Spider-man an easy game to love
Marvel's Spider-man: Miles Morales Sony Interactive Entertainment Available on Playstation 4, Playstation 5
Marvel's Spider-man: Miles Morales is a feel-good, unabashed spectacle that controls well, looks great and has a hyper-efficient storyline that never tries to overdeliver.
Everyone knows Peter Parker, the guy from Queens who was bitten by a radioactive spider and became Spider-man. But it's likely you don't know much about Miles Morales, the Latino, African-american kid from Brooklyn that was also bitten by a radioactive spider leading him to follow in the footsteps of his idol. In the context of the new game, Miles's journey is one of twofold acceptance built around convincing both the protagonist and the player that he isn't Peter Parker's understudy but a bona fide Spider-man.
Miles is nothing if not endearing. The game opens with him emerging from the New York subway tunnels onto Manhattan's 125th Street — Harlem, his new neighbourhood. Miles hardly covers any ground on the sidewalk before he stops to help a man struggling to push a couch into the back of a trailer. Such thoughtfulness is of a piece with his general bearing. As Miles bops down the street listening to music, he is perpetually on the lookout to deliver a kind word or a helping hand to his fellow New Yorkers. He receives a call from Parker asking him to help supervise a prison convoy. He swings down to midtown just in time to see the prisoners and the supervillain Rhino make a break for it.
Following an on-the-job tutorial that teaches players how to dodge and use melee attacks against a bunch of low-level criminals, the game treats players to the first of a number of set pieces as Miles and Peter tail Rhino as he charges through the streets of Manhattan into a shopping mall. After Miles uses his web slinging to tether himself to Rhino's back, it's up to players — if they want to avoid health damage — to steer Rhino from barrelling into every conceivable piece of commercial property.
On the Playstation 5, this scene is marked by a fury of shattered glass and masonry — details made more dazzling by the game's use of next-generation lighting techniques (ray tracing), which gives objects and surfaces a mesmerizing sheen. In terms of graphics, the other thing that immediately leaps out are the textures on the characters' — particularly Miles's — costumes.
Peter and Miles continue to give chase after Rhino makes it to the streets. They corner him, but Rhino gets the best of Peter. Incensed, Miles steps to Rhino and discovers a latent preternatural ability in himself: bioelectricity/venom power.
Marvel's Spider-man: Miles Morales delicately balances allout combat sequences, stealth encounters and boss battles, which are particularly good. Boss fights are multiphase affairs, that make for great eye candy.
This lighthearted, superhero romp is an easy game to embrace.