Launch titles often serve as tech demos. Prizing ‘wow factor’ over substance in an effort to sell a console as much as a piece of software. For many a reviewer, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5) is our first true taste of 9th gen. gaming. No offence to the whimsical controller-focused Astro’s Playroom or tarted-up two-year-old Xbox Series X games we have been filling our weeks with but Miley Moran is the next-gen tech demo that will convince the last remaining doubters that they need a PlayStation 5.
It’s short. Far too short, in fact, for its asking price but I doubt that many of you will care too much given the experience offered. Sure, it’s brief and set in the same map as its parent game but it will make you giddy for your console every time you see Miles swing, bound or bash his way around New York.
The Other One
Before beginning in earnest, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5) offers a catch-up trailer for those wondering who the post-colon man is. After that, we help PP Spider-Man and the city of New York transport some criminals in the least-wise fashion possible. Once the inevitable happens we complete our tutorial and our Spider-Men go their separate ways.
Once Peter Parker has left for his holiday at Skegness, we get to meet Miles’ overachieving family and friends then see them endangered, raising the stakes and making it personal. The intro/tutorial is superb. It establishes the game’s tone, allows Peter Parker to temporarily pass the mic to Miles and doesn’t labour.
As a main character to spend eight-ish hours listening to, Miles Morales is excellent. He is a more sympathetic young man than Peter Parker. Most of his monologues are introspective and he frequently questions whether he is doing the right thing. Peter Parker’s quips and wit aren’t missed though as Morales still does comedy but it’s more unintentional.
Miles’ insecurity and indecision are often played for a chuckle. His post-bashing proclamations are particularly funny – imploring the fallen criminals to not do more crime in the voice of an awkward nerd who never gets a sentence right first time.
What a Film Critic Would Call “A Romp” (No Spoilers)
The largest mechanical difference between Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5) and its parent game is Morales’ use of Bio-Electricity. Bio-Electricity is also ancillary to the plot so Marvel didn’t waste any time explaining how or why Morales can use it. He just can and he discovers it right as the game starts, handily enough.
Vaguely-evil energy company Roxxon are transporting a mysterious new substance around New York. They even continue to do so after the inmate transport incident that started our romp. The Tinkerer, whose motivations aren’t immediately clear interferes with a convoy and Miles, as heroes do, interferes with her interference. Spider-Man MM accidentally destroys a little more than he does on a regular day and Roxxon’s shareholders and the city’s engineers are a little unhappy about it.
This gives Miles two foes to tackle. Roxxon’s NuForm-powered goons and The Tinkerererer’s purple-powered goons. Each have distinct enemy types and specific weakness that mix up the combat and general mission approach play. It’s much-used old plot device but in a game like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5), it’s a perfect way to offer variety.
The game’s plot frequently turns offering more complications to Miles’ mix of motivations. His sense of duty to his family and friends clashing with his responsibility as a Man-Spider is a theme that begins almost immediately after taking the reins.The hilariously terse pledge that Peter Parker makes you take is not just a comical moment but also sets up the dichotomy between these two forces in Miles’ life.
Demonstrating Your New Tech
Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4 was a generation-defining visual experience. Its open-world was crammed with detail and teeming with life. Its sanitised postcard-styled Manhattan was stunning to behold. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales has that same visual impact but on brand-new hardware. The game offers two modes, both of which demonstrate inherent upgrades on what even PS4 Pro was capable of.
One, Performance Mode, runs at 60fps in a dynamic 4K resolution. The other, Fidelity Mode, runs at 30fps in full 4K with impressive ray-traced elements. We have a set of detailed comparison photos to help you understand the difference between the two here.
But both push the level of detail swap distances way out. The environment is crisp and detailed at incredible distances. The bustling streets pour traffic and people at a stunning rate.
At ground level, there are what seems like hundreds of people in our eye-line, seemingly navigating the sprawling metropolis. Many of them will react to our hero just ambling around in shiny Lycra. Players randomly tossing objects around will stop every one of them in their tracks and seeing them all hit the deck at once is bizarrely impressive.
Ray Treacy’s Cameo
The hardware-accelerated ray-tracing of Fidelity Mode doesn’t manifest itself outside of the game’s reflections. All other potential ray-traced elements are cleverly-faked. However, the reflections on their own are visually arresting. Swinging through the game’s streets, seeing the intricate and realistic reflections is a joy that didn’t wear off.
For many of you, playing the game at 60 fps will too tempting but for those who stick with 30, Fidelity Mode is worth giving up the frames. There are other minor differences that wouldn’t help much on their own but add up to a more immersive Manhattan. There are LoD buffs to shadows, lighting and, depending on altitude, the human swarm below.
New Mechanics
The combat and navigation of Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4 was almost perfect. The excellent animations were matched with fluidity and intuitiveness. The game played like a film. Building on any mechanics while maintaining that balance of look and feel was a tough job that Insomniac have pulled off. The two main mechanics are bled for every ounce of fun that could be had.
Morales’ Bio-Electricity, in particular, slots right into Spider-Man’s arsenal. Foes will demand you learn all four of the Bio-Leccie moves and this helps players exploit the now-massive array of combat moves. Some of the Bio-Electricity moves are explosive, some are hypermobile. That mix gives meaningful options in combat that fit with the main title.
The fabled Dual-Sense controller even chips in. The adaptive triggers relaxing or stiffening as your speed and momentum change while swinging. Blows from enemies shunt your hands and the rumble of traffic and train rattle your phalanges. It’s another fine demonstration of what the Dual-Sense can do and why Xbox’s controller now seems distinctly last-gen.
A Lean Experience
Wary of having too much open-world bloat in such a short experience, Insomniac streamlined the side-missions and suit-gathering process. This lends Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5) a breakneck pace and it never lets a mechanic outstay its welcome. Challenges to unlock Spider-Man’s full potential aren’t dragged out to the same degree as in the main title. Even solving streets crimes and the more important side-missions has been streamlined. The lack of open-world bloat is creditable.
The price of entry is steep though. Set in a winterised map you already paid full-price for with about eight hours of campaign, €60 seems like a big ask. It may be the greatest standalone DLC made since Uncharted‘s The Lost Legacy but that game had similar levels of content and sold for €40.
