Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales Review
A different Spider-Man experience
Having recently gotten my hands on a PlayStation 5 and hearing about a sale on the Ultimate Edition of Spider-Man Miles Morales, I had to try the PlayStation-exclusive game out for myself. I swiped a copy from Amazon for $50, down from the original asking price of $70, and it includes not only a copy of the game but a couple of skins, skill points, and a remastered version of the 2018 Spider-Man video game.
Spider-Man Miles Morales takes place shortly after the events of the first Spider-Man game. You play as the titular Miles Morales, a half-black, half Puerto Rican 17-year-old, who is coming to terms with his new spider powers under the helpful eye of Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man.
Things take a turn for Miles when Peter has to accompany Mary Jane Watson on a Europe trip around Christmastime, leaving a relatively inexperienced Miles to guard New York City while he’s gone. Peter leaves him with his very first official Spider suit, pictured in the thumbnail image, and it’s a little too big on him, as seen by how the fabric bunches up around the gloves and mask.
Inevitably, as comic book stories go, he has to face some villains who have been recently terrorizing the city, including a criminal organization known as The Underground, led by The Tinkerer, a CEO of a massive tech corporation, and the classic Spider-Man villain Rhino.
Gameplay
Those who have played the 2018 Spider-Man game will be happy to find the gameplay hasn’t changed much since then. Players navigate New York via web-slinging, wall-crawling, and wall-running, fighting crime with superhuman acrobatic punches, kicks, and webs.
Miles develops some pretty powerful new skills along the way, including a “Venom” power (the ability to generate and absorb large amounts of electricity) and can turn invisible for short periods. The Venom punch becomes especially useful in later combat scenarios with particularly stubborn enemy types, and turning invisible gives you a chance to heal and avoid combat for a bit during intense confrontations.
Length
According to my PS5’s gameplay tracking metrics, I was able to complete the game in 7 hours, which included me doing all of the sidequests offered in the base game. After completion, I went back to play the 2018 remastered game for a point of comparison, and I’m still not done with the base game after 11 hours of gameplay.
The development cycle of Marvel’s Spider-Man took four years, while the development of Miles Morales took a little over two years. The developers at Insomniac noted Miles Morales would cover about half as much content as the original game, and I’d say it’s a pretty accurate summation considering the development time and the widespread critical acclaim of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse movie (released in the same year as the first game.)
Impressions and game comparisons
While playing the game, I had an underlying feeling that something was off. Miles’ web-slinging wasn’t as nearly as fluid as Peter’s, his interactions were more awkward, his voice came across as slightly annoying at times. But after beating the game and stepping away from it for a couple of days to let it marinate in my mind, I came to a realization.
Miles Morales isn’t the Spider-Man I know and love because that’s just it; he isn’t. This is not a story about Peter Parker. It’s a strong departure from the typical Spider-Man we associate with the character.
The disconnect happens because we’re not following the matured, experienced version of Spider-Man. We’re following the story of a teenager gifted with new incredible powers he’s just learning to understand, and when things go wrong while the main Spider-Man is out of the country, he has to fill in the role the best he can.
Final thoughts
I came into Miles Morales expecting the same well-developed, fully fleshed-out experience I had with the 2018 Spider-Man game, and instead, I got an abridged bildungsroman story about a new Spider-Man. That isn’t to say this game is bad, quite the contrary.
Spider-Man Miles Morales comes across like a well-put-together DLC for Marvel’s Spider-Man. While the game’s length and the extent of character development is nothing to write home about, it’s more than worth a shot when it goes on sale this holiday season.
If I were to give this game bundle a fair price for the content, I’d put it at no more than $40, $20 for the remastered copy, and $20 for the new title. The best way to experience these games is by playing the series in chronological order, with the 2018 remastered version that comes in the bundle first.
