Played: November 2023
Gita Jackson's Vice piece lived fondly in my head for quite some time before I ever played Miles Morales. In particular the bit about being able to virtually step through the spaces that they physically couldn't during COVID. While the game lives up to that hominess, it also lives up the rest of Gita's points on rudderless politics.
The current run of Spider-Man games have min-maxed my tolerance for rinse-and-repeat gameplay to perfection. They barely outstay their welcome. Swinging is a thrill every time. Combat puts up only as much challenge as your brain is indecisive about when to switch things up, but it's always comfortable. Traversal is frictionless.
Also frictionless is Miles Morales' style, identity, and character chemistry. It's so hard not to compare to the Spider-Verse movies in this regard. Game Miles is aggressively bland compared to movie Miles. It's comical how plain bread Rio is against her feature film counterpart. This lack of identity lends itself to muddled politics and a flaky point-of-view because there's no specificity to these characters' outlooks beyond a general sense of do-goodery. No real sense of conflict between how the world is vs how they see themselves in it. And as much as they try and even succeed at pulling some heart strings, The Tinkerer made a weak villain thanks to a severe eschewing of meaningful chemistry. The Hailey stuff fares much better, at least.
Miles Morales is a refined version of the very good 2018 Spider-Man, especially when it comes to combat and Marvel New York vibes, but it lacks juice when it comes to its sense of self. I wish the earnestness behind Miles' character clicked as well as Peter's. I love the idea of defining a person more around their community, but in order to do that, said community has to be made up of more than a handful of gestures towards the semiotics of home and fellowship.
Gita Jackson's Vice piece lived fondly in my head for quite some time before I ever played Miles Morales. In particular the bit about being able to virtually step through the spaces that they physically couldn't during COVID. While the game lives up to that hominess, it also lives up the rest of Gita's points on rudderless politics.
The current run of Spider-Man games have min-maxed my tolerance for rinse-and-repeat gameplay to perfection. They barely outstay their welcome. Swinging is a thrill every time. Combat puts up only as much challenge as your brain is indecisive about when to switch things up, but it's always comfortable. Traversal is frictionless.
Also frictionless is Miles Morales' style, identity, and character chemistry. It's so hard not to compare to the Spider-Verse movies in this regard. Game Miles is aggressively bland compared to movie Miles. It's comical how plain bread Rio is against her feature film counterpart. This lack of identity lends itself to muddled politics and a flaky point-of-view because there's no specificity to these characters' outlooks beyond a general sense of do-goodery. No real sense of conflict between how the world is vs how they see themselves in it. And as much as they try and even succeed at pulling some heart strings, The Tinkerer made a weak villain thanks to a severe eschewing of meaningful chemistry. The Hailey stuff fares much better, at least.
Miles Morales is a refined version of the very good 2018 Spider-Man, especially when it comes to combat and Marvel New York vibes, but it lacks juice when it comes to its sense of self. I wish the earnestness behind Miles' character clicked as well as Peter's. I love the idea of defining a person more around their community, but in order to do that, said community has to be made up of more than a handful of gestures towards the semiotics of home and fellowship.