Spider-Man: Miles Morales Is Not Spectacular On PS4
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review
Top 10 Easter Eggs in Spider-Man Miles Morales
A great man once said with great power comes great expectations from the power of PlayStation 5. (If only I was able to get one…) With Insomniac’s “Spider-Man” setting a new standard for superhero games and Square Enix’s “Avengers”...oh, excuse me - typo! With Insomniac’s “Spider-Man” setting a new standard for superhero games and very few titles rising to the challenge, it’s time to see if the studio can top themselves or, at the very minimum, deliver us an experience as invigorating as the previous title. Now that Miles Morales is taking the spotlight in his own game, is this another title to pick up during the holidays? Or do we skip out and wait for “Spider-Man 2”? Er...not that one (even though that one is THE BEST!). Greetings, ladies and gentlemen of the internet! My name is Ty with MojoPlays, and this is my review of “Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales”. Before we begin, I would like to bring up something critically important in order for you to be properly informed of my experience. Like many of you, I was unable to get my hands on a PS5. And so, I was left to review “Miles Morales” on a regular PlayStation 4 and a PlayStation 4 Pro. That being said, if you somehow managed to nab a PS5, this review may not help you in your purchasing decision. Also, I have already 100%’d the game and played through the whole game on the first available hardest difficulty, Spectacular. Anyways, this sort of “half-sequel” of a game picks up shortly after the events of the previous game, where Miles is under Peter Parker’s tutelage to become the second Spider-Man. Although, Pete decides the girlfriend is more important and flies out of New York to help her on some assignment, leaving his adolescent student to watch over the whole city. Doesn’t seem like a problem until the Tinkerer shows up and starts waging war with token evil corporation Roxxon. If Miles is to prove he can live up to the Spider-Man name, he’ll have to stop both factions from destroying New York. While it is nice to see Miles Morales getting more of the spotlight, the story overall isn’t all that spectacular (no pun intended). Yes, there are some explosive set pieces, and Miles can be funny with his awkward demeanor. However, there were plot points that I found to be quite predictable, which took some of the fun out of progressing through the story. The game’s main villain, Simon Krieger, was also a big letdown given what a stereotypical businessman he can be. It kind of made me wonder why Miles couldn’t have been given a somewhat bigger foe to face, someone who may not have appeared in the first game. It feels more like he’s tasked with babysitting and a couple of kids have started fighting over who has the better toy. Oh, wait...that’s exactly what happened. Thanks, Pete! It also plays it safe with the story by retreading certain aspects of Miles’ backstory from previous works. With Pete, we had characters that we were familiar with but presented in a somewhat different light or explored facets of his life that audiences may not have been widely exposed to. Otto Octavius, for example, went from being the egotistical genius we’ve seen in comics, TV, and movies to a more timid, kindhearted man who had a lot of anger and resentment boiling inside him. Pete was going through a somewhat uncomfortable period trying to patch things up with MJ. “Miles Morales” just feels like a trip down comic book memory lane with a few fanfiction-y ideas. Yeah, it’s kind of cool how they present the Tinkerer, but when the villain’s identity is so predictable, it really makes me wonder if they couldn’t get a better villain. Not Mysterio? Kangaroo? Or the kid from “That 70’s Show”? Problems with narrative aside, “Miles Morales” doesn’t change much of the mechanics from the previous game, but I don’t really consider that a bad thing. If anything, it adds a handful of new ideas and even fixes of a few problems the first “Spider-Man” had. For starters, Miles gets his own set of toys - holo-drones for assisted combat, remote mines for discharging electrical equipment and shocking baddies, and gravity bombs for pulling enemies in and crowd-control. Of course, you can upgrade these gadgets, but in order to get the final ones, you’ll have to finish the main story in New Game Plus. On top of that, Miles wields bio-electric powers that he and his pal Ganke refer to as Venom. With these, you can unleash devastating attacks to help you regain control of the fight or quickly bring down bigger dudes that might be giving you a hard time. However, using these Venom skills will require you to use a portion of your energy bar. So, you’ll need to balance how often you’re using Venom and how often you’re healing. “Miles Morales” also brings a new mechanic for those who wanted more stealth in the first game - invisibility. Yeah, it’s used for some of the more obvious stuff like sneaking past guards and such, but the best part is how it fixes a problem in the previous game. The way stealth worked in “Marvel’s Spider-Man” was if you were caught taking down guards, you’d engage in combat with no real way of escaping. You couldn’t go back into hiding, which kind of closes off a significant mechanic in the game. With “Miles Morales”, you can turn invisible so long as your Camouflage meter is filled completely even in the middle of combat. Great for getting out of sticky situations and getting the jump on enemies. Suffice to say, if you loved the combat with Peter Parker, you’re going to love the combat with “Miles Morales”. Besides, the finishers are sick! Outside of beating bad guys, you’ll be swinging around New York finding collectibles and fighting crime. Unfortunately, this is where “Miles Morales” may get a little tedious as the collectibles aren’t all that rewarding to find, specifically the Underground crates. Although, “Miles Morales” does fix yet another problem many players had in the previous game. “Marvel’s Spider-Man” had a nasty habit of restricting crimes to a somewhat randomized cooldown system. With each district assigned a certain number of crimes, players are forced to meander until the crime needed finally spawns in. Thankfully, “Miles Morales” introduces a new system called the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man app. With this, you can take on additional activities as well as respond to crimes. Crimes will show how many Activity tokens you’ve earned with each token assigned to an objective. If you didn’t nab all three, you can easily select the crime, and it’ll spawn in. No more waiting around to do the thing!! It’s as if...the game respects my time? What a novel concept! As expected, there are plenty of nods and easter eggs from both “Spider-Man” lore, history, and even the previous game. As a “Spider-Man” fan myself, I didn’t notice anything that had me freaking out necessarily, but I did notice some referring to current events and even a couple that teases the impending sequel. So while “Miles Morales” didn’t completely satisfy my craving for a more web-slinging and a better story, some of the stuff here was more than enough to stave me off...for now. I only wish I could enjoy it at a better quality, and this is where I struggle to recommend the game. The game runs poorly on PlayStation 4 with cutscenes freezing at random times, character models lagging every so often, and graphical glitches aplenty. There were also a handful of times where the framerate dropped mid-combat or audio cues getting skipped entirely or started overlapping with each other. The PS4 Pro was a bit of an improvement, but whilst streaming, I noticed the console sounded like a jet taking off my desk even when there didn’t seem to be much happening onscreen. Unfortunately, even the PS4 Pro had its fair share of bugs and glitches, but really, this doesn’t surprise me entirely. After all, this is a game that Sony is using to sell PS5s to people (if only I could get one). However, with the new console being so limited in quantity, anyone who is wanting “Miles Morales” but can’t nab a PS5 is kind of forced to this alarming dip in quality. Clearly, this game was not made with the PS4 as a priority, and with PS5s being more rare than the Wii was when that launched, I’m not so sure if you want to be dropping fifty bucks. Overall, my time with “Miles Morales” ranged from “kinda cool” to “ho-hum”. It was more of the combat I adored from the previous game, it fixed the problems found in stealth and crimes, and it attempted to make up for its same environment with new references and challenges. I only wish the cutscenes hadn’t made my experience so jarring. I appreciate Insomniac and Sony making the game cross-gen, but that’s only appealing when both platforms are widely available...which they aren’t. Even knowing that my fifty bucks is getting me the game on both platforms, I don’t feel the price tag is justifiable, not when the performance is so appalling on a more publicly available system. My advice? If you’re someone like me (who doesn’t care all that much about a story as unambitious as this and was only here for the exceptional combat and gameplay), then maybe consider picking it up. But unless you have a PS5, you’re better off spending your money on other things.
