Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a wonderful launch title for the PlayStation 5. It has everything you want from a Spider-Man game and a unique story that could be considered Hollywood-caliber.
If this was a DLC, then damn this would have been one of the best DLC experiences I’ve come across in some time.
Story
Set in the Spidey-verse, the story follows a young superhero named Miles Morales, who, after losing his father, is befriended by Peter Parker and who soon finds himself bit by a spider and becoming a new type of Spider-Man. Miles not only has to learn how to superhero properly, but he also has to learn how to deal with balancing home and work life, while trying not to get killed, or get his family killed. The story also finds him looking into some shady activity from businessman Simon Krieger and how Krieger’s activities relate back to a mysterious, yet familiar group of powerful sabotage specialists called the Underground. If I give you any more details about this story, then I will certainly ruin it for you. I’m not in the business of ruining stories.
I will say that the story is embedded into the gameplay, as every facet of this three-act narrative kicks on all cylinders. It brought excitement, well-placed Spidey humor, and provided Hollywood-caliber performances from Nadji Jeter as Miles, Troy Baker as Simon Krieger, and Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker. Jeter absolutely sold Miles’ excitement, struggles, and his sincerity to the leading web-slinger in this game. Because of his efforts, this story propels itself beyond being just another video game tale.
Yep, it’s that good, and that’s only scraping the surface of the game.
Gameplay and that PlayStation 5 Promise
Announced as a launch title on the PlayStation 5 and promising to deliver a seamless stream of action-packed Spidey action, Spider-Man: Miles Morales lives up to the hype. The loading time for this game is nil, meaning you won’t run into any loading time once the game gets going. While I always thought that might be a glorified tech-demo pushing the speedy PS5 hard drive that was built into the system, the lack of stop/go from hard drive read/write makes Miles’ story much more engrossing. You’re essentially playing a movie as cutscenes transition perfectly right into player-controlled action. That, fine folks, is a big plus for magnifying a gaming experience. If you can keep your player locked in on story and get them to feel an urgency and execute it, then you have something special. The hard drive with this system does this for gameplay in Spider-Man: Miles Morales. It certainly makes me curious about the remastered version of the first Spider-Man. Locking in a player to the story and never breaking with a loading intermission is how you want your game to run. That hard drive makes the experience absolutely breathtaking.
Continuing with the PS5 goodies, the visuals are stunning. They are truly stunning. The entire New York City landscape is loaded into the game without the need for rendering or popping up buildings in the background. The draw distance between Miles in the foreground to background is insanely detailed. Everything is loaded in and ready to go, which helps to keep players emerged and engaged. The streets of New York City also teem with life, as cars and citizens are walking around minding their own business. All of this helps make the world of Spider-Man incredibly large. Swinging from building to building and seeing people on the streets, snow blowing around you, and massive amounts of real-time reflections in buildings is something to behold. For example, and sticking with the latter, when Miles is swinging by a glass building, you can see Miles in the reflection and you can see buildings in the vicinity, and there is no flaw in this execution. Another example of the finer visual details is Miles’ black costume, which features red reflective shoulders that are plasticky. On one mission, I walked into a store in New York and was talking to the owner. While talking, I could see the open door and cars going by on Miles’ red plastic shoulders. Yes, it’s that detailed. Need another example, I was swinging around a building near the Brooklyn Bridge and attached myself to the side of said building. As I was crawling on it, in the reflection of one of the windows I saw a tiny helicopter. I turned around, saw the helicopter in the background near the bridge. I have never seen any type of detail like this in a video game. I don’t know how Insomniac pulled this off, but I have mad respect for the PlayStation 5 hardware for making it possible. Visual details like the above usually come with some caveat, such a rendering or pop-ins, but everything is perfect. All of this makes for an immersive experience.
Shifting gears back to the gameplay side of the tracks, the game works well with the new PS5 controller. While you’re not going to get that tech-demo feedback that you get from Astro’s Playroom (it is an experience to behold), the controller’s comfort with swinging from building to building and moving/shifting Miles around is equally as impressive as the SSD performance. You get rumbles where you need them on the controller and it provides a comfortable feel during the entire duration of the game. The R2 button feels good swinging, as does the rest of the controller when there is fighting going on. It’s a smooth experience that isn’t over-the-top, but it’s enough to add another element of immersion.
The actual gameplay is what you would expect if you have played the previous Spider-Man. The variety of attacks help to expand your attack options, as you gain experience through completing missions and story, as well as side quests, that will lead to skill points which open up more Spidey attacks. While having an abundance of attacks is nice, especially with the crazy bioelectric attack options that Miles can pull off, I think maybe I stuck with 5-7 attack options throughout the entire story. Of course, I’m old and memorizing a billion combinations of taking down enemies isn’t something I want to train on, but I like the fact that you have options and can choose from a bevy of takedown moves. I know there are going to be some pro gamers out there that dig right the hell into pulling off some spectacular feats for their Twitch / YouTube followers. Those folks are going to be pleased as punch with the variety of moves that are offered.
One attack move I thoroughly enjoyed, and generally, I’m not a fan of this unless it’s included with the title ‘Metal Gear’, is the stealth aspect. Attacking large groups of enemies from above while having the ability to hide in-between attacks is out of this world fun. Miles can turn invisible during gameplay (in short stints) and basically pull people from perch position and hang their web-wrapped bodies from the rafters of pretty much any stage. While I do have an issue with other enemies not seeing a silent, yet moving web-wrapped enemy hanging in plain sight (they should be able to see them sometimes), knowing that I can do this to any common enemy makes the game incredibly amusing and fun. Again, I generally hate stealth games, and it’s a challenge to do this every time, but pulling off a stealth move is so satisfying. It’s one of many Miles’ moves.
The skills tree contains a lot of moves for Miles to pick up on. It will certainly encourage players to keep going, even after the story is wrapped up, and help players focus on missions and side quests. You want that in an action game, as it creates an open world aspect to the experience. Missions are more involved than side quests in this game, as they usually revolve around a neighborhood disturbance of some sort, where you have to go investigate something that has multiple steps within it. For example, one of the missions in the game involves a whistleblower being kidnapped. To save them, you have to gather information from a police crime scene without being detected, then go off and rescue the kidnapped victim. It’s multi-step and adds value to the overall experience while providing you options to gain XP and earn skill points. It certainly brings you closer to Miles’ quest to become a Spider-Man that lives up to the ‘friendly neighborhood’ moniker.
Missions aside, the side quests in the game are a mixed bag of nuts. Some quests are training scenarios that have you developing Miles’ skills through Peter Parker training holograms (something I wasn’t dying to do). Some of the quests have you simply chasing down criminals who are committing crimes (could be robbing banks, could be other things — regardless, these are fun as hell). Other quests include finding caches around the city that are left by the Underground. These are obviously smaller stints than missions, but they equal out to fun times with trying new attack methods out, and they equal out to additional skill points for those trying to platinum the game (looking at you, Alex Tudor).
Before I wrap it up, for those of you wanting to customize Miles and have plenty of cool tech to choose from in the game, you’re going to be happy. There are a ton of costumes you can unlock and choose from and plenty of gadgets that you can peruse (and unlock) as you progress in the game. I don’t like revealing this stuff because it takes the fun out of discovering neat things in the game, so I will just be as general as hell about it. There are value-added items with this game.
Ultimately, the gameplay in Spider-Man: Miles Morales is incredibly balanced. You get a great story with some incredibly detailed missions to expand the game’s life (the story took about 15-20 hours to complete). You get an immersive experience thanks to the PS5’s ability to deliver visual details that are out of this world and the ability of that SSD to keep the gameplay flowing without interruption. You also get a nice amount of backend options to expand and customize Miles as Spidey. Spider-Man: Miles Morales is what you want in a launch title and far more than the perceived DLC that cynics were shouting about on Twitter.
Conclusion
Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a wonderful launch title for the PlayStation 5. It has everything you want from a Spider-Man game and a unique story that could be considered Hollywood-caliber.
