Insomniac have already firmly established themselves as one of the most important studios working for the platform to date, turning out luxuriously slick games with consummate ease and joining Naughty Dog in that special category of developers that have you scratching your head, wondering just how they can make stuff that looks as good as this on 6 year old tech.
"Spider-Man - Miles Morales" or as comic aficionados like to call 'im, "The cooler Spider-Man" is the follow-up to Insomniac's first Spider-Man title - which received almost universally positive and gushing reviews (despite making Peter Parker look a bit like a weird hybrid between all of the movie Spider-Men crammed together). Thankfully they've done a far better job this time around with character art, and the game opens with Miles a little older than in the first game, fully under the spidery web-slinging mentorship of Peter Parker's spidey.
Cheekily nicking off on Holiday, Petey leaves Miles to look after New York in his absence, as Miles begins to uncover a nefarious plot by a 'clean energy' company, and plenty of skeletons erupting from his closet from past acquaintances and family members who could best be described as "goodie-baddies" (my daughter's phrase not mine), all vying for Miles' attention.
The game itself disappointed me as it opened, the initial cut scenes were as choppy as hell (for me for some reason), which I put down to the PS4 frantically back-loading data in the background while the cut scenes played out but not quite being 'man' enough to handle the job (probably a far slicker experience on PS5).
But then things settled down pretty rapidly with no repeat of that choppiness, and the same buttery-smooth swinging and fighting action you remember from the first game.
It doesn't take long before seasoned Spider-Man veterans are throwing some impressive shapes as they glide through the air with the greatest of ease, and start launching into fight scenes with gusto making the most of some of Miles' new moves (like being able to 'shock' more powerful enemies, or later on being able to turn invisible for short periods of time - useful in those 'stealthy' bits which are, sadly, my least favourite bits of the game so far.
As much as Miles is the coolest Spider-Man in the comics, he's nowhere near the coolest Spider-Man in the game though - and after a few hours of play I haven't unlocked "That" suit, featuring this furry little critter:
Yes that's right, Spider-Man the Cat is just awesome, offering some rather unique help if stuffed into Miles' backpack with one of the suit options, and some killer finishing moves to boot. More cats in videogames please, particularly cats you can drop by and nuzz under the chin when you're at a loose end.
Miles' roomie Ganke also appears in the game along with Miles' mom. Ganke is great as a backup buddy, running an app to let you whizz around the city to perform 'friendly neighbourhood' missions to underpin the main storyline missions. This is a great way of earning skill points and sharpening your combat skills, and as you will expect after the first game, this game has an equally complicated but hugely satisfying roster of skills and options, unlockables and of course those damned cool suits.
It's brilliant though, and I can only imagine what PS5 owners are experiencing with this game if the PS4 version (which is by no means a 'lesser' game) is anything to go by. There are some truly brilliant (and not so brilliant) nods to "Into the Spider-Verse" thrown in for good measure early on in the game too (and if you haven't watched it - and have Netflix UK - go and get that done right frigging now! It's the best Spider-Man movie by far).
It's one of those games that you can just tell is going to end up consuming huge portions of your time until you've crossed off every mission, sub-mission and challenge. I can think of no better title to show that the PS4 is still a brilliant console, and no better title to launch the PS5 with. Truly amazing!
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