developer Insomniac Games to iron out. The ever-industrious ElAnalistaDeBits has put the sequel through its paces, showcasing the graphical improvements compared to Marvel’s Spider-Man and stopgap successor Miles Morales.

The main thing that stood out to us – and was obvious during the demo – is that the speed of traversal has massively increased, with Miles even possessing some new abilities that enable him to pick up the pace much quicker than he could before. Obviously he has a wing suit this time as well, so it really does look like navigation through New York City will be rapid this time.

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Of course, this does come with a caveat, as there’s a lot more pop-in than in the previous games. Obviously this build is unfinished, so there’s still time for the developer to iron out any kinks, but it’s a consequence of the quicker overall pace. There also seem to be some downgrades in terms of reflections and some specific details, but again there’s still time for these to be fixed.

Overall, though, there are a lot of subtle improvements here. Wind now affects the foliage, and webs even come with their own shadows. There’s a huge upgrade to the lighting in internal environments, and of course much of the demo takes place in Queens, which was an area absent entirely from the original game, so expect a much bigger open world to explore.

Insomniac Games is one of the best developers around, so we’re quietly confident it’s going to iron out any kinks and nail all of these improvements come release later in the year. For us, the most important thing is that the gameplay looks denser and more varied than its already excellent predecessors: there are a lot of new abilities on display here, and that’s going to make for a much more dynamic experience.

[source youtube.com]