This is the first game I've beaten on the PS5 and before I get to anything else, I really want to mention how cool this fucking console is. Spider-Man looked and ran fantastic on it, and the adaptive trigger implementation was subtle but fun. The game itself? The great stuff was great, but at the end of the day, I'm a little mixed on it. The beginning was strong. Taking Kingpin down was a great introductory mission, and I think a good amount of the world building and character setups were well done. The game took it's time building up it's main villains, Martin Li and Otto, as characters and I appreciated that. I never thought I would be emotionally invested when it came to finally taking them down, but in the moment I got that rising feeling in my chest and that intense focus I get when something really fucking hype is happening in a game. I'm not going to go too deep into it, but I think the game accomplished what it set out to do with the emotional core of it's story.
My biggest problem is the pacing and how it affected the gameplay. By now, everyone knows that the Mary Jane and Miles stealth sections are awful so I won't go on about that too much, but they did bring down my enjoyment a lot. Every time one of these sections came up I genuinely shut the game off and came back later. Other than that though, there were a lot of Spider-Man missions that got really boring and reminded me of Red Dead Redemption 2's painfully repetitive mission design. Spider-Man's combat and traversal is way more fun than Red Dead's will ever be, but when almost every mission involved "go here, fight off enemy wave, go here, solve shitty puzzle" rinse and repeat for 10 hours, there wasn't enough there to really keep me invested. At least at the beginning.
The Prison mission really changed it for me. A high octane mission with a dizzying amount of enemies to take on. It kept me on my toes because now, there was always somebody trying to hit me or shoot me with a rocket, unlike the smaller waves the earlier mission threw at me. And It all ended with the Sinister Six beating the absolute shit out of Spider-Man, and seeing protagonists in trouble like that no matter the game always gets me pumped. From there on out, It's all kino. I haven't played too many Spider-Man games, but one of my favorite parts of them is watching the city fall apart while you scramble to put it back together. There are snipers and rocket launchers on every building trying to take you out as you swing by, criminal bases on every block, and there's no time for rest. This game especially really sold me on how fucked the city was and I was into it. Tracking down the Sinister Six and taking them down one by one is a ton of fun, and like I mentioned earlier, the buildup that Li and Otto get throughout the whole game really pays off in the end.
Overall I think it's a pretty solid game. I think the sequels have a great foundation to build on. with better pacing and more creative mission design, I think Miles Morales and Spider-Man 2 could be fantastic games.
My biggest problem is the pacing and how it affected the gameplay. By now, everyone knows that the Mary Jane and Miles stealth sections are awful so I won't go on about that too much, but they did bring down my enjoyment a lot. Every time one of these sections came up I genuinely shut the game off and came back later. Other than that though, there were a lot of Spider-Man missions that got really boring and reminded me of Red Dead Redemption 2's painfully repetitive mission design. Spider-Man's combat and traversal is way more fun than Red Dead's will ever be, but when almost every mission involved "go here, fight off enemy wave, go here, solve shitty puzzle" rinse and repeat for 10 hours, there wasn't enough there to really keep me invested. At least at the beginning.
The Prison mission really changed it for me. A high octane mission with a dizzying amount of enemies to take on. It kept me on my toes because now, there was always somebody trying to hit me or shoot me with a rocket, unlike the smaller waves the earlier mission threw at me. And It all ended with the Sinister Six beating the absolute shit out of Spider-Man, and seeing protagonists in trouble like that no matter the game always gets me pumped. From there on out, It's all kino. I haven't played too many Spider-Man games, but one of my favorite parts of them is watching the city fall apart while you scramble to put it back together. There are snipers and rocket launchers on every building trying to take you out as you swing by, criminal bases on every block, and there's no time for rest. This game especially really sold me on how fucked the city was and I was into it. Tracking down the Sinister Six and taking them down one by one is a ton of fun, and like I mentioned earlier, the buildup that Li and Otto get throughout the whole game really pays off in the end.
Overall I think it's a pretty solid game. I think the sequels have a great foundation to build on. with better pacing and more creative mission design, I think Miles Morales and Spider-Man 2 could be fantastic games.