Superhero licensed games used to have to be cucumbers by law – at the latest since the great Batman Asylum games, this no longer applies, but 2018 there was still another surprise: The PS4-exclusive Spider-Man was so good that many rated it as the best game of the year. The story stomped in classically trashy superhero junk, but what made the game so awesome was the way it got around. With a press of the trigger button Spidey shoots spider webs, on which he swings through Manhattan’s urban canyons and can also do tricks.

Where to go at other open world games at some point annoyed by the lame gossiping around only used the fast travel function, the way from A to B is part of the core fun element of Spider-Man. The very varied combat system, which never got boring with countless gadgets, was also successful. The sympathetic protagonist exuded additional charm, who cannot harm a fly (he doesn’t kill, he wraps the villains in spider webs) and works as a volunteer in the homeless shelter.

The fake reflections (right) look almost more spectacular than the real Ray- Tracing reflection.

(Image: c’t (PS5))

Of course that also changes Spider-Man: Miles Morales for PS4 and PS5 doesn’t, on the contrary: The game that runs in parallel for PS5 and PS4 appears, works almost exactly like its predecessor and looks almost exactly the same. At first glance, the console versions do not differ much from each other. Sometimes you even get the impression that the Manhattan reflected in the skyscraper windows looks a bit more spectacular on the PS4 than on the PS5. If you take a closer look, however, you notice that the PS4 is tricked with static photo wallpapers – your own character is not reflected in the windows. On the PS5, on the other hand, the entire environment (including Spider-Man) is dynamically reflected – and on top of that, you can look through the windows.

This is where ray tracing is used, a function that was previously only seen in (few) PC games. The great reflections are only available on the PS5 in “image quality” mode, while in “performance” mode there are smooth 60 fps, but unfortunately the same fake reflections as on the PS4. What is clearly better with the PS5 version: The Dualsense controller makes a lot of vibration reduction, and the variable resistance of the trigger button is also used when swinging. After a few minutes you don’t want to play without it anymore. It’s also nice that there are virtually no loading times. Before some missions you have to crawl through boring ventilation shafts for a long time, that could have to do with hidden loading times.

In some cutscenes the character models seem very detailed, in others they seem wooden.

(Image: c’t (PS5))

As a young Spiderman character, Miles Morales is allowed to play in the second game, who was already playable in the first game – but was rather annoying there, because in these sequences you except Sneaking and hiding couldn’t do anything (and you play superhero games because you’re doing things that don’t work in the real world). Professionally trained by Peter Parker, he is now almost as competent as the senior spider when it comes to swinging and knocking (charming: you can see in the animations that Miles is still a little unsure). And because two Spider-Mans don’t fit the story so well, Peter Parker simply says goodbye at the beginning of the game: his journalist girlfriend does research overseas and Peter goes along as a photographer – does he suffer from superhero burnout?

Venom attacks under power As in the first part, you can take selfies again in photo mode.

(Image: c’t (PS5))

Insomniac Games has obviously made an effort not to make the second part look like a DLC of the first release. Manhattan now shines as a winter snowy landscape instead of in summer as before. In addition, Miles can now master Venom attacks, which primarily work with electrical energy. Electrics is an important topic anyway: The primary adversary group called “The Underground” work with glowing armor that looks like gaming cases with RGB LEDs – the neon-colorful cyberpunk look is apparently very popular this year (why that probably lies?).

In addition, the stealth functions have been expanded. Already in the first part you could knock out opponents undetected, but that usually only worked for a short time and you then had to continue “loudly”. Miles Morales can now make himself invisible during a knock, hide himself and then spin opponents again in stealth mode. It didn’t work like that with the predecessor.

Physics puzzles instead of 2D puzzles The minigames and collecting tasks have also been slightly changed: Instead of 2D sliding puzzles as in the first part, Miles now completes small physics puzzles directly in the game world, for example he supplies devices with conductive spider webs with electricity. Often, however, this is confusing because the game sometimes doesn’t tell you why you can’t connect two points at the moment. Instead of taking photos, tracking down audio samples is now a collecting task – after all, Miles’ hobby is “mixing beats” as the somewhat sloppy German translation says. The fact that Miles is a hip-hop fan is also reflected in the soundtrack: The orchestral score always mixes bits of beat – nice.

This year is all about cyberpunk, even with Spider-Man.

(Image: c’t (PS5))

Spider-Man: Miles Morales costs 60 Euro – in the price structure of the new generation of consoles this means that it is not a full-price game (that would be 70 or 80 Euro). Instead of 25 hours like in the first part, Miles Morales is much less busy. In our test we finished the main story in hours and completed some side quests and collecting tasks. According to the internal progress display, this corresponds to 68%. Miles Morales is roughly half the size of his predecessor.

Conclusion Clearly: fans of the first Spider-Man part will also love Miles Morales. However – especially after the three DLCs, which also offered a lot of the same – you would like a successor with a few more surprises. Miles Morales has different minigames, more stealth, and new combat moves – but it doesn’t feel like a new game, and most importantly, it doesn’t look like it. And that’s a bit of a shame, especially with regard to the change to a new generation of consoles. Nevertheless: The ray tracing reflections look really nice.

(jkj)