Normalizes inclusivity and representation in a way I've never seen any video game do before...
Spider-man: Miles Morales is in some ways identical to its predecessor and in other ways miles (forgive the pun) ahead of any video game that's come before with regards to theme.
Mechanically, SM:MM is identical to the original Spider-man game. You may as well be playing DLC, to be honest. Same combat, same map, same collectible format. Throw in some new powers that make combat a bit more fun, and that's it. If you got fatigued on the original game, the short length of this one might be a blessing in disguise.
Where Spider-man: Miles Morales really separates itself from the original is story, character, and theme. This game has a ton of personality and it does a phenomenal job of having a cast of characters that would often be background characters or not even exist in other games.
Miles is African American / Puerto Rican, Miles's mother (Rio) is Puerto Rican, Ganke is Korean, Phin is African American and the entire support cast is diverse. Heck there's a side quest where Miles communicates with a deaf secondary character with ASL. Sure, it's only a minor part, but when have you ever seen that in big triple-A game before?
That's the normalization we need in video games. Not just indie studios doing this, but triple-A devs stepping up in a major way.
SUMMARY:
+ Normalizes inclusivity and diversity in video games
+ Great story, and phenomenal cast of characters
+ The game looks great and the performance is insane. Load times are basically nonexistent
+ The dialogue and added story for each collectible can help them feel a bit less like a chore.
- Mechanically no different from the original game. Leading to it sometimes feeling like more of the same.
- Same criticisms of original game namely that the open world elements and collectibles can feel a bit formulaic.
- Pretty short game overall. Hard to justify the $50 pricetag
Spider-man: Miles Morales is in some ways identical to its predecessor and in other ways miles (forgive the pun) ahead of any video game that's come before with regards to theme.
Mechanically, SM:MM is identical to the original Spider-man game. You may as well be playing DLC, to be honest. Same combat, same map, same collectible format. Throw in some new powers that make combat a bit more fun, and that's it. If you got fatigued on the original game, the short length of this one might be a blessing in disguise.
Where Spider-man: Miles Morales really separates itself from the original is story, character, and theme. This game has a ton of personality and it does a phenomenal job of having a cast of characters that would often be background characters or not even exist in other games.
Miles is African American / Puerto Rican, Miles's mother (Rio) is Puerto Rican, Ganke is Korean, Phin is African American and the entire support cast is diverse. Heck there's a side quest where Miles communicates with a deaf secondary character with ASL. Sure, it's only a minor part, but when have you ever seen that in big triple-A game before?
That's the normalization we need in video games. Not just indie studios doing this, but triple-A devs stepping up in a major way.
SUMMARY:
+ Normalizes inclusivity and diversity in video games
+ Great story, and phenomenal cast of characters
+ The game looks great and the performance is insane. Load times are basically nonexistent
+ The dialogue and added story for each collectible can help them feel a bit less like a chore.
- Mechanically no different from the original game. Leading to it sometimes feeling like more of the same.
- Same criticisms of original game namely that the open world elements and collectibles can feel a bit formulaic.
- Pretty short game overall. Hard to justify the $50 pricetag