Review: Spiderman: Miles Morales

 Imma do my own thing. 

Reviewers and Marketing

An unholy union.

We all have that one IGN opinion, don't we? Our exasperated reaction to what has to be one of the largest, yet most clowned on, official gaming publications in the entire industry. And the world, for that matter. IGN has one of the biggest chunks of online gaming presence, they're first fiddle to just about every single premiere on the market, they cover TV shows and movies at the same time, and they're perhaps one of the only stable career choices a gaming journalist can hope to make. But games journalists are already a questionable breed of people, now aren't they? For their debateable relevance and job performance standards, as well as their seemingly obvious lack of passion for their chosen vocation which always seems to bleed out in bitter and resentful articles that seem to drunkenly lash out in every direction without rhythm or reason. So what happens when you bring a whole collective of journalists together into one connected group? Pandemonium.

But IGN is much bigger than it's reviewing arm; heck it's an entire media empire at this point! Chock full of reaction-opinion content, watch along parties for all major gaming events, and press coverage out the wazoo; ensuring they can buff up their own viewership by feeding off the marketing campaigns of all other games. And I mean all other; they don't seem to care who gives them money, as long as they bring the potential for an audience along with them. I don't quite know what kind of parasite this makes IGN, but not a particularly fun one to follow. I bet most games industry people watch IGN these days without being fans, because that's just what you are supposed to do in order to keep abreast with the industry moves. IGN are the one's who made it this way, and they lorde it out on top of their pack for a reason.

Of course, IGN are by no means the only such publication; their example has spawned a cadre of identical eye-brow raising 'experts' who formulate their actionable opinions on the products they review by merit of wavy talents. It's not as if anyone is saying you need to be a gaming expert in order to pen a review, but perhaps getting people who actually like games would be a decent start- but alas we are doomed to suffer a reality where the industry is beset by absolute heels from every turn. Imagine if all movie critics absolutely could not stand the theatre, or watching long-form media- it's that level of insanity over here in gaming and we see this ugly truth reflected out of the dull empty-hearted articles pouring out of mainstream outlets with disappointment after disappointment.

Who remembers the Cuphead debacle from Gamesbeat? The situation in which an early player of the game's tutorial found themselves utterly incapable of pushing through the tutorial level of the game because it required them to jump atop a platform. Now to be absolutely fair to Gamesbeat, they had good humour about this. The player in question was no fan of platformers, they kind of set him up to fail by throwing it at him in the first place, and the video was uploaded as a kind of group shamefest for everyone to laugh along with. I hope the player was laughing as well. But I'm afraid to say that even though this particular video was made with the joke to mind, the perception it reinforces about the competency of video game reviewers is no illusion.

I mean, Ploygon's legendarily embarrassing footage of a player attempting DOOM's intro so pathetically it seems they've never even touched a First Person Shooter before is spectacle enough. The footage is bad, with the player standing still and getting mauled, seemingly unable to aim and move at the same time, and missing point-blank shots it should be honestly impossible to screw up on. And there really isn't a punch line to this one. This was footage that Ploygon shot and for some reason didn't immediately delete upon review; this one made it out to the public. And the message it sent: Yeah, our reviewers aren't really hobbyists for the games that they play... but, oh well- right? It certainly painted an aura of mistrust next time around when DOOM Eternal started getting critics grumbling about it's alleged difficulty.

And whilst we're doing the round trip, why not land at Gamespot's door for a spell? That's right, you didn't think I'd miss an opportunity to talk about the Miles Morales review, did you? A classic review, full of vigor, wherein the reviewer seems to struggle to come up with things to say about a game which was essentially just a bloated out DLC pack for the original Spiderman. (Not to knock the quality of Miles Morales, but we should call a spade a spade when we see it.) During which we got gifted the gloriously bizarre sentence "The way he leaps off of buildings and flips backwards to face the camera is full of the exaggerated swagger of a black teen, I get goosebumps everytime I see it." Which is just an objectively insane sentiment. That Gamespot thought an adequate defence for that statement was to go "Actually- the guy who wrote that review was black!"- is laughable.

Which brings me around to the latest kerfuffle; IGN's contribution to the shaky train that is the Redfall marketing. The game hasn't had a great go of it's reveals, with battles with the public over apt comparisons to the general vibe that this game doesn't feel as fresh and different as some of Arkane's other outings. Perhaps they thought giving people the chance to play the game and get that footage out would waive some concerns, and for some of the smaller creators the output of gameplay was soothing. The game does look pretty fun. But for the biggest of the outlets, IGN... woah, those guys are experts at not being experts. The gameplay is painful, just slightly better than the DOOM footage in that I believe this guy has played First Person Shooters before- but he just doesn't enjoy them in the slightest.

For a marketing video to score badly with the public is already a big kick to the ego, but for the reason of that disdain to not be the game itself but the people playing it... well, that's certainly raising questions about the worth of lukewarm platforms like IGN when it comes to supporting the game industry they leech off to survive. Compare that with grass-routes creators, like the 2.2 million viewed video of the ID Software team meeting up with huge DOOM fan Markiplier and having him rock out the game at it's highest difficulty setting whilst talking about how important the game was to him growing up- that's the kind of stuff that turns heads. Yeah, I didn't intend to make another blog basically saying "Trad media sucks" but here we are... guess it's a sentiment that writes itself, huh?

Spider man: Miles Morales

Where is Peni's game?

Yeah, there was another video gaming event last week, only this one was on the Playstation 5. Yay. This time they spent a little more time showing off gameplay next to the trailers and did it make all the difference? Kinda, not really. People's outrage was pretty dumb in the first place, to be honest. (But I can't wait for all the videos of people saying "This is how it's done! I felt the games, woah!") But my biggest take-away from the event was thus; the PS5 looks like a modem, and I still don't like their controller's layout. (But I guess that's more of a trademark issue, so I can't fault Sony too hard.) To their credit, the digital version of the PS5 doesn't look quiet as awkward, but without seeing any price points it's hard to get overly excited. (Also, I do miss the idea of holding a real disc in my hands. Even though, I'll readily admit, the vast majority of current gen games I own are digital.)

But that's neither here nor there for the moment because it's time to talk about the vast array of new titles that Playstation saw fit to showcase at us during their bloated conference. (I know that word has inherently negative connotations, but given the games that Playstation had to show I mean that as an absolute compliment.) One such game, the first they showed in fact, was the sequel to game that had many sceptics when it was first announced (including me) but which turned out to be one of the biggest games that PS4 put out in it's entire lifespan. Of course I'm talking about the exciting 'Spider Man: Miles Morales' which takes the popular spider-verse character (Yes, I know he existed before that movie, I'm merely citing his most popular point of reference) and finally brings him to the digital forefront in his first video game appearance ev- oh wait, he was in 'Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3'. (Does this mean we're getting a Spider-Gwen game next? I am so freakin' down for that prospect it might eclipse my excitement for the game that were actually getting.)

For those who never had the pleasure, Spiderman PS4 was a free-roaming Spiderman adventure that finally broke the curse of substandard web slinging titles ever since 'Spiderman 2'. (Which seems insane to me. This concept lends itself to video games so well and yet there was so many Spider-duds that missed the mark. 'Amazing Spiderman 2', anybody?) The game brought fans a beautiful city, brilliant webslinging, dynamic action and controls, with a heartfelt narrative that ticked just about ever Peter Parker fan's boxes for the ideal Spider-game. (These spider-puns are getting out of hand. I need to stop.) What Insomniac achieved with Spiderman PS4 was much more than just a solid game, they created a baseline foundation for what a superhero game could be, and those foundations were so solid that even at the prospect of a new title built with those same tools people are fit to lose their damn minds.

The trailer itself isn't actually dripping in the way of details, but that's not really the point either. The world was so sold on the strength of the original that they could have just tweeted out a picture of speculative box art and they'd have achieved similar levels of hype that they have now. What we've seen so far, however, to really sell this title and the console behind it is hero-shots. Lots of hero-shots. Seems that both Microsoft and Sony have a point to prove when it comes to ensuring that their consoles are capable of rending materials and surfaces as accurately close-up as they look faraway, something that is largely unnecessary in most gameplay situations but if you insist on pushing that envelope your going to get there eventually! Something related I noted from this event is the way in which Sony's own marketing has pimped this as 'the biggest evolution between generations ever', but after the PS2 to PS3 jump I'm having a hard time picking up on that particular point. (Maybe graphical fidelity is the wrong thing to look for in that comparison.)

From a pure design standpoint there is one aspect that I can commend 'Spiderman: Miles Morales' on, over 'Spiderman PS4' and that's the team's decision to actually reign in their creativity. Admittedly, I don't read a great many comics anymore as the medium is practically dead to me, (So I actually missed Miles' comic debut) but as far as I can tell the video game rendering of his Spider suit is exactly the same as it is in the comics. (That is to say; sleek and slick as heck.) This is in stark contrast to 'Spiderman PS4' where the team took it upon themselves to make their own spider suit and the results were... a white spider? Yeah, I didn't like it. (Each to their own.) Of course, that game featured a plethora of extra suits with abilities and unlock conditions in it so that wasn't a problem, but I'll pat Insomniac on the back anyway, they did good with this one.

I'm less sold on the design of Miles himself, but they may come from my own attraction to the world of Spiderman and my closeness to it. None of the none-costumed faces in the first game ever looked quite right to me, and that's a mental hurdle that has appeared to have been carried on to this newer title. Miles looks fine, but I don't see him as an older version of the Miles we saw in 'Enter the Spiderverse', and as far as I'm concerned that's the definitive animated rendition of the character that we've seen so far. But am I nitpicking? Hell yeah I am. The game looks simply sublime from ever other part of the small gameplay snippet we saw and I'm struggling to find any foothold for critique. I will say, however, that I'm encouraged at the way the team have tried to shake up NYC by setting this game during the winter. (Not sure if that's going to be a perpetual winter 'Cold, Cold Heart' style, but I won't gripe if that's the case. Wintry New York is actually pretty iconic all on it's own.)

What more is there to really say considering how little we saw? The gameplay looks just as explosive as the first game's, I love the acrobatic movement- just like in the first game? Every expectation that has been raised for this game has been coloured by the example set from 'Spiderman PS4' and that is both a blessing and a curse. For the marketing team it's a blessing as it means they can get away with that 1 minute teaser reel, but for the developers it means that a lot of weight is landing on their shoulders to top what they did last time. Personally, I'm not sure how iconic Miles villains are, or how strong his unique powers are, to match up to the last game's offerings. But at the end of the day this may fall down to a question of strength of character through writing, and if that's the case then we can all breathe easy as insomniac have proven themselves adept in that field quite often of late.

Ultimately, I would say that this was a strong opening for Sony's little PS5 showcase round-up, although it did leave me the slightest bit dubious as to why this game needed to be a nextgen exclusive. (As I do believe that Sony, unlike Microsoft, are committing all first-party games to be next-gen exclusive, citing not wanting to hold back their developer's ambitions.) Honestly, 'Spiderman PS4' look about as good as anything we just saw, and the gameplay ran fine, so I suppose I'm left with the nagging question about whether this is a title that's being used as a carrot on a stick to lure people into that nextgen purpose unnecessarily. (I think there might be a fire to all that smoke.) But I'm digging where perhaps I shouldn't, for the time being I see a damn fine looking game and I want it right now please, thank you.