Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is an action-adventure, that was developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. This was released on the 12th November Worldwide on the PlayStation 4 and the same day on the PlayStation 5 in North America and Oceania. Then was released on the 19th November on PlayStation 5 worldwide. This title is much more of a spin-off, rather than a sequel to 2018’s Spiderman on the PlayStation 4. This story revolves solely on Miles Morales, who was also bitten by a genetically enhanced spider. He is just getting used to his new superpowers and is faced with a huge challenge and responsibility of protecting the city on his own while Peter goes abroad for a few weeks.
The campaign was incredibly short, and it did take me only a few days to complete the story without really grinding out the game. However, that doesn’t have any bearing on the fact that it was a brilliant and emotional storyline filled with characters that many players would take either strong likings or aversions to. Especially the ending of the plot that would make even a grown man teary-eyed. This game is only a spin-off, so it does somewhat make sense for the story to not have a significant duration. Nonetheless, Insomniac games have done a truly phenomenal job with this title.
The new face of Peter Parker for the Spiderman PlayStation 5 remaster was used in Miles Morales. When starting the game, you get to choose to either go ahead and start the game or watch a recap showing what happened in the 2018 Spiderman. As you are about to start the campaign, you get some options. Of course, one of the few key reasons a gamer would buy a next-gen console is to play games in 4K. Therefore, to receive the best possible experience and performance from this game, especially if you have a 4K gaming monitor, I strongly recommend that you choose ‘performance’ when asked what graphics mode you want. You will be playing in a much smoother 60 frames per second with a more beautiful and sharper resolution. From then on, I could not help but fall in love with the visuals after picking this option. The Spidey suit, the characters, the city, the weather, the vehicles, and so on all look unbelievably stunning in 4K visuals.
The gameplay and its’ mechanics were extremely fluid, I genuinely felt like I was Spiderman at many parts of the game. Especially when web-slinging and free running, it was awesome performing a range of flips and dives after letting go of the sling button or going over balconies, fences, vehicles, poles, and so on. Also, the wall running was pretty cool as I was using it as one of my dodging techniques against approaching enemies, even the ones with guns. Although I felt some of the combat was a little repetitive, features such as the insanely cool 4K graphics, upgrading your abilities, and also choosing from a wide range of Spidey suits to equip overshadowed this drawback almost completely. Not to mention, the much smoother 60 frames per second was the icing on the cake.
One thing I love in video games is interactive cut scenes and in Miles Morales, it was truly great. The exhilaration of pressing required buttons to perform the next action during a cutscene is awesome in itself, making you very alert and forcing you to pay attention so that you do not either die or fail a movement.
I particularly enjoyed playing on the hardest difficulty level as it wasn’t too hard but wasn’t too easy either. Therefore, I didn’t die too many times when going through combat against enemies. The boss fights were also a good challenge but weren’t so annoying to a point where I or probably many other players would reach a point of frustration. The toughest part of the game was going completely stealthy for the entirety of some missions, but a very cool feature that could help you out of the enemy’s awareness was using stealth camouflage. I am not a fan of side missions, I just go to the story, but there were some side missions I was willing to go for. My favourite is when you are apprehending thieves whilst they are driving in the car and using the interactive mechanics to defeat them. It is also worth mentioning that Mile Morales had a very likable choice of soundtracks that were implemented.
Although Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is only a spin-off, it still delivered a great multitude of high-quality content and features which makes this an almost perfect game and is truly without a doubt one of the best Spider-Man games developed ever. Plus, this is a tremendous start to the PlayStation 5 era. The only problem I would have is the retail price. Pretty steep for a spin-off game. It was a very special touch for Insomniac games to pay tribute to the late actor Chadwick Boseman at the end of the story.