My opinions on standalone expansions have been mixed. Standalone expansions aren’t the same thing as DLC (downloadable content) as one of them is an add-on to a game you already own, and the other is sold as its own separate game. Prey: Mooncrash is by definition DLC, because while it’s big and mechanically different enough to be considered its own individual game you still have to own Prey to actually play it. Dishonored: Death of The Outsider on the other hand is a standalone expansion. Much like Mooncrash, it reuses elements and the same engine of the game it was based off of. However, it was sold as its own separate game and you don’t have to own Dishonored 2 to play it. With that being said, why are my opinions so mixed when it comes to standalone expansions? Afterall, you and I are getting more of a game we enjoy now served in a smaller quantity. That’s kind of the reason why I don’t like standalone expansions half the time. They are easier to digest than the base game they were based off of, but end up ditching what made the original meal so fulfilling.
Take Uncharted: The Lost Legacy for example. It utilizes the same beautiful engine Uncharted 4 runs on, diverse choices on how you tackle an arena of enemies, and brings back the grappling hook to switch up traversal and puzzle solving. It’s more Uncharted 4, but at the same time you have this gut feeling that you played something much better. You were taken to more diverse locations in Uncharted 4 due to the longer run time the writers and developers had to work with. Set pieces were more bombastic and you can still enjoy the story without having played any of the previous games. Meanwhile The Lost Legacy is set in one particular location for more than half its runtime and it really feels like you were supposed to play the previous games to understand the significance of the protagonists. I don’t dislike the game and it still has that top notch quality Naughty Dog is known for, but it feels disappointing when you go from something that was brilliant to just fine. I can get past fine, but what was brilliant sticks out. Not all standalone expansions are bad though. Some of them can be equally as good and at times improve off the base game. Subnautica: Below Zero comes to mind. You are dumped into a new map different from the last. Land exploration, while not incredibly expanded on, is more fleshed out and there’s a mechanic that prohibits you from staying on it too long. Vehicle progression is much better as not every vehicle and upgrade is needed to beat the game. There’s an actual story to follow this time around and what made the original lag on longer than it should is cut down here. I believe Below Zero isone of the best examples of how to do a standalone expansion.
This brings us to today’s subject, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. The standalone expansion to 2018’s critically acclaimed Marvel’s Spider-Man. Developed by the same team, Insomniac Games, and published by Sony. I would say Insomniac Games is one of those golden studios. They have a pretty good track record of games and even if there’s one title fans don’t particularly like they wouldn’t say it’s downright bad and drags the reputation of the company down. Insomniac has remained pretty consistent and recently they’ve been on fire. We know how commercially successful Marvel’s Spider-Man was and how despite retelling the story of a character we already know the ins and outs of they managed to deliver a plot equally as good and maybe better than the multimillion dollar films Marvel produces. More recently they came back with the Ratchet and Clank series and Rift Apart is one of best received titles for the PS5. Currently they are working on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and it’s set to be released next year, possibly. Personally I think they’ll delay it, but if it does come out I’m expecting it to sell rapidly at launch because it’s Spider-Man. Everyone loves Spider-Man!
Anyways, Miles Morales came out in 2020 to not only serve as a follow-up to Insomniac’s best selling game to date, but serve as a launch title to the Playstation 5. It would utilize the enhanced performance of the console and features such as raytracing. Everyone who bought a Playstation 5 was bound to pick up to see what next generation hardware could handle. However, the Playstation 5 was scarce at the time and Insomniac knew not all their players could dump five hundred dollars on a new console. So they released Miles Morales on the Playstation 4 as well which kind of defeats the purpose of making it a next gen release. Who cares, because remember that Miles Morales is a standalone expansion which reuses the same assets as the base game and quite literally reuses the same world but now with snow everywhere. You are basically getting the same game. I was hesitant on picking up Miles Morales. Not that it’s a bad game, but everyone kept warning me on how short of an experience it was and that it was being charged for the same price that Marvel’s Spider-Man was at launch. So I passed it until recently when it went on sale. I can confirm that it is in fact a short game as it only took me two days to beat the main story, but I do think it’s good. Marvel’s Spider-Man is still better and more worthy of your time and money, but Miles Morales is good if you want more of that web slinging goodness. Today we’ll talk about why I liked Miles Morales and why it deserves your attention.
Story
The game takes place one year after the events of the last game. Peter Parker managed to save the city, lock every supervillain he ever knew behind bars, and mend his relationship with MJ. He may have lost his aunt and his mentor figure transformed into a mentally ill lunatic, but his life is being put back together. One thing that happened in the last game is that Miles Morales, a random teenager Peter befriended, got bit by a radioactive spider similar to one Peter was bitten by and got powers similar to his. Now Peter has someone similar to him and can train to protect the city, so that all that stress of being a superhero isn’t entirely on him. So that whole year is spent training Miles and giving him the equipment needed to become the next Spider-Man.
Which brings us to current events. Miles Morales is a secondary Spider-Man helping Peter out on dangerous jobs. Their latest mission followed them protecting a police convoy and one of the shipments they were carrying was a container sealing away one of Peter’s arch enemies, The Rhino. Things go horribly bad and the Rhino then starts rampaging through the streets. Peter and Miles pursue the Rhino while also fighting prisoners that were released during the mayhem. They manage to knock out each prisoner, but Peter isn’t enough to stop the whirling rage Rhino had built up since their last encounter. Miles tries to take on the Rhino and suddenly activates a hidden power he never knew he had before. Electric energy that surges through his veins, which is dubbed Venom Power. Miles uses this bionetic power to defeat the Rhino and knock him out unconscious. The Rhino is safe for delivery again, but a special group storms in.
Roxxon, an Energy Corporation which experiments with electricity and wishes to take the Rhino away themselves. They have recently settled down in the city and set up a laboratory in Harlem, otherwise the section of the city Miles lives in. Peter and Miles are suspicious of the group at first, but allow them to take the Rhino anyways as it means they no longer have to worry about it. They share a pizza together and Peter tells Miles that he is going away on a trip with MJ for a couple of weeks. Leaving Miles to take care of the city until he comes back. Miles tells Peter that he can rely on despite still being a rookie in training. Peter flies off and Miles tries to enjoy a few days of his winter break with family and friends before swinging back out to the city. His mother Rio is a political speaker who wishes for change in Harlem, and currently is speaking out against Roxxon who have chased the people of Harlem from their homes and jobs to establish a facility. There’s Ganke Lee, Miles’ high school classmate who is aware that his friend is the secondary Spider-Man and helps him out on his journey. There’s more, but that’s information for you to figure out. Anyways, peace in the city isn’t maintained for long as a high tech terrorist group known as the Underground have been attacking spots Roxxon troopers are stationed and plan to rid them from the city even if that means destroying a lot of property. Miles swings into the fray to stop the Underground, expose Roxxon of their wrong doings, and save the city all on his own. He may even discover a hideous truth that connects back to the friends he grew to have.
Gameplay
If you have already played Marvel’s Spider-Man then you’ll feel right at home, because it’s the exact same game but with a few minor tweaks. You swing around an open world full of activities, stopping crime, and doing what is needed to progress with the main story. Swinging in these games is still really fun. It’s easy to transition into each swing and all you have to do is release at the right moment of a swing to build momentum. Usually when you're about to move up into a swing. You can hit the jump button to move faster out of a swing and perform tricks while in midair. Meaning you can get really stylish while navigating the city. You can wall run along buildings, run up the walls of buildings, and even use the surrounding environment to pull yourself forward and keep up your momentum. Once you see a point of interest or an activity you like to partake in you can then zip over to the point and initiate what is basically an open world quest. Go to a specific area, fight some dudes, solve a puzzle, and then come back to get some experience points and other types of points to craft stuff. Everytime you level up you get a couple of stat boosts and a skill point to unlock new skills. These new skills can be new tricks to perform during combat and more.
Combat in these games are similar to the free flow combat of the Arkham series, but it’s much faster. You’ll face a variety of baddies during your adventure and they all have to be taken down in certain ways. You have basic grunts who usually come in numbers, men with firearms to take you out from afar, brutes who punish you for wailing away with heavy damage, you have enemies with melee weapons that can block attacks, or shields who have to be attacked from behind. Learning who to prioritize during a fight, distance yourself from foes, and keep ground control is what helps you survive each encounter. You have a variety of attacks to utilize and you navigate the battlefield with ease. You can uppercut an enemy into the air, jump up, pummel them, and either do a swing kick move or slam them into the ground. You can use environmental objects or yank the weapons of enemies out of their hands and hit enemies with a cyclone swing attack. You can simply just punch a guy, slide underneath them, punch them some more, and if they punch you away or their body goes flying across the swing you can zip back to them. Don’t forget you also have web shooters and when used at the right moment you can get the advantage. Stick enough web fluid onto a guy and knock him in such a way where he gets stuck onto a wall and is basically instantly knocked out. You have remote mines which can taser an area of foes, and new this time around are these virtual dummies who can fight along your side. You don’t always have to rely on an aggressive approach. Sometimes you can sneak around and pick off enemies one by one before a fight begins. The more hits you deal during combat the more of this energy meter that builds up, and it’s used to heal or takedown moves.
New mechanic to Miles Morales is Venom Power. Not Venom the character, but this energy you build up overtime. In the last game, the energy built up from attacking foes and keeping up the pressure was used mainly for healing. Now it serves an alternate purpose as special electrical attacks can be performed. You have this electric punch which thrusts you forward, a ground slam to hit an area of foes, an electric jump that launches three foes into the air, and thankfully foes who are electrified receive extra damage. More if you unlock certain skills and perks. Venom is incredibly useful when used during the right occasions and can be used to quickly cut down real powerful enemies. Some enemies require you to use Venom Powers to deal actual damage to them. I like how energy works in these games, because it rewards you for chaining combos and keeping an active playstyle. You can fight from afar and pick off one by one, but you will die eventually and you need the resources to heal. It’s like the focus meter in Ghost of Tsushima or the way soul worked in Hollow Knight. Absolutely love systems like these which keep the player active and forces them to learn how combat works. Besides swinging around and occasionally getting into combat do you do anything else? No, not really. These games have really simplistic gameplay loops and that’s fine with me. It’s just straightforward fun. Nothing goes wrong with straightforward fun. Hopefully you, Spider-Man, can save the day once again.
Thoughts
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is more Marvel’s Spider-Man, and maybe that’s enough. If you enjoyed the last game then I recommend this one, because it’s more of what made the last game work but in a smaller package. I won’t reiterate too much of what I like about these games, because that’s what I did in my first review. So if you want to know why then go read the last section of that review instead. The combat is great, swinging is great, art direction and visuals are still spectacular, and it’s being made by a team of people who care about what they are doing and are huge fans of Spider-Man. All's well that ends well, for the most part. Not gonna lie, I think this is a very hard recommendation to make to anyone who wasn’t a huge fan of the last game. Not that it’s a bad game. I still think it’s fantastic and it’s one of the better standalone expansions out there. However, you are being charged fifty dollars for what is a very short game. If you B-line through the main story like I did this game lasts roughly around five hours. Now you may argue it doesn’t overstay its welcome and you are right. It’s a quick snappy story and it does manage to eliminate one of my big problems with the last game. How the devs assumed the best way to provide downtime between Peter’s story was to make us play as either Miles or MJ and go through a cruddy stealth section. Even though the swinging was enough and they could have explored these characters in a cutscene. They’re gone now in favor of a tighter focus.
You get a shorter experience with a little more focus, but you can tell certain aspects of the story were rushed. Like the big plot reveals which I won’t spoil, but I wished they had a bigger impact on me like the last game did. The last game did more basic stuff like Dr. Octavius eventually became Dr. Octopus, but it worked there because you were building a connection to him. You were getting to care about him and wishing that he didn’t eventually become evil. The twist villains in Miles Morales just happens and one of them is written pretty dumbly. I also don’t think you are given enough time to care for side characters. They’re not bad and I do really like them. Miles’ friend Ganke is also a tech geek and designed an app that can request the help of Spider-Man. Rio, Miles’ mother, runs a political party that demands for equal treatment and rights. I actually think Miles Morales has a good representation of activism. How it not only takes a single person, but a community of people facing a similar problem to stand up. To do what is right and ask for change that benefits everyone and not just a corporation or specific group. I enjoyed witnessing Miles’ past and relationships he once had. It’s all great, but it’s not given enough time. You can’t settle in properly and you're yanked out.
The combat is still great, but some problems I had with the last game are still prevalent here. How certain enemy types are really annoying to deal with and the way they make some fights tougher is by increasing the health enemies have especially on the higher difficulties. It's hard to keep track of what is happening on screen because the game is flooding the battlefield with foes, set pieces, and particle effects. The spidey sense mechanics is wonky as hell and initialize right when you are about to get hit. New problem this time around is the button mapping for certain Venom Powers. Some of the commands you have to do don’t perform at all or you accidentally perform another ability instead. Meaning if you want to do a ground slam or air launch three guys you might just waste an energy bar on a venom punch instead. I do think stealth is much better in this game. Main missions dump you into more open-ish areas and give you a lot of room to work with. I forgot to mention this earlier, but Miles has a camouflage ability that allows him to vanish. This does mean you can duck in and out of combat easily which is balance breaking, but I still had fun. Stealth is more possible this time around and you have to act quickly to knock out groups without then triggering a fight.
Collectibles in these games are…. fine. They are fun to pursue and achieving the Platinum for these games are easier than a lot of other games, but there’s a reason why I give up. It’s because the collectibles don’t really have much use besides the ones that give you upgrade points. They don’t do anything mechanically and they feel there to flood the world. Meanwhile other open worlds have not just side quests with their own stories, but unique structures and ruins to check out. Some even hide new secrets and stories to tell. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is still a really good time. I give it a soft recommendation because the fifty dollar price tag is a high selling price, but what’s here is worthwhile. I give this game an 8/10 for being pretty good, but it’s a great 8/10!
Anyways, Merry Chritsmas everyone. Enjoy the holidays and have a happy new year!
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