Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (Review)

Overview

Developer: Insomniac Games

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Platform: Playstation 4/Playstation 5

Initial Release Date: November 12, 2020

Review

Miles Morales has become the focal point of the Spider-Man universe as of late and the version of him in this game has quickly become one of my favorites. This game builds upon the foundation laid in the 2018 Spider-Man game on PS4 and delivers a smaller, more contained story revolving around the fledgling web-slinger. While the game is shorter, it feels like a much more refined game and one that I actually enjoyed even more than the original.

The game follows Miles as he is left to take care of Harlem on his own and deal with becoming Spider-Man in his own right. From a story standpoint alone the game does a great job of feeling true to the Marvel universe and providing heartfelt moments among the twists and turns. The fact that this is a much shorter game does hurt the story in some ways however, everything feels too compacted and some parts of the story feel rushed and not given enough time to breath. I would’ve liked the game to be maybe a couple hours longer just to let some of the story beats have more time to resonate.

The gameplay still feels as good as the original did, and even better in some respects. The web-swinging mechanics are honestly perfect and should remain this way for the entirety of the franchise going forward. The spot where this game outdoes it’s predecessor is in the combat. Miles naturally has powers that lend themselves to combat more than Peter, having access to electric abilities as well as invisibility to go along with the normal spider powers. Adding in the electric attacks, called Venom attacks in the game, gives the combat another layer that makes the player feel much more powerful than before. Chaining normal attacks with the Venom attacks makes for fluid combat sequences that feel like something out of one of the movies in some instances. After getting in the groove of everything I found myself having a blast taking on a ton of enemies at once and seeing how high I could get my multiplier.

Of course, no Spider-man game would be complete without a ton of collectibles to go find and Miles is no different. The game has multiple different types of collectible trinkets spread throughout the city and while they are mostly straightforward, there is one set that unlocks after the main story ends that everyone should go find and experience.

As I did play the game on PS5, I was able to take advantage of the power of the new system and choose what mode I wanted to play this game in. The game offers a Fidelity Mode and Performance Mode, offering real 4k and Raytracing at only 30fps or upscaled 4k without Raytracing but 60fps. I played the majority of the game in performance mode because after seeing the game run in 60fps I honestly couldn’t go back to playing in only 30fps.

All in all I think this game is a great step forward for the Spider-Man franchise on Playstation and I can’t wait to see what Insomniac delivers next. If you liked the original then this game is exactly what you would be hoping to get out of a Miles Morales story and I am so happy they were able to deliver this at launch for the PS5.

As always, thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you think of Miles Morales on PS4 or PS5 and let me know what you think about these new consoles now that we have had a little over a full week with them. Be sure to check back (at least) every Saturday for new posts and sign-up via email to make sure you never miss a thing! Be safe and have a great day!