“With great power comes great responsibility.”  New York’s Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman swings back into action, but this time, the narrative continues where Marvel’s Spiderman left off showing the origins of his young protege Miles Morales being bitten by a radioactive spider. 

     Spiderman: Miles Morales was released on November 12, 2020 as a Playstation Exclusive for the Playstation 5 (PS5) and the Playstation 4 (PS4). It was developed by Insomniac games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It retails for $49.99 for its standard edition and $69.99 for its ultimate edition which includes the remastered version of Marvel’s Spiderman. 

     Spiderman: Miles Morales takes place in Harlem, New York City. It is about a seventeen year old who is in high school and struggles to find his place as a hero. While he is still not in the big leagues in crime fighting as he is under training by Spiderman (Peter Parker) and Peter leaves for a photographer job soon after, he is now New York’s only Spiderman. 

     He has to fight against a gang war between Roxxon, an engineer cooperation and a high tech criminal army group called The Underground led by antagonist The Tinkerer. Miles has to stand up for his home and use his new powers to take up the mantle of Spider Man and keep his promise to Peter he will protect their city. 

     An IGN review written by Jonathan Dorbush states, “The new game shows the potential of next generation graphics and technology. The swing mechanics and animation were very impressive, and felt fresh.” 

     In an MSN review by Jacob Kroll, the details are incredible as well. “The footprints seem very real, and the cloud formations look great. When the player stands on top of a building, they are going to see just how impressive the game truly looks”. 

     Mr. Mathew Wajda, a science teacher at Foran says, “I like that the game manages to catch both the humorous side of Spider-Man aside from Deadpool who else really cracks jokes about who he’s fighting?…also the memes and also the gravity of the crimes he’s fighting.”

     For years, Spiderman has always been a fan favorite superhero and has inspired many children and people all over the world. Over time the character has evolved involving different adaptations of the wall crawler. 

     According to the official Marvel Comics website, Miles Morales made his first debut on comic book pages in Ultimate Fallout #4 on August 3, 2011 created by writer Brian Micheal Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli. This issue takes place in the Ultimate Marvel Universe and follows the death of Peter Parker the original Spider-Man while fighting his arch nemesis the Green Goblin. Miles gets bitten by a radioactive spider that gives him similar spider powers to Peter and new abilities of producing bioelectricity and becoming invisible, elements that will be also portrayed in the game. 

     Spider-Man has inspired many children and people all over the world, where anyone can wear a mask and be their own hero. Alan Stern, a physics teacher, says, “I think Spiderman is popular because he’s relatable.  He’s a normal kid who obtained superpowers unexpectedly.” 

     Wajda says, “Marvel has had a huge resurgence and it kind of started with the SpiderMan movies with Tobey Maguire. I think the success really continued with Avengers and spidey is an Avenger so that helped his popularity too. He’s also one of the funnier Marvel characters and is usually played by a younger actor so that means you’re more likely to draw teenagers and guess who plays the most video games?”

     Spiderman: Miles Morales really shows the evolution of video games, and shows the potential of future superhero game franchises. Many superheroes can stand in this same exact spotlight, and can also make an impact as a video game. 

     Wajda says I think there’s a lot of superheroes who could have really unique combat. If you had a game with characters like in Ultimate Alliance but the gameplay was more deep that’d be great. I feel like you could just have an avengers game and really go in depth with the characters.” 

     He then goes on to say “Thor having range using lightning and hammer tosses would be cool. Hulk could do AoE damage with ground pounds or by just chucking enemies at each other. You could also go to DC and have something involving Green Lantern. You have such a huge variety of things you can make using the power rings.”

     Stern responds to the idea of new superhero solo games, “There was an ‘old’ action RPG called Marvel Heroes (it operated from 2013-2016).  It was pretty popular and, more than that, it was a good game.  That’s the game I wish they brought back. We need more good ARPGs.”