Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is an action-adventure game developed by Insomniac Games and is the second installment in the Marvel’s Spider-Man series. The game, despite being playable on the PS4, is being seen as one of the biggest launch titles for Sony’s new console, the PS5.

  The game on the PS5 has many new bells and whistles that players on PS4 will not be able to experience, like 60 frame-per-second gameplay and ray tracing, which allows the game’s setting of New York City to look more realistic than it has before. Other than these and a few other features involving the new Dualsense controller, the game on PS5 is the same as the game on PS4.

   The game stars Miles Morales, a fairly new character to the comic book world, debuting less than a decade ago.  The story starts off with the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker, heading off for a well-deserved Christmas vacation, and he leaves the great responsibility of protecting New York City in the hands of his new partner, Miles Morales. Miles then has to use his great power to protect his neighborhood of Harlem from a new group of bad guys called the Underground who plan on destroying an unsavory tech company called Roxxon. The game’s story is quite short, which may leave many players wanting more. The story isn’t bad by any means, but it doesn’t live up to the action-packed story of the first game. Miles is a fantastic main character. Since he has just recently become a superhero, the player discovers and learns about his new abilities with him. Miles offers a nice change of pace from Peter Parker as he is younger and more enthusiastic about being a superhero. 

   The story is set during the holidays, making NYC brighten up with Christmas lights and music, making the player feel even more like they are in the city. The story also does a great job at showcasing Miles’ unique heritage: he is half black and half Puerto Rican. There are many times when Miles is in his apartment and you get to see how accurately the developers represented Puerto Rican culture. The developers also do a great job at representing the many kinds of people who live in Miles’ neighborhood of Harlem, which makes the game feel very authentic and makes the player want to protect the city even more.

   If the game lacks a little in the narrative section it completely makes up for it in terms of gameplay. The swinging and gameplay are both tremendously improved over the last game. While swinging through the city, Miles has brand new animations that show his inexperience with this tactic, and they look great. They all flow together greatly and do a great job at showing how his character is different from that of Peter Parker. The combat is also greatly improved, and it utilizes his new powers, like his bio-electricity, which he uses to attack his enemies, and his ability to cloak himself to turn invisible. These powers add new dynamics to both combat and stealth, which make it so much more fun to play in comparison to the first game.

   All in all, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a fantastic sequel, and while it lacks in narrative, it makes up for it with its refined and fluid gameplay, allowing fans of the character to live their dreams of being the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, but with a new and fresh version of the webslinger.