Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a PlayStation 5 Launch Game Masterpiece

Spider-Man: Miles Morales is what every launch game should strive to be, a showcase of everything the new console brings to the table.

From the quick loading to the rock-solid 30 FPS with Ray-Tracing, Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a crazy impressive PlayStation 5 (PS5) title.

I spend way too much time swinging around the city and just having an absolute blast. As one does with any Spider-Man game!

Spider-Man: Miles Morales may not innovatively use the DualSense but everything else is so impressive that we can just let that slide.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales Time Stamps

• Swinging around as Miles Morales (0:00)
• Infiltrating the Roxxon Building (5:14)
• Swinging Around in the Spider-Verse (25:17)
• Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man (28:17)
• A Look Through the Upgrade Menu (31:41)
• Spider Cache, Spider Cache, Does Whatever a Spider Cache Does (32:20)
• A Look Through the Menus (33:13)
• Stopping a Store Robbery (34:24)
• Is Spider-Man: Miles Morales Amazing? (36:10)

Having a lot to live up to with the first Spider-Man game back in 2018, let’s swing into action and don the mask!

Swinging Around as Miles Morales

The first thing to do is spend some time swinging around the city as Miles.

Doing some sweet tricks in the Crimson Cowl Suit, I gear up for what is to come.

I take a moment to hype up the 3D audio via the Sony Pulse Headsets. If you’re interested, you can read all about them by clicking here!

It’s pretty crazy that the 3D audio adds an extra layer to the gameplay that I have never experienced before. It’s immersion on a whole new level. I recommend wearing the Sony headphones while playing any game on the PlayStation 5. That way you do not miss out on the experience as a whole.

After some more swinging and giving the Venom attack a shot, we stop a small crime in progress.

Taking out the bad guys is easy enough… even if I do let one getaway. But it is so fast that I’ll award myself a small victory!

I like the crimes in Miles a lot better than the original, they feel more organic and don’t play a part in 100% of the game. This is a big improvement from just waiting around in an area until the game decides to trigger a crime.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the ray-tracing! Running up to a window, you can see Miles’s reflection in real-time.

This is a cool and big graphic upgrade from the older consoles. I am extremely impressed because it adds an intense layer to the gameplay that allows the world to feel more alive to the player.

Let’s go take on Roxxon and do a story mission with no loading to hold us back (can you tell that I love this feature?)!

Infiltrating the Roxxon Building

First things first, we have to get into the building. This requires us to take out 3 guards and start up a junction box to gain entrance.

Using Venom we can enter the building and go through a vent to gain deeper access.

Coming out the other end introduces us to some bad guys. This gives us a chance to use Miles’ camouflage technique to stay off their radar.

Taking out the guards we run into an unexpected face: The Prowler.

I didn’t know about the Prowler until “Into the Spider-Verse”, but it looks like Spider-Man: Miles Morales takes him in a whole different direction.

After a brief interaction, we decide to work together to grab a lost cell phone. 

He gives us Remote Mines to use which are extremely helpful in the upcoming stealth section.

Using them in the next room, we take down a bunch of Roxxon villains and move onto a brief cutscene.

Crawling through another vent drops us into a new room of baddies to take down.

I screw up the stealth and go full combat mode utilizing all my tools like holograms, takedowns, and many-a-combo until they’re all beaten down.

From here we unlock some more things to do in the open-world side of the game. We get to the massive room with the cell phone at the bottom. It has a gigantic fan that needs to be shut down before progressing further.

Making my way down, I take out all the guards without being detected until we get to the phone. Another cutscene happens but I refuse to spoil it here. You’ll have to watch the video! (Or… you know… play the game).

Asking the Prowler to open the giant fan’s reactor, Miles uses his Venom powers to shut it down.

Miles takes all the juice from the reactor and we get a cool cutscene that walks us through an exploding hallway.

In the midst of it all, we lose the phone we worked so hard for. Now the name of the game is to escape the Roxxon building in one piece.

Getting to the top, we face a new type of bad guy with a shield; all you need to do is hold the web attack to pull it away and then throw it back.

After a short combat encounter, the Prowler joins in for a bit but eventually, we get overwhelmed and have to escape to a subway tunnel.

Another quick cutscene graces our scenes before we reach the exit to the city’s open-world. Now it is time to swing around in the Spider-Verse!

Swinging Around in the Spider-Verse

Easily the coolest–if not the best part–of this game is swinging around the city. Insomniac additions are beyond awesome and make the experience a great one.

You can equip an option to make Miles move around in a slower frame-rate to match the Spider-Verses movie framerate style.

Swinging through the city reveals just how the city moves at a solid 30 FPS while Miles moves in a different universe.

I didn’t want Miles to have all the low frame-rate fun so I decided to lower my frame-rate to be on even footing.

Pro tip: if you listen to the Spider-Verse soundtrack while swinging around like this you feel so cool.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

After a bit of swinging, I pull up the Quest App Miles has access to and decide where we go next.

I choose to save a man stuck on a skyscraper and zip over to save the day.

The side mission isn’t anything crazy or super in-depth, just simply chat for a bit, take down some bad guys, and restore power to save the worker.

After that’s completed, we remove the lower frame-rate and go back to the Crimson Cowl Suit.

A Look Through the Upgrade Menu

Let’s take a look at what kind of upgrades Spider-Man: Miles Morales offers.

You can upgrade equipment, change out suits, and equip whatever additional powers you want.

I’m a big fan of the fact that the suit powers aren’t forcibly tied to the suit so you can pick how you want Miles to look but are not restricted to a specific upgrade based solely on the clothing.

Next, we have the upgrade tree which looks kind of small but has a lot of offer in terms of making Miles stronger.

This in turn just makes the game more fun and easier to tackle bad guys.

Spider Cache, Spider Cache, Does Whatever a Spider Cache Does

We take a quick detour to go grab an Underground Cache that gives you a Tech Part.

I nearly got run over by a massive tank, which surprised me as it’s the first time the game did something like that. Gotta keep us on our spidey-toes!

Tech Parts can be used to purchase new abilities, acquire new suits, and upgrade your gadgets.

A Look Through the Menus

So the menu is where you do everything from upgrading to suit changes.

You can wear suits and powers on the fly at any point during the game.

There’s no restarting a mission or jumping back to another menu; it’s all real-time. 

This way you can be the Spider-Man you want to be!

There are also Time-Capsules to collect as well as podcasts to listen to.

One of the best parts is that the map is already fully unlocked, unlike the original Spider-Man where you have to bring it into focus. The map is fully visible and everything is laid out so you can play at your own pace.

Stopping a Store Robbery

We’ll send out the episode on a high note by stopping a store robbery.

Taking a quick swing through the city, we end up outside a small convenience store and begin to hurl trash cans at the robbers.

This makes quick work of them after some solid venom attacks and the city is made safer.

The big takeaway here is that the crimes are organic and not a key part of the open-world anymore.

In the original Spider-Man, you could spend hours swinging around one location just waiting for that final crime to take place.

Now they just show up as you swing around and are not tethered to the game’s overall completion which is nice.

Is Spider-Man: Miles Morales Amazing?

Spider-Man: Miles Morales is an impressive launch game where you won’t have anything less than a good time playing it.

It shows off the true power of the PlayStation 5 with the speed of the loading to the ray-tracing graphics.

We saw the combat, stealth, and some story beats that all combine to make something truly memorable.

It is nothing short of impressive and that makes me excited to see what Spider-Man 2 could hold for the future.

This is a stunning first look at what we have to look forward to in the future.

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