Miles Morales
Well, I knew I couldn’t keep playing my PS5 without getting to its main flagship release, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, which may not be a “full” title, and has been accused by some of being short for the $50 asking price, but now I’ve seen what that actually looks like.
In short, Miles Morales definitely feels like the spark PS5 needed at launch, and is a great exclusive boost to the system, alongside Demon’s Souls, which may serve a different audience, even if that’s also great. Let’s…not really go into Godfall again right now.
I started the game early yesterday and essentially beat it in one sitting. And by beat, I mean I did everything. Every collectible, every side mission, everything. I didn’t have a stop watch and took a few breaks, but I want to estimate probably about 10-12 hours total. What we used to consider the “normal” length for a mainly story-based game, so I don’t have a problem with it.
So, what’s all contained here?
The main storyline has Miles facing off against a main pair of foes, The Tinkerer, a new villain with henchman using “programmable matter” weapons whose main goal is to take down Roxxon, the local energy company that may or may not be about the poison the city with the launch of its new “clean power” tech.
Miles Morales
The other villain is of course, Roxxon itself, where its super security guards get a little aggressive when our new bioelectric Spider-Man blows up a few too many of their energy cannisters by accident.
There’s a main string of sidequests that start out making it seem like you’re just helping local citizens in your area, a robbed store, a kidnapped woman, but eventually, you learn these are all connected in a larger case with the strings being pulled by someone I won’t spoil here.
There are the usual slew of crimes throughout the city, which more or less mirror the ones from the base game identically.
Peter, on vacation with MJ, has given Miles a series of holographic training challenges to master new skills which are pretty easy to complete but difficult to master.
There are six larger bases split between Roxxon and Tinkerer henchman you need to infiltrate and take out, and are some of the tougher fights in the game, and some of the only moments I actually died.
Miles Morales
Miles Morales himself is scaled back in some ways from Peter. He has a smaller skill tree with no real choices involved (you get a skill point and may often only have one option where to even put it). He only has four gadgets, two of which are web slingers and gravity wells from the first game.
But he definitely fights differently because of two new Miles-specific powers, which make him extremely OP. The first is his energy-charged Venom set of moves. No not that Venom, that’s just what they call his electric powers here between Venom punches, jumps and strikes that unleash static hell on enemies which stun and make them vulnerable. The charge builds so fast you’ll be doing these moves practically every five punches.
Secondly, Miles can also turn invisible, which is obviously an aid in stealth segments (though stealth is almost never 100% mandatory in any mission except training exercises). But even in the heat of combat, if you find yourself getting surrounded by a ton of enemies, you simply pop invisibility, confuse everyone, then ambush a few people from the rafters before picking up the fight again. It’s a little broken and means you really should never, ever die in a fight unless you’ve been chain staggered and can’t get it off in time.
Collectibles have been reduced to a minimum. 35 “tech parts” for various upgrades and 16 time capsules you hid with your best friend.
A good amount of suits, and almost all of them are great.
Miles Morales
The one aspect I would consider “lacking” in the game is a very distinct absence of boss fights. There’s one at the very beginning, but it’s essentially just learning how to use your Venom Punch like five times and the fight’s over. Then of course one at the end. But it’s very unlike Spider-Man who got to face down a whole bunch of different iconic villains where here, it’s almost 100% just taking on henchmen.
Yes, Miles Morales is noticeably shorter than Spider-Man, the original. And yes, it’s more than the price gap from $50 for Miles to $60 for the first one would indicate. But is it fun? Is it a great showcase for the PS5, both in terms of game performance and the DualSense controller? Absolutely on both counts, and it’s hard not to recommend as your “starter” game for the system.
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