why i HATE Spider-Man： Miles Morales

So recently Spider-Man 2 came out on the

PlayStation 5, but unfortunately I haven't

got a PlayStation 5, so the best I can do

is Miles Morales. This game is on 50% sale

on Steam, so I decided to finally give it

a try and I've actually been having an

okay time with it. But as an avid fan of

Spider-Man games, I feel kind of

disappointed with this entry in the

Spider-Man universe. So first of all, I

decided to try this game on my brand new

ROG Ally and the game played really well

on it. It was really smooth, got an

average of like 30 FPS, which is fine for

a handheld console. And the game looks

amazing. Then I tried the game on my

gaming laptop, which I have a 3060 RTX,

16GB of RAM, and a 10th generation Core

i7. So pretty beefy specs, and it's a

pretty expensive gaming laptop. But for

some reason, the game seems really poorly

optimized for a laptop, maybe because my

laptop is Nvidia graphics card and Intel

CPU, whereas the ROG Ally is an AMD chip

and an AMD graphics card. And it seems

like games these days are more— are better

optimized for AMD devices for some reason.

But the performance I got on my gaming

laptop was very disappointing with

stuttering and lag. So as for the gameplay

of this Spider-Man game, it's basically

the same from any kind of Spider-Man game

you'd expect. You swing around, you do

punching, you do combos. The only new

thing is that Miles Morales has a special

ability where he has electricity coursing

throughout his body and he can do like

electrical-based attacks, which is kind of

silly because I never really associated

Spider-Man with electricity. There's

already a villain in Spider-Man— what was

his name? Cyber Shock or something?

Shockwave? Shockwave? Current. I can't

remember, he does like yellow electrical

attacks. Why did they just steal his

powers and then give it to Spider-Man? I

guess they wanted to give him something

new to set him apart from the original

Spider-Man, Peter Parker, who is also in

this game by the way because it's

multiverse, you know. And sometimes you do

team up with the original Peter Parker for

some missions, but most of the time you'll

be playing on your own as Miles Morales.

And yeah, he just basically plays like any

other Spider-Man, but he's got some

special powered moves electricity, which

is kind of silly. And then he can also use

his electricity to power up generators or

power down generators. So a lot of the

puzzles involve powering up generators and

then using your webbing as electrical

wire, which I don't know if that actually

makes any sense. I don't know if spiderweb

can actually have electricity coursing

through it. But when you're not fighting

or swinging through the city, you'll be

spending your time using your webbing to

connect different generators and then

using your bioelectricity, or Venom as

they call it in the game. I don't know why

they call it Venom, because when I think

of Venom, I think think of like that

black-looking big giant monster-looking

Spider-Man who shoots out these kind of

like black tentacle things. The puzzle

solving is very tedious and repetitive.

It's always the same. It's always just

like find out where the wiring leads to,

look for the generator, power it up with

your Venom electric attack, or power it

down, and then crawl into a vent and then

sneak around for a bit while the

characters engage in dialogue. It's just

very tedious and it just feels like the

same thing happening over and over again.

Next, I'm gonna switch to some footage of

Spider-Man Remastered, which came out I

think last year or a couple years ago on

Steam. And I want to show you this footage

just so I can show you how much Miles

Morales hasn't really changed compared to

an older version of Spider-Man. It's

basically the same. I couldn't even tell

which one's which sometimes, apart from,

okay, the spider suit is different, the

graphics obviously aren't as good. But

when you look at the swinging, you still

see little points on the buildings that

you can zip to, just like in Miles

Morales. And the fighting is almost

identical. With things like, oh, you could

swing around objects and then attack

enemies by flinging the objects at them

using the web, or you could use the web to

tie them up or fling them into the air for

some aerial combat juggling and combos.

The combat is basically identical to the

older Spider-Man games apart from you now

have the electricity-based attacks. Even

the animations seem almost identical. For

example, when he web slings an object,

swings it around, chucks it at the enemy,

or the web sliding under enemies' legs and

then hitting them from behind, everything

just feels and looks the same. Even when

you get a counterattack Spider-Sense

tingling little icon thing above his head,

that looks the same as Spider-Man

Remastered as well. At higher

difficulties, it is really hard to take

out a group of enemies if you just land in

the middle of them and try and beat them

all up. So you really have to use stealth,

and stealth mechanics seem to take more of

an important role in this gameplay's

combat mechanics. And it really is the

most ideal way to take on groups of

enemies, by using gadgets to distract them

and isolate them, and then zipping around

onto the structures above to hide and then

using the camouflage ability makes this

game feel more like a stealth game than

like a pure brutal combat game where

you're just fighting in enemies' faces all

the time. It really is the best way to

play, and it kind of makes the game a bit

boring if you're not interested in

stealth. If you like stealth, that's

great, but if you don't like stealth,

then you'll feel annoyed at being forced

into doing stealth. So the best way to do

it is basically just zip up to a poles

and platforms above the enemy and do like

a web takedown or perch takedown, and then

try and stay out of view, use the

camouflage, go invisible again, wait till

the enemies calm down, and then just rinse

and repeat. Because you can one-shot kill

them using the perch takedown or web

takedowns, which makes it kind of

pointless trying to engage in combos and

swinging around enemies with the wearable

objects when you can just take them out

with a one-shot kill using a stealth

takedown. It's so much faster and more

efficient. There is a skill tree in the

game, but as you can see, it's very basic.

You have about 10 or maybe 9 skills in

each of the branches. You've got venom

skills, combat skills, camouflage skills.

So this increases your camouflage and

stealthing abilities. This one will give

you some new venom skills and new combos

to unlock. And combat skills would give

you like different web yanking abilities

better stamina, better damage when you're

fighting enemies, stuff like that. But it

is very basic, so don't expect to be like

theorycrafting your own Spider-Man skill

tree as if you're playing Diablo 4 or some

kind of fantasy role-playing game. It's

not really that in-depth. It's nice they

added it, but I would have liked a more

in-depth skill tree so you can craft your

own playstyle. That'd be more interesting,

I think. But one thing I noticed about the

game that kind of unsettled me is— well,

before I say it, just let me show you the

character database and then Let me know if

you can see a pattern. So we got Miles

Morales, the main character. We got his

best friend, Ganke Lee. We got his

best woman friend, Phin Mason. We got his

mum, Rio Morales, who is Mexican. This

policeman, Jefferson Davis. Is that his

dad? I'm not sure. We got Rhino, the

villain. We've got the Tinkerer, who is

just Phin Mason. We've got Peter Parker,

who is barely in the game. Apart from in

the beginning. We got Aaron Davis, his

uncle, who's also the Prowler. We've got

Rick Mason, and then we got the bad guy

Simon Krieger with this stupid-looking

smile plastered on his face all the time.

And then we got the bad guys, Roxxon,

which sounds like Exxon. And then we got

the Underground, and I don't know if you

can see behind the masks, but they are all

of one kind of look, if you know what I

mean. So I think you know what I mean,

that there's barely any white guys in the

character roster, and the only white guys

who are in it are the bad guys, like Simon

Krieger, the villain. He's white. Got

Rhino, he's white. And obviously Peter

Parker, he's a good guy, but he's barely

in the game. He just takes like a backseat

role. And I don't know about you, but I'm

pretty sure the demographics of New York

are majority white. But then this database

of characters are all almost Not white at

all. Where are all the white people? I

don't get it. And why do they make the

only Asian guy really fat and weird ugly

looking? Looks like a toad. He looks

really stupid and doofy. Every time in

games and movies whenever they put an

Asian guy, they always make him look

really ugly and fat and stupid looking. I

just look at this character roster and I

feel like, are they trying to tell me

something? Do they have an agenda? I know

they have to do like this whole diversity

thing, but come on. You're doing it too

much in the wrong way. Now you've just— I

mean, there's so much diversity in this

game, there's actually now not really much

diversity. And for that reason, I have to

give this game a 6.2 out of 10. It just

feels like a copy of older Spider-Man

games with a few gimmicks added, like the

electricity attacks, but basically it just

feels like any other Spider-Man you can

expect. The story is okay-ish. It just

feels like something Disney would have

made up for some Spider-Man movie. It's

not really that interesting, very

predictable. The main character Miles

Morales is— I don't really like the main

character Miles Morales. He's just kind of

annoying. His voice is very feminine

sounding, very nerdy sounding. I know he's

just supposed to be a kid, but come on,

they should have given him a bit more of a

deeper macho voice.