#Spider-Man: Miles Morales

[spideyzitos]

* cat purring *

[crystal-bytes]

GIFTOBER 2023

DAY TWO: COFFEE/TEA

Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020)

[textsfromsuperheroes]

Texts From Superheroes

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[hessobbingincabo]

Insomniac's Spider-Man: Miles Morales Prowler Concept Art

(open images for better quality)

[castlewyvern]

Miles Morales artwork by Jahnoy Lindsay

[glassrunner]

VIDEO GAMES PLAYED IN 2023

[the-desolated-quill]

I want to be sympathetic to Phin and I do genuinely love how they’ve modernised and reinterpreted the Tinkerer, but I think it’s a bit rich her getting on Miles’ case for lying when she’s the one secretly leading a mafia gang and committing acts of terrorism.

[celadons-penultimate]

I'm always flabbergasted when I think about the DC Comics title DIAL H FOR HERO. Not only did DC have it *DECADES* before Ben 10 was ever a thing, but gay Afro-Latino H-Dial wielder Hero Cruz existed 23 years before Miguel Montez (current H-dial wielder, also gay & Latino) & even 15 years before Marvel's own Spider-Man, Miles Morales (also Afro-Latino).

No shade to Miles nor Miguel & I know that social progress isn't, and shouldn't be, a competition.

It's just wild that, if DC folks were thinking (and if people were not hindered by prejudices), the Ben 10 "I can be a one-man team" dynamic could have happened in the mainstream WAY earlier & w/ more diversity to boot!

I'd love to see an H-Dial hero in a DC Comics TV show or movie (animated and/or live-action), but I doubt DC would even attempt it now, with the comparisons fans would inevitably draw between DH4H & the Ben 10 universe (despite there actually being very big story differences).

[gamesline]

Today's guest list comes from none other than @ROBBYDUDE who laments a 2023 they didn't have with their top ten games they wish they played.

[thingsasbarcodes]

Spider-Man: Miles Morales - All Cutscenes

[ordinaryschmuck]

I have Spider-Man PS4 and Spider-Man: Miles Morales now, meaning that my life is now officially better than ALL of yours.

(I’m obviously kidding)

But these games really are amazing not just because they are perfect representation of what makes Spider-Man the greatest comic book character no matter who’s wearing the mask, but it amazes my that a game will let you be ok doing tedious busy work like finding pigeons, fighting goons, and swinging through clouds of smog not because you want to, but because the game’s so fun to play that you just do it regardless.

[webshootersandwingdings]

Loves a good swing

[smashpages]

Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen go double-sized in March

Marvel announces plans for ‘Giant-Size Spider-Gwen,’ Miles Morales #300 in Los Angeles.

[everygame]

Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS4)

Developed/Published by: Insomniac Games / Sony Interactive Entertainment Released: 12/11/2020 Completed: 11/01/2023 Completion: 100% playthrough. Trophies / Achievements: 82%

Well,  I wrote “see you in a year, Miles Morales” after playing through Spider-Man’s DLC and it took me about a year and a half to get to this, but I'll count it. I’ve written about two of these, so let’s just bullet point this one out, no order.

Peter Parker’s new face suuucks. I know it’s a done deal and it’s not even like the original face actor (John Bubniak) does his voice, but the new guy doesn’t fit the voice at all and does, as everyone says, looks like “we’ve got Tom Holland at home” except even more of a twat. At least he’s only in this briefly, but man, it’s going to be tough to play the next one. And I like the PS4 Spider-Man suit so much, too! It might even be my favourite Spidey design.

Miles is a great character. He’s completely out of his depth, and I love that they’ve drilled down on this even down to how he moves through the world, with a more awkward swinging style than the OG Spidey.

Unfortunately the main storyline here is a bit… cliche? Not only does it hit all the beats you expect, there’s far too much convenience to it. You’re in serious trouble when the mysterious baddie turns out to be like, the only other character that’s in the game, and without spoiling too much, super-hero stories are (imho) at their weakest when you think the existence of the hero might be the reason why the villains exist (rather than vice versa) and ending with the same “Eyyyy, New York protects it’s own, Spider-Man” beat again is played-out.

The worst thing about this is that the game is absolutely at it’s strongest when Miles Morales is doing what it feels like he set out to do, which is be his neighbourhood Spider-Man. I can’t tell if this is something that happened when they turned this from something DLC-adjacent into a full-priced game, but there’s a thread of missions where he’s helping out his local bodega and stuff that basically gets dropped completely and it actually feels unfinished. The conclusion is given in a… podcast, where your side-kick Ganke literally names every person in Harlem that helped which made me think it was going to lead to a conclusion where the big-bad kidnaps them all or something, but… no. Nothing.

To be honest, actually, that this uses the whole city is a weakness. Whenever I play these big open world games I think about how I never really learn the city, they’re just a backdrop to whatever I’m doing, unlike your Yakuzas and that, where you’re intimately familiar with the map and it becomes ever more real. Why couldn’t Harlem have been that? I don’t really need to be swinging all the way to the bloody financial district. Fence me in!

Yet… the game still feels great to play, all the side-missions and collectibles and shit are a breeze to play/fun to collect, and you don’t even notice that just as in the original the upgrades barely matter. Even here when combat and stealth are even more complicated with new invisibility and electricity powers (that aren’t especially well tutorialised) you can just basically play the game as competently as you wish and enjoy it.

Why does this game have a museum flashback? Is this something that all PlayStation Studios games have to have? It feels like such an afterthought here though, adding nothing to the major problem that the main baddie is a big-time idiot who, at the end of the game is basically running around with their fingers in their ears shouting “la la la I’m not listening” and it really, really undoes the pathos. I ain’t crying about a museum visit again, Sony!

I’m so very tired of Ashley Burch’s one voice. I guess I never played enough Nolan North games to feel this before.

Will I ever play it again? I like that the main storyline is so quick and actually, I did briefly consider beating the NG+ quickly to platinum this. But my backlog spreadsheet has more than 700 games on it. Really.

Final Thought: Starting to feel a bit weird about how much of my media consumption is Marvel now. At the time of writing I play about an hour of Marvel Snap a day and the next game I’ve downloaded to play through is Guardians of the Galaxy. Ah well, I did spend the Christmas period watching Rogers and Hammerstein musicals, I’ll let myself away with it.

Support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi, either via a one-off donation (pay what you like) or by joining as a supporter at just $1 a month.

[maranull]

also the photomode in Spider-Man: Miles Morales slaps.

yes, give me four(!) aperture settings, i love you so much

[mysticwayfinder]

Miguel: “I can’t believe it. How the heck did I not see Miles using his venom power coming? Guess I underestimated him.”

Meanwhile, a version of Miles he had to have known about: