Shrooba's Corner of 100 Completions

[Deadly_Ha_Ha]

I'm glad you liked the track, and yeah I agree that music goes a long way toward the quality of the game. Wouldn't take anything from Shadow of the Colossus, but in a lot of ways the music makes that game. I voted Okami, would be weird if I didn't!

[rjkclarke]

I voted Okami as well - that's a game everyone should experience at least once. But as @DrBloodmoney said, I'm also very interested to hear what your opinions are on Psyconauhts when you play that. I went for the platinum in it last year, and I had a great time with it - but I'd also played it before, so to a degree I did know what to expect. I'll also be very interested to see what someone playing it fresh in 2021 has to say about it.

 

Can't go too wrong with @Baker's suggestions with Final Fantasy X either. I hope you have a great time with that game, it's my personal favourite in that series - although I'm sure I've mentioned that, oh I don't know about a bajillion times ?.... Not sure I can recommend FFX-2 though. Just do X all over again like Baker suggested ?. I don't despise X-2 in the same way that @Arcesius does, but it certainly isn't something I think I'd ever rush to play again. He kind of said it best in Sabbath's thread recently where he talked about people wanting closure, but instead getting a slap in the face, or at least words to that effect - and I guess it's not too far from the truth either. ?.....

 

Whatever you decide to play - I'm sure we'll all enjoy reading about it!

Edited September 28, 2021 by rjkclarke

[KindaSabbath]

16 hours ago, Shrooba said:

Take Thumper for instance! What are your thoughts on it? I've got a weird relationship with hard games; I always get a sense of nervousness going into them, yet I always feel motivated to play some of them at the same time?

 

I can relate in multiple ways here. Firstly, the checklists have put my spend on gaming up, massively ?.  Secondly, challenge gives me a huge boost of motivation when it comes to tackling a particular game.

 

As for Thumper: it's incredibly fun. Dude, you're a fucking space beetle! Hitting big Thumps is extremely satisfying, as is going for the S-Ranks. I read that it's harder without VR but I couldn't tell you if that's true, as I don't have access to a VR headset and played it without one, no problem. I wouldn't consider it a very hard game, though. If you had to S-Rank an entire level without the ability to replay each segment until you get an S-Rank - that would be brutal. I'm assuming it's only Ultra Rare because it was a freebie. Have fun with it though, I know I did!

[Shrooba]

Completion #65
Spider-Man: Miles Morales - 22nd September 2021
Completion time: 1 week, 4 days

 

Hey everyone! It’s been quite a while since the last review, so it’s about time I get to making this one! I could’ve initially done Sonic Colours: Ultimate first, but given the time since I’ve posted a review, let’s just say I think it’s better if I talk upon a more positive game.
 

My glorious and beautiful people, this review contains SPOILERY SPOILERS that SPOIL SPOILERINGLY of both Miles Morales and Spider-Man 1 (the games, of course!). It’ll discuss the main characters in the game, their motivations, and story progression, so juuust to be safe, hopefully this warning has caught your eye! You’ve been warned, you handsome devils!

This is my longest review yet, sitting at over 5000+ words, with 4000 words being for the story alone, and it was initially kept in a spoiler bracket, but there's weird issues where they sometimes don't open, and 4/5ths of the review being unreadable is quite problematic! ? So as a final warning, this review will contain spoilers, primarily in the story section, so be careful reading onward if you're eager to play the game!
 

History of the game’s development/music:

 

Miles Morales was developed by none other than Insomniac Games, now part of Sony’s first-party collaboration, PlayStation Studios. Makers of Ratchet & Clank, Insomniac were well-versed with platforming and brilliant environments, and what better way was there for Insomniac to create even more well-versed platforming and brilliant environments than with the Spider-Man series?

Up until the point of Spider-Man 1 (in the context of the PS4 game, not the movie), Insomniac were only accustomed to making original properties, and they had just finished Sunset Overdrive, ironically an Xbox exclusive, by the time they were offered the opportunity to create a Marvel game for Sony. I know I’m here explaining the premise of Spider-Man 1’s development, but I find it imperative to discuss in relation to the development of Miles Morales, I apologize!
 

Essentially, Insomniac were granted the ability to create an original story based on any Marvel character, but Insomniac went ahead with Spider-Man, and thus began a development cycle that would conclude in 2018, with one of the hallmark games of the PS4 generation; Marvel’s Spider-Man. With the instant success of the game, it was apparent that they couldn’t let this opportunity go to waste, and thus they began development on Miles Morales.
 

Shortly after Spider-Man 1 released in 2018, Miles as a character had received a lot of recognition through the portrayal as a character in the Sony film; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and it definitely had great timing, as it allowed the general population to become more aware of him before getting his own game! But who IS Miles? He made an appearance in Spider-Man 1, but who actually is he? As it turns out, Miles was created a decade ago in 2011 as another version of Spider-Man, with the approval of Stan Lee. Insomniac saw to include him in Spider-Man 1 to fit the originality they were aiming for, and alongside his movie appearance, a sequel with his as the protagonist was becoming more and more apparent.

Not gonna lie, when I saw the announcement of Miles Morales, I couldn’t believe the announcement of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart either. I never would’ve thought that Insomniac would be working on two big games at the same time! ? As it turns out, this is because Miles Morales is of sorts a prologue to Spider-Man 2, which I’ll get more into later.
 

As for the music, it features some of the orchestral tone of Spider-Man 1 seeing as composer John Paesano made a reappearance in this game's development, filling in the mantle of the composer of Miles Morales.To fit this new hero's lifestyle, the music sees a blend of hip-hop beats (partly in relation to story significance which I'll discuss later). Take the theme of Miles Morales himself, "This is my Time", which best represents the theme of the overall game:
 

As for the more orchestral side of things, you've got the fast-paced rhythm of chase scenes, to the care-free string ensemble reflecting the excitement of being a new Spider-Man in Harlem. Each track serves a cinematic purpose within the cutscenes of the game, and diegetically. Music always plays a large part in shaping the theming and tone of a game, and this OST does its job well, resembling not only the dangers Miles faces on his first solo journey, but also the emphasis on adventure as well. Here's the entire OST if you wanna look at some of the songs, it's pretty good stuff:
 

 

Story (SPOILERS):
 

Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a game that takes place as an act between Spider-Man 1 and the upcoming Spider-Man 2, and sees Harlem’s sciencey kid, Miles, adjust to his new shift from Brooklyn. Or… as we Australian folk call him, Kilometres Morales. Get it? Because we use kilometres instead of… yeah yeah, I’ll shut up now. ?
 

Stories typically comprise of a three-act structure, and Miles’ arc definitely feels like one act of an overall story, comparable to that of one of the DLC packs in Spider-Man 1. However, despite it’s short length, it offers a great story that sits on a comfy chair right next to it’s predecessor. But enough of a brief synopsis, let’s get into the meaty stuff… The story, that is. Not cooking up any Gordon Ramsay specials today, unfortunately.

After the events of the first game, Miles had been bitten by a mysterious spider that granted him bizarre abilities… There was only one person Miles could talk to, and that just so happened to be Peter Parker, New York’s Spider-Man… the only Spider-Man at that point. After being accustomed to his powers over a long trek of training and honing his abilities with Peter, it was time for him to take a stand and protect the people he cared about in Harlem. Miles had been living in Brooklyn for his life, but after the death of his father (Jeff Davis) at the City Hall due to Martin Li’s meddling as the enigmatic Mister Negative in the first game, Miles was left unsure if he could fill his father’s mantle as a saviour and protector, even despite his newly gained powers. Add this to the general woes of a teenager, and Miles was in quite the self-doubting conundrum.
 

With Miles being in the same new shoes as Peter Parker, the once only Spider-Man, it’s taken a toll on his confidence as a once bustling street kid (which he still is, but when you’re given godlike super-strength and durable arms that can sling you across buildings faster than speeding criminals, life will justifiably have a new twist).
 

However, things were starting to look up as Miles would begin the real deal; no more training, time to finally help the people as a Spider-Man! Miles was on duty with Peter as a Spider-Man duo, onlooking a police convoy containing prisoners of the Raft, a highly secured prison base with reservations for only the most esteemed guests; the worst and most brutal criminals to ever walk the streets of New York. One of these individuals happened to be none other than Rhino, one of the villains from the first game, and a man who hates wild goose chases, or “THE CHASE OF GOOSE!!!!” as he would put it. ? Truly, he’s a gentleman of very esteemed words. What a nice chap, eh? A suave man.
 

In trying to secure an imprisoned and savagely angry man eager for bloodlust and revenge in his cage, Miles accidentally lets loose of him, and Rhino is free at last… alongside all the other Raft goons.
 

After a brief strife with the Raft prisoners, Peter fills in, and Miles sets his sights for Rhino; as Miles zips and slings onto Rhino’s back in an attempt to stop him for good, he’s set on a wild ride courtesy of Rhino through the Christmas-themed halls of the Harlem mall, leaving devastation in their wake, leading to an old warehouse under the property of “Roxxon.” Peter joins in, but is quickly defeated, and Miles fights back, despite Peter’s injuries. This is an aspect of Miles that I like quite a lot, similarly to Peter; they never give up, as cliched as that sounds. I think it really works in Miles’ shoes especially in part due to the death of his father, Jeff, who gave his life pushing away a suicide bomber at the City Hall; Miles was willing to risk his life for Peter in the same vein as his father risked his life. Even through the trauma of losing a loved one who did good in their life, it won’t stop them from doing good either, even if it means they’re also at risk.
 

But how does Miles stop Rhino if Peter couldn’t, you ask? See, the spider that Miles was bitten by was in fact property of Oscorp; Norman had been developing a spider to gain his own powers, and this newly engineered spider granted Miles the power of bioelectricity! This, in turn, opens up to some cool gameplay features which I’ll get into later, but I digress. Back to the story!
 

After an exhausting night, Peter announces that he’ll be going on vacation… but with Rhino taken care of, it shouldn’t be that bad that he’ll be gone, right? There’s no way there’ll be a civil war between an upcoming gang that wants to dethrone Fisk and Martin Li’s peak dominance, against a company that uses the guise of eco-friendly motives as a red herring to establish private properties throughout Harlem to become a looming force? No way. That could never happen.
 

But… it does happen. Oh, it happens. It happens happeningly in a happenous matter. So happeningly in fact, that a lot of the words in that last sentence aren’t even real words. That’s how dangerously it happens.
 

Happens. Sorry, just wanted to throw that in one more time. It’s a good word, isn’t it? Happ—Okay, I’ll stop beating the clearly dead horse.
 

As Miles returns home, he’s met by his mother, Rio Morales, an up-and-coming political candidate who wishes to become the mayor, and to establish her goals, she opposes Roxxon, the same company that owned the warehouse in the CHASE OF GOOSE with Rhino. Alongside Miles’ mother is Ganke, his tec-savvy friend who’s conveniently staying over for the next few weeks, and he’s a master of hacking and technology. In the game, it’s the festive time of year, Christmas, and there’s no better way to cherish that holiday spirit than with a good friend by your side, and that’s just the thing Miles needs as he takes the mantle of the new Spider-Man.
 

Another special guest just so happens to arrive, Phin Mason, a long-time best friend of Miles who collaborated on a special scientific project that won an award at a museum; the two were geniuses for their age, but in moving to a different school, the two slowly drifted apart. But, with Christmas in the air, it was the perfect time to catch up. Phin’s brother, Rick Mason, was noticeably absent, however…
 

On the following day, Ganke had set up an application that would let users directly link their problems to Spider-Man, and Miles was eager to use the afternoon to help people with their daily issues; one happened to be from none other than Miles’ uncle, Aaron Davis, who requests help realigning trains at the train station, alongside stopping a hijacker who was manipulating the frequencies of the network, who was part of a mysterious gang… After returning to Davis, more members of this gang arrive with explosives, but Miles puts a stop to it with his newfound powers. As he returned to Aaron, he was already aware of Miles’ identity (most likely due to recognizing his voice, I’d assume), and gifts him a free unlimited subway pass, a convenient reason for fast travelling in the game! But Aaron’s awareness of Miles’ identity would play an important part, later.
 

During the night, Rio is set to give a speech to the people of Harlem, but the citizens are interrupted by the broadcast of a cloaked individual, masked not only physically, but also audibly through a vocal modifier… This individual is the Tinkerer, the leader of a rising gang known as the Underground, who were set on being Harlem’s next top dogs. As Miles suits up to stop the interference of this new opposing force, it leads to a tense battle on a bridge, as the Tinkerer has held their sights on a truck belonging to Roxxon, filled with containers of a strange energy. As Miles, suited up as Spider-Man, attempts to stop the conflict after the Tinkerer grabbed onto a container, he latches on to retrieve it from their possession, but Miles’ bioelectricity instinctually activates, distorting the Tinkerer’s mask and revealing their identity, who just so happens to be Phin. In the strife, he’s flung by Phin into the Roxxon truck, filled with more of the containers. Miles was still new to his powers, and his bioelectrically unconsciously activated again, igniting the containers, and setting the bridge ablaze, but not before the Tinkerer managed to escape with one of them in her possession. This energy would be known as “Nuform”, the supposed eco-friendly energy source that could power Harlem, as touted by Roxxon’s CEO, Simon Krieger.
 

As the bridge starts collapsing, Miles scurries across the bridge to save every civilian, with some just in time. As he consoles the victims to ensure they’re in good condition, a group of Roxxon guards appear, but they’re not here to see to Miles’ safety; they’ve got their guns pointed on him, ready to accuse him of the whole fiasco. In an attempt to escape, Mile’s manages to completely camouflage himself, and he makes his getaway.  
 

With the Tinkerer’s identity revealed and a lead on his hands, Miles is unsure of calling Phin directly, and instead takes the sleuthing route; heading into an old shop owned by the aforementioned Rick Mason. With a secret passageway discovered, Miles uncovers old files of Rick in a poor condition, with Phin declaring an operation to be held at a Roxxon facility… Determined to find the truth, Miles makes his way to the base, and runs into a cloaked figure, the Prowler, a thief that Miles’ father, Jeff Davis, dedicated a part of his police career into investigating. The Prowler turns out to be none other than Aaron Davis himself, brother of Jeff and uncle to Miles. As the two team up, Miles retrieves Phin’s phone, and it plays a horrific video of Rick wanting to put the Nuform generators to an end, as they radiated harmful energy that would severely injure and even kill the residents of Harlem, as it was slowly happening to Rick himself. With two people needed for the shutdown, Rick directly stops the link to the Nuform generator, but is locked within a radius of it due to an interference by Simon Krieger, hellbent on keeping it active. With Rick locked inside as the generator starts combusting, Phin can do nothing but look as her brother is caught in the electric explosion.
 

I think Rick’s death is an interesting parallel to Jeff’s death, in which Phin was powerless just as Miles once was, as they both couldn’t do anything to save them. In so, they both gain powers in an attempt to do what’s right, but what separates Phin as the Tinkerer being in the moral grey as opposed to Miles as Spider-Man as a hero is that Miles doesn’t bend to the will of criminality to do what’s right; in honouring his father’s legacy, he wants to do good just as Jeff once did, whereas Phin’s ideal of doing good is more so related to taking revenge against Roxxon. Both seek vigilante justice, but Miles attempts to achieve justice with the help of the police (such as catching criminals in car chases and letting the police handle the rest), where as Phin becomes a criminal herself to achieve a greater good. I find this to be pretty good writing as Phin isn’t just some random gang goon, she’s someone who wants to do good like Miles, but her insistence on revenge muddles her once cognitive genius and aims to solve matters no matter the cost; it’s a moral grey area, not just a black and white good and bad scenario. What I think lends to this idea of vigilante justice is that Phin didn’t initially want to be the Tinkerer; her entire goal was to record shutting down the generator and having Rick be a primary witness as a collaborator on the Nuform project to showcase the damage it could do (Rick never wanted Nuform to hurt people, but seeing what it did to himself, he also wanted to stop it to make sure citizens wouldn’t be subjected to it). Her initial interest was to show to the world in a purely journalistic format the danger of Nuform; only upon Rick’s death did she turn to crime to achieve her sense of revenge under vigilantism.
 

As Miles uses his bioelectricity to absorb the power of the Nuform generator, he faces the ultimatum of releasing it as to not severely hurt his body, but this not only damages the Roxxon base; it consequently destroys the phone with evidence that could’ve stopped Simon Krieger, and thus achieve the justice that Phin initially wanted. With his explosion of energy, the Roxxon base is on full alert, and he manages to escape with the assistance of the Prowler.
 

As the two escape, Miles ponders on the idea of revealing to Phin his identity, but Aaron tells him to keep his identity a secret, otherwise he could potentially break their friendship, just as Aaron fell apart with his brother after revealing his life as the Prowler. With this in mind, Miles approaches Phin as himself, and talks about discovering the initial videos left at Rick’s store, and requests to join the Underground. After a trial of casually jumping from a crane onto a building and avoiding plummeting to a gruesome death (the usual teenager stuff), he successfully joins the crew, and Miles does some double-agent work of viewing the Underground base for clues on the location of the Nuform container that Phin took. The Undeground base happened to be Fisk Tower, and the Underground had taken over as a show of authority.
 

As Miles, now suited up as Spider-Man, goes into the inner depths of the base, he camouflages himself and eavesdrops on Phin’s conversation with some goons; she was keen on destroying Roxxon Plaza by destroying the Nuform generator, with the help of discovering the properties of Nuform with her stolen container. In a bid to stop her plan, Miles heads to the location of the stolen Nuform, but is intercepted by the Underground once again, and the Tinkerer escapes. Following an anxious chase with the Tinkerer, Miles is left out of options as he’s pinned down with a sword against his throat, and he unmasks himself; his identity as Spider-Man is revealed to Phin.
 

Distraught that Miles had lied to Phin, he’s left alone. His mother, Rio, isn’t aware of his identity, and he doesn’t want her to stress out, so he turns to Uncle Aaron for support. After telling Aaron that he’s stressed out with everything, he tells him to make a mixtape.

Okay, this would SEEM like bad writing, “Make my banger mixtape” isn’t seemingly the best response to a teenager’s woes, but believe me, it actually works here. Why, you ask? See, Jeff and Davis, before their falling out, loved to roam the streets and use the sounds of Harlem to make music. It was one of their best experiences as brothers, and upon moving on in life and especially in part to Jeff’s death, Aaron had been alone just as Miles had. In Miles making music, he reconnected with a sense of family, and his father again. He couldn’t tell his mother about his Spider-Man problems, so connecting with Aaron was his only way to move forward. In this, Miles realizes he’s no longer alone, and he has a purpose; to be connected with not only his family, but to protect Harlem.
 

It sounds preachy, but the power of music is a thing that connects people, cultures, and ways of life. It’s a concept that connected the Davis family and kept them together, and being reminded of this sparked a reignited passion for Miles to protect those he loved. Miles tells Aaron that he’ll be meeting with Phin at Trinity Church, and sets off… But not before Aaron phones someone…
 

As Miles reconvenes with Phin at the Trinity Church rooftop to sort out their problems, they’re interrupted by the forces Roxxon. Not only that, but Rhino’s back, and he’s powered up with Roxxon technology; Miles’ bioelectricity won’t work anymore. Roxxon never handed him in to the police, he was now their valuable ally. Powerless, the two are captured, and Krieger frustratingly cannot unmask Miles due to his bioelectricty unconsciously activating upon any threatening touch. In response, he orders his guards to beat Miles, and in a defensive fury, he unleashes a spark of bioelectric energy and sets himself free. The two start their escape, and discover that the Prowler had been working with Roxxon; because Miles had told Aaron that he’d be at Trinity Church with Phin, he told Roxxon of their location so she’d be stopped, but never intended for Miles to be subjected to punishment. The Prowler can’t do much about it; if he sold Krieger out, he’d be in a cell for being involved in Roxxon as well, and with Miles seemingly under their control, he can’t oppose Krieger otherwise Miles would get hurt. “Leverage”, as Krieger puts it.
 

With this discovery, Phin is led to believe that Miles had trapped her, even though it wasn’t his fault. The two don’t have time to dwell on it and discuss it though, as they run into Rhino again. YES INDEED, IT’S TIME FOR ANOTHER CHASE OF GOOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Miles cannot directly attack Rhino due to his new modifications, so he rams Rhino into Roxxon tanks, and flings engines at him to deal damage, with Phin occasionally assisting too. In doing so, Rhino’s modifications start failing, and he’s soon defeated. Phin is tempted to kill him for good, but Miles insists that that’s not the way of justice; as aforementioned, Miles wants to aid the police, and having him be captured is enough. As Miles uses nearby terminals to gather information on Simon to take him down, he discovers that the Nuform generator in Roxxon Plaza is enough to destroy not only the plaza itself, but a majority of Harlem with it, which could potentially kill thousands. As he starts taking this data, Rhino mocks Phin by joking about Rick’s death, infuriating her, and motivating her to kill him. As she stabs him, Miles intervenes and the two are pushed out of the room, before debris covers the way back in for Phin to finish the job. Enraged over Miles lying and believing he trapped her in Roxxon’s base, she threatens Miles to never meddle again, with Miles unable to tell her that her plan would destroy Harlem due to his injuries.
 

As Miles manages to return home in a severe state, Rio discovers him in his suit, and he’s left to tell her the truth; he is Spider-Man. As Miles tells her of everything that’s been happening, she’s keen on protecting the people of Harlem and prepares an evacuation, and Miles looks to his father’s picture with a determination to do what’s right.  
 

Miles discusses with Ganke the subject of Phin’s location, and he pins it down on the Oscorp Science Center; the place where Miles and her had showcased their wining science project. As he suits up and slings his way there, he’s sniped by an unknown force. It’s the Prowler, but he’s not here to hurt Miles. No, he’s here to protect him, but placing him in an underground cell so that he won’t get hurt. Aaron recalls losing his brother, and he doesn’t want to lose Miles, no matter the cost. Miles, however, determined with inheriting his father’s legacy as a hero, isn’t ready to bow down, and the two are caught in an unfortunate battle of ideals; justice with risk, or safety. After the strife, Miles sticks Aaron down with his webs, and heads to the Oscorp Science Center.
 

In a cool flashback sequence, Miles recalls viewing all the gizmos and machines built by the greatest minds of their generation with Phin as they were ready to present their project in the past, even running into Peter Parker for the first time alongside Otto Octavius, Peter’s mentor and fellow scientist. As the flashback ends, Miles finds the Nuform container at the place where their project was presented, but Phin intervenes once again and takes the container, with her eyes set on Roxxon Plaza. Miles is about to tell her of the devastation she’ll unintentionally cause, but he’s interrupted by more Underground goons, and he’s left with no choice but to confront her at the plaza.

As he returns back to the streets of Harlem, he’s met with a war against the Undeground and Roxxon Plaza, with one side hellbent on destroying it, whilst the other was set on preserving it to ensure Simon Krieger’s reign. As Miles, suited up as Spider-Man, takes a stand and puts a stop to the fight, he groups up with some remaining civilians yet to evacuate, alongside his mother who was brave enough to stay in the warzone to help any victims. Suddenly, the Prowler once again appears, with a new ideal; embracing the justice of his brother and letting Miles fulfill his purpose. With a rekindled spirit, Miles heads to the plaza to stop Phin and the damage she’ll cause. Miles attempts to reason with her, but after his lying, she assumes he’s merely bluffing under the belief that Krieger had told him nonsense and continues with her plan. After a struggling clash against the two, the generator starts letting off streams of energy that erupts through the Harlem streets, blatantly outside of Phin’s predicted radius of Roxxon Plaza. After realizing what she’s begun to cause, a bunch of debris sends the two falling next to the generator and leaves them nearly dead.
 

The generator is blazing with energy and is set to explode at any moment, it’s howling blisteringly through the air and causing mayhem. Miles crawls to Phin, and stands up with every bit of his strength, and heads to the generator. For the people of Harlem, for Phin, for his father’s legacy, for Aaron to start a new life, he walks towards the danger. The Nuform energy is distorting his senses, leaving him struggling to merely walk, but he keeps his head held high and makes his way closer, and closer, and closer, to the Nuform. Against the waves of energy, to the debris hurling in his direction, he continues to march on with everything his body can physically muster. At last, he makes direct contact with the generator, and grabs on with all his willpower; he’s willing to absorb all of the generator’s berserk energy if it means protecting anyone, letting out a desperate, yet defiantly brave scream.
 

With the streams of energy coursing through his body, it’s apparent that he can’t keep it held in. As Rio and other onlookers approach the generator to inspect what’s happened, Phin gathers the energy to stand up. Having studied the power of Nuform, even she’s aware that Miles can’t keep it held forever, and with her technology equipped, picks up Miles and runs up the plaza’s main tower to hurl them both into the sky for Miles to let out the wild energy, holding Miles in a final embrace in the sky.  
 

Miles falls back to the ground with Phin nowhere to be seen. His mother runs to him, not ready to lose another close one, but is ecstatic to see him still alive, and proud of what he’s done; he’s fulfilled the legacy of his father who once protected Harlem before him. The first words that Miles can muster is if everyone is alright, and his distraught over Phin’s sacrifice, again emphasizing his concern over others.

The onlooking citizens, despite now knowing his identity, return his mask, and upon the quick arrival of journalists eager to know who Spider-Man truly is, an interviewed person states; “He’s our Spider-Man.” Four weeks later, Krieger is arrested after his involvement with Roxxon goes public, alongside their push of Nuform despite the dangers, and Miles roams the streets of Harlem once again.

 

And that puts a close to the story. This story section is already 4000+ words, making it longer than any of my previous reviews with all their sections! Man, the story of Miles and his journey through Harlem was awesome. It was brief compared to its predecessor, but damn was it awesome. It’s definitely an incredible game, and if this is the stuff that Insomniac is creating, then I can’t wait for what they’ll have next in store!

 

Gameplay:

 

The gameplay for Miles Morales features the same fun web slinging and zipping around like it’s predecessor, Marvel’s Spider-Man, with the usage of R2 trigger, alongside both triggers to directly zip to one point, in which you’ve got a brief period to press X to jump whilst maintaining your momentum which allows for some pin-point accuracy as you sling through Harlem. This very brief overview of web slinging sincerely cannot do it justice; both Spider-Man 1 and Miles Morales handle web slinging so perfectly, it’s so fun just booting up the game just to do this!
 

But how exactly does Miles Morales separate itself from Spider-Man 1? Well, that bioelectric power that Miles had been accustomed to is known as “Venom”, akin to the venom of spiders in part to the sting that Miles can leave in his wake. You’ve got tons of usages for this ability in combat, such as directly striking one enemy via the Venom Punch with L1 + Square, which can leave them electrified in which additional melee attacks will deal more damage. If you need to quickly get away from a wave of enemies, you can utilise the Venom Dash via L1 + Triangle to run through anything in your path, alongside the Venom Jump (L1 + X), which allows you to spring into the air alongside any enemy within your radius, allowing you to initiate air combat and leave everyone electrified for more damage.
 

The venom energy exhausts a meter, and you gain it back by dealing damage, so if you time your venom jumps, you can bring a TON of enemies in the air and do enough damage to perform ANOTHER venom jump and repeat the process. It’s sick to have these options at your disposal.
If that doesn’t satisfy you, you’ve got the explosive Mega Venom Blast (L1 + Circle + Triangle), which allows Miles to violently release his stored energy, stopping anything in his past, with a huge cost of the venom meter, best used as a last resort.
 

And the best part? You can chain these together. Have a bunch of goons with particularly strong one? Venom Punch the big one and immediately venom jump to continue your combo and then deal damage mid-air against the other enemies and gain back your venom meter to chain into other combos.
 

How do you deal other combos? We’re at the tip of the iceberg, because that’s ONLY the venom powers; you’ve also got the ability to sling any nearby object around you as an additional crowd-control tactic, alongside slinging weapons that enemies may have, and throwing it right back at them, leaving them defenseless.
 

You’ve got suit upgrades at your disposal, allowing you to camouflage mid-combat to initiate stealth combat, as you slowly approach enemies from behind to deal an instant defeat on unsuspecting foes, you’ve got the ability to sneak from ceilings and walls above and web enemies to them, you’ve got holograms that deal damage for you, deployable mines that electrocute within a small radius, gravity mines that can pull enemies into one spot which you can chain into a venom jump that’ll take advantage of everyone being caught within the attack. If you’re in a pinch, you can use your Venom meter to instead heal back some HP by pressing down on the D-Pad to restore health, prioritizing defence when it’s best suited for you. You can scan the environment to seek out enemies with R3 if you’re in stealth, and you can use the Triangle button to web up enemies and melee them into walls to leave them stuck that way.
 

You can also time the dodge button (Circle) at the perfect moment to web up an enemy, and you can gain the ability to instantly defeat an opponent with a perfect dodge, rewarding risky gameplay. With all this, you can even web sling around in battle as you can anywhere else.

The options in Miles’ gameplay are very diverse, and there’s a ton of tools at your disposal, leaving a unique sense of gameplay that Spider-Man 1 didn’t offer. It’s cool to see Insomniac shake up the formula with Miles’ venom ability!

To showcase these abilities even more, Peter Parker has set up stations across Harlem in which you can individually test out each of Miles' abilities, from slinging through hoops to test your agility, to full-on battle simulations, alongside stealth situations in which you rescue hostages without being seen at all, you've got to put each ability to the test.

Difficulty: 4.5/10 (If not being played on the easiest difficulty)
Enjoyment: 9/10

 

 

Edited September 29, 2021 by Shrooba

[Shrooba]

Not sure if it's because of the site, I've tried on both my browser (Firefox) and my phone, but I'm sometimes having issues where spoiler brackets uh... won't open at all! ?

Hoping nobody else runs into this issue, otherwise 4/5ths of the review will be unreadable! If there's any issues, I'll place the story section out of the bracket, but I'll make sure to add even more spoiler warnings if that's the case.

[DrBloodmoney]

15 minutes ago, Shrooba said:

Not sure if it's because of the site, I've tried on both my browser (Firefox) and my phone, but I'm sometimes having issues where spoiler brackets uh... won't open at all!

Hoping nobody else runs into this issue, otherwise 4/5ths of the review will be unreadable! If there's any issues, I'll place the story section out of the bracket, but I'll make sure to add even more spoiler warnings if that's the case.

 

That's a constant issue on the site for me - and a lot of folks apparently.

 

Sometimes double clicking on the spoiler box arrow will refresh the page and make them work, but it can be very temperamental - on chrome and Safari too

[Shrooba]

12 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

 

That's a constant issue on the site for me - and a lot of folks apparently.

 

Sometimes double clicking on the spoiler box arrow will refresh the page and make them work, but it can be very temperamental - on chrome and Safari too

Duly noted, doc! I'll have the review updated. It's kinda relieving to know it wasn't just me! ? Hope this wasn't a problem for anybody else reading the review!

[Wild-Arms-R]

On 9/29/2021 at 9:57 AM, Shrooba said:

Completion #65
Spider-Man: Miles Morales - 22nd September 2021
Completion time: 1 week, 4 days

 

Hey everyone! It’s been quite a while since the last review, so it’s about time I get to making this one! I could’ve initially done Sonic Colours: Ultimate first, but given the time since I’ve posted a review, let’s just say I think it’s better if I talk upon a more positive game.
 

My glorious and beautiful people, this review contains SPOILERY SPOILERS that SPOIL SPOILERINGLY of both Miles Morales and Spider-Man 1 (the games, of course!). It’ll discuss the main characters in the game, their motivations, and story progression, so juuust to be safe, hopefully this warning has caught your eye! You’ve been warned, you handsome devils!

This is my longest review yet, sitting at over 5000+ words, with 4000 words being for the story alone, and it was initially kept in a spoiler bracket, but there's weird issues where they sometimes don't open, and 4/5ths of the review being unreadable is quite problematic! So as a final warning, this review will contain spoilers, primarily in the story section, so be careful reading onward if you're eager to play the game!
 

History of the game’s development/music:

 

Miles Morales was developed by none other than Insomniac Games, now part of Sony’s first-party collaboration, PlayStation Studios. Makers of Ratchet & Clank, Insomniac were well-versed with platforming and brilliant environments, and what better way was there for Insomniac to create even more well-versed platforming and brilliant environments than with the Spider-Man series?

Up until the point of Spider-Man 1 (in the context of the PS4 game, not the movie), Insomniac were only accustomed to making original properties, and they had just finished Sunset Overdrive, ironically an Xbox exclusive, by the time they were offered the opportunity to create a Marvel game for Sony. I know I’m here explaining the premise of Spider-Man 1’s development, but I find it imperative to discuss in relation to the development of Miles Morales, I apologize!
 

Essentially, Insomniac were granted the ability to create an original story based on any Marvel character, but Insomniac went ahead with Spider-Man, and thus began a development cycle that would conclude in 2018, with one of the hallmark games of the PS4 generation; Marvel’s Spider-Man. With the instant success of the game, it was apparent that they couldn’t let this opportunity go to waste, and thus they began development on Miles Morales.
 

Shortly after Spider-Man 1 released in 2018, Miles as a character had received a lot of recognition through the portrayal as a character in the Sony film; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and it definitely had great timing, as it allowed the general population to become more aware of him before getting his own game! But who IS Miles? He made an appearance in Spider-Man 1, but who actually is he? As it turns out, Miles was created a decade ago in 2011 as another version of Spider-Man, with the approval of Stan Lee. Insomniac saw to include him in Spider-Man 1 to fit the originality they were aiming for, and alongside his movie appearance, a sequel with his as the protagonist was becoming more and more apparent.

Not gonna lie, when I saw the announcement of Miles Morales, I couldn’t believe the announcement of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart either. I never would’ve thought that Insomniac would be working on two big games at the same time!  As it turns out, this is because Miles Morales is of sorts a prologue to Spider-Man 2, which I’ll get more into later.
 

As for the music, it features some of the orchestral tone of Spider-Man 1 seeing as composer John Paesano made a reappearance in this game's development, filling in the mantle of the composer of Miles Morales.To fit this new hero's lifestyle, the music sees a blend of hip-hop beats (partly in relation to story significance which I'll discuss later). Take the theme of Miles Morales himself, "This is my Time", which best represents the theme of the overall game:
 

As for the more orchestral side of things, you've got the fast-paced rhythm of chase scenes, to the care-free string ensemble reflecting the excitement of being a new Spider-Man in Harlem. Each track serves a cinematic purpose within the cutscenes of the game, and diegetically. Music always plays a large part in shaping the theming and tone of a game, and this OST does its job well, resembling not only the dangers Miles faces on his first solo journey, but also the emphasis on adventure as well. Here's the entire OST if you wanna look at some of the songs, it's pretty good stuff:
 

 

Story (SPOILERS):
 

Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a game that takes place as an act between Spider-Man 1 and the upcoming Spider-Man 2, and sees Harlem’s sciencey kid, Miles, adjust to his new shift from Brooklyn. Or… as we Australian folk call him, Kilometres Morales. Get it? Because we use kilometres instead of… yeah yeah, I’ll shut up now.
 

Stories typically comprise of a three-act structure, and Miles’ arc definitely feels like one act of an overall story, comparable to that of one of the DLC packs in Spider-Man 1. However, despite it’s short length, it offers a great story that sits on a comfy chair right next to it’s predecessor. But enough of a brief synopsis, let’s get into the meaty stuff… The story, that is. Not cooking up any Gordon Ramsay specials today, unfortunately.

After the events of the first game, Miles had been bitten by a mysterious spider that granted him bizarre abilities… There was only one person Miles could talk to, and that just so happened to be Peter Parker, New York’s Spider-Man… the only Spider-Man at that point. After being accustomed to his powers over a long trek of training and honing his abilities with Peter, it was time for him to take a stand and protect the people he cared about in Harlem. Miles had been living in Brooklyn for his life, but after the death of his father (Jeff Davis) at the City Hall due to Martin Li’s meddling as the enigmatic Mister Negative in the first game, Miles was left unsure if he could fill his father’s mantle as a saviour and protector, even despite his newly gained powers. Add this to the general woes of a teenager, and Miles was in quite the self-doubting conundrum.
 

With Miles being in the same new shoes as Peter Parker, the once only Spider-Man, it’s taken a toll on his confidence as a once bustling street kid (which he still is, but when you’re given godlike super-strength and durable arms that can sling you across buildings faster than speeding criminals, life will justifiably have a new twist).
 

However, things were starting to look up as Miles would begin the real deal; no more training, time to finally help the people as a Spider-Man! Miles was on duty with Peter as a Spider-Man duo, onlooking a police convoy containing prisoners of the Raft, a highly secured prison base with reservations for only the most esteemed guests; the worst and most brutal criminals to ever walk the streets of New York. One of these individuals happened to be none other than Rhino, one of the villains from the first game, and a man who hates wild goose chases, or “THE CHASE OF GOOSE!!!!” as he would put it.  Truly, he’s a gentleman of very esteemed words. What a nice chap, eh? A suave man.
 

In trying to secure an imprisoned and savagely angry man eager for bloodlust and revenge in his cage, Miles accidentally lets loose of him, and Rhino is free at last… alongside all the other Raft goons.
 

After a brief strife with the Raft prisoners, Peter fills in, and Miles sets his sights for Rhino; as Miles zips and slings onto Rhino’s back in an attempt to stop him for good, he’s set on a wild ride courtesy of Rhino through the Christmas-themed halls of the Harlem mall, leaving devastation in their wake, leading to an old warehouse under the property of “Roxxon.” Peter joins in, but is quickly defeated, and Miles fights back, despite Peter’s injuries. This is an aspect of Miles that I like quite a lot, similarly to Peter; they never give up, as cliched as that sounds. I think it really works in Miles’ shoes especially in part due to the death of his father, Jeff, who gave his life pushing away a suicide bomber at the City Hall; Miles was willing to risk his life for Peter in the same vein as his father risked his life. Even through the trauma of losing a loved one who did good in their life, it won’t stop them from doing good either, even if it means they’re also at risk.
 

But how does Miles stop Rhino if Peter couldn’t, you ask? See, the spider that Miles was bitten by was in fact property of Oscorp; Norman had been developing a spider to gain his own powers, and this newly engineered spider granted Miles the power of bioelectricity! This, in turn, opens up to some cool gameplay features which I’ll get into later, but I digress. Back to the story!
 

After an exhausting night, Peter announces that he’ll be going on vacation… but with Rhino taken care of, it shouldn’t be that bad that he’ll be gone, right? There’s no way there’ll be a civil war between an upcoming gang that wants to dethrone Fisk and Martin Li’s peak dominance, against a company that uses the guise of eco-friendly motives as a red herring to establish private properties throughout Harlem to become a looming force? No way. That could never happen.
 

But… it does happen. Oh, it happens. It happens happeningly in a happenous matter. So happeningly in fact, that a lot of the words in that last sentence aren’t even real words. That’s how dangerously it happens.
 

Happens. Sorry, just wanted to throw that in one more time. It’s a good word, isn’t it? Happ—Okay, I’ll stop beating the clearly dead horse.
 

As Miles returns home, he’s met by his mother, Rio Morales, an up-and-coming political candidate who wishes to become the mayor, and to establish her goals, she opposes Roxxon, the same company that owned the warehouse in the CHASE OF GOOSE with Rhino. Alongside Miles’ mother is Ganke, his tec-savvy friend who’s conveniently staying over for the next few weeks, and he’s a master of hacking and technology. In the game, it’s the festive time of year, Christmas, and there’s no better way to cherish that holiday spirit than with a good friend by your side, and that’s just the thing Miles needs as he takes the mantle of the new Spider-Man.
 

Another special guest just so happens to arrive, Phin Mason, a long-time best friend of Miles who collaborated on a special scientific project that won an award at a museum; the two were geniuses for their age, but in moving to a different school, the two slowly drifted apart. But, with Christmas in the air, it was the perfect time to catch up. Phin’s brother, Rick Mason, was noticeably absent, however…
 

On the following day, Ganke had set up an application that would let users directly link their problems to Spider-Man, and Miles was eager to use the afternoon to help people with their daily issues; one happened to be from none other than Miles’ uncle, Aaron Davis, who requests help realigning trains at the train station, alongside stopping a hijacker who was manipulating the frequencies of the network, who was part of a mysterious gang… After returning to Davis, more members of this gang arrive with explosives, but Miles puts a stop to it with his newfound powers. As he returned to Aaron, he was already aware of Miles’ identity (most likely due to recognizing his voice, I’d assume), and gifts him a free unlimited subway pass, a convenient reason for fast travelling in the game! But Aaron’s awareness of Miles’ identity would play an important part, later.
 

During the night, Rio is set to give a speech to the people of Harlem, but the citizens are interrupted by the broadcast of a cloaked individual, masked not only physically, but also audibly through a vocal modifier… This individual is the Tinkerer, the leader of a rising gang known as the Underground, who were set on being Harlem’s next top dogs. As Miles suits up to stop the interference of this new opposing force, it leads to a tense battle on a bridge, as the Tinkerer has held their sights on a truck belonging to Roxxon, filled with containers of a strange energy. As Miles, suited up as Spider-Man, attempts to stop the conflict after the Tinkerer grabbed onto a container, he latches on to retrieve it from their possession, but Miles’ bioelectricity instinctually activates, distorting the Tinkerer’s mask and revealing their identity, who just so happens to be Phin. In the strife, he’s flung by Phin into the Roxxon truck, filled with more of the containers. Miles was still new to his powers, and his bioelectrically unconsciously activated again, igniting the containers, and setting the bridge ablaze, but not before the Tinkerer managed to escape with one of them in her possession. This energy would be known as “Nuform”, the supposed eco-friendly energy source that could power Harlem, as touted by Roxxon’s CEO, Simon Krieger.
 

As the bridge starts collapsing, Miles scurries across the bridge to save every civilian, with some just in time. As he consoles the victims to ensure they’re in good condition, a group of Roxxon guards appear, but they’re not here to see to Miles’ safety; they’ve got their guns pointed on him, ready to accuse him of the whole fiasco. In an attempt to escape, Mile’s manages to completely camouflage himself, and he makes his getaway.  
 

With the Tinkerer’s identity revealed and a lead on his hands, Miles is unsure of calling Phin directly, and instead takes the sleuthing route; heading into an old shop owned by the aforementioned Rick Mason. With a secret passageway discovered, Miles uncovers old files of Rick in a poor condition, with Phin declaring an operation to be held at a Roxxon facility… Determined to find the truth, Miles makes his way to the base, and runs into a cloaked figure, the Prowler, a thief that Miles’ father, Jeff Davis, dedicated a part of his police career into investigating. The Prowler turns out to be none other than Aaron Davis himself, brother of Jeff and uncle to Miles. As the two team up, Miles retrieves Phin’s phone, and it plays a horrific video of Rick wanting to put the Nuform generators to an end, as they radiated harmful energy that would severely injure and even kill the residents of Harlem, as it was slowly happening to Rick himself. With two people needed for the shutdown, Rick directly stops the link to the Nuform generator, but is locked within a radius of it due to an interference by Simon Krieger, hellbent on keeping it active. With Rick locked inside as the generator starts combusting, Phin can do nothing but look as her brother is caught in the electric explosion.
 

I think Rick’s death is an interesting parallel to Jeff’s death, in which Phin was powerless just as Miles once was, as they both couldn’t do anything to save them. In so, they both gain powers in an attempt to do what’s right, but what separates Phin as the Tinkerer being in the moral grey as opposed to Miles as Spider-Man as a hero is that Miles doesn’t bend to the will of criminality to do what’s right; in honouring his father’s legacy, he wants to do good just as Jeff once did, whereas Phin’s ideal of doing good is more so related to taking revenge against Roxxon. Both seek vigilante justice, but Miles attempts to achieve justice with the help of the police (such as catching criminals in car chases and letting the police handle the rest), where as Phin becomes a criminal herself to achieve a greater good. I find this to be pretty good writing as Phin isn’t just some random gang goon, she’s someone who wants to do good like Miles, but her insistence on revenge muddles her once cognitive genius and aims to solve matters no matter the cost; it’s a moral grey area, not just a black and white good and bad scenario. What I think lends to this idea of vigilante justice is that Phin didn’t initially want to be the Tinkerer; her entire goal was to record shutting down the generator and having Rick be a primary witness as a collaborator on the Nuform project to showcase the damage it could do (Rick never wanted Nuform to hurt people, but seeing what it did to himself, he also wanted to stop it to make sure citizens wouldn’t be subjected to it). Her initial interest was to show to the world in a purely journalistic format the danger of Nuform; only upon Rick’s death did she turn to crime to achieve her sense of revenge under vigilantism.
 

As Miles uses his bioelectricity to absorb the power of the Nuform generator, he faces the ultimatum of releasing it as to not severely hurt his body, but this not only damages the Roxxon base; it consequently destroys the phone with evidence that could’ve stopped Simon Krieger, and thus achieve the justice that Phin initially wanted. With his explosion of energy, the Roxxon base is on full alert, and he manages to escape with the assistance of the Prowler.
 

As the two escape, Miles ponders on the idea of revealing to Phin his identity, but Aaron tells him to keep his identity a secret, otherwise he could potentially break their friendship, just as Aaron fell apart with his brother after revealing his life as the Prowler. With this in mind, Miles approaches Phin as himself, and talks about discovering the initial videos left at Rick’s store, and requests to join the Underground. After a trial of casually jumping from a crane onto a building and avoiding plummeting to a gruesome death (the usual teenager stuff), he successfully joins the crew, and Miles does some double-agent work of viewing the Underground base for clues on the location of the Nuform container that Phin took. The Undeground base happened to be Fisk Tower, and the Underground had taken over as a show of authority.
 

As Miles, now suited up as Spider-Man, goes into the inner depths of the base, he camouflages himself and eavesdrops on Phin’s conversation with some goons; she was keen on destroying Roxxon Plaza by destroying the Nuform generator, with the help of discovering the properties of Nuform with her stolen container. In a bid to stop her plan, Miles heads to the location of the stolen Nuform, but is intercepted by the Underground once again, and the Tinkerer escapes. Following an anxious chase with the Tinkerer, Miles is left out of options as he’s pinned down with a sword against his throat, and he unmasks himself; his identity as Spider-Man is revealed to Phin.
 

Distraught that Miles had lied to Phin, he’s left alone. His mother, Rio, isn’t aware of his identity, and he doesn’t want her to stress out, so he turns to Uncle Aaron for support. After telling Aaron that he’s stressed out with everything, he tells him to make a mixtape.

Okay, this would SEEM like bad writing, “Make my banger mixtape” isn’t seemingly the best response to a teenager’s woes, but believe me, it actually works here. Why, you ask? See, Jeff and Davis, before their falling out, loved to roam the streets and use the sounds of Harlem to make music. It was one of their best experiences as brothers, and upon moving on in life and especially in part to Jeff’s death, Aaron had been alone just as Miles had. In Miles making music, he reconnected with a sense of family, and his father again. He couldn’t tell his mother about his Spider-Man problems, so connecting with Aaron was his only way to move forward. In this, Miles realizes he’s no longer alone, and he has a purpose; to be connected with not only his family, but to protect Harlem.
 

It sounds preachy, but the power of music is a thing that connects people, cultures, and ways of life. It’s a concept that connected the Davis family and kept them together, and being reminded of this sparked a reignited passion for Miles to protect those he loved. Miles tells Aaron that he’ll be meeting with Phin at Trinity Church, and sets off… But not before Aaron phones someone…
 

As Miles reconvenes with Phin at the Trinity Church rooftop to sort out their problems, they’re interrupted by the forces Roxxon. Not only that, but Rhino’s back, and he’s powered up with Roxxon technology; Miles’ bioelectricity won’t work anymore. Roxxon never handed him in to the police, he was now their valuable ally. Powerless, the two are captured, and Krieger frustratingly cannot unmask Miles due to his bioelectricty unconsciously activating upon any threatening touch. In response, he orders his guards to beat Miles, and in a defensive fury, he unleashes a spark of bioelectric energy and sets himself free. The two start their escape, and discover that the Prowler had been working with Roxxon; because Miles had told Aaron that he’d be at Trinity Church with Phin, he told Roxxon of their location so she’d be stopped, but never intended for Miles to be subjected to punishment. The Prowler can’t do much about it; if he sold Krieger out, he’d be in a cell for being involved in Roxxon as well, and with Miles seemingly under their control, he can’t oppose Krieger otherwise Miles would get hurt. “Leverage”, as Krieger puts it.
 

With this discovery, Phin is led to believe that Miles had trapped her, even though it wasn’t his fault. The two don’t have time to dwell on it and discuss it though, as they run into Rhino again. YES INDEED, IT’S TIME FOR ANOTHER CHASE OF GOOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Miles cannot directly attack Rhino due to his new modifications, so he rams Rhino into Roxxon tanks, and flings engines at him to deal damage, with Phin occasionally assisting too. In doing so, Rhino’s modifications start failing, and he’s soon defeated. Phin is tempted to kill him for good, but Miles insists that that’s not the way of justice; as aforementioned, Miles wants to aid the police, and having him be captured is enough. As Miles uses nearby terminals to gather information on Simon to take him down, he discovers that the Nuform generator in Roxxon Plaza is enough to destroy not only the plaza itself, but a majority of Harlem with it, which could potentially kill thousands. As he starts taking this data, Rhino mocks Phin by joking about Rick’s death, infuriating her, and motivating her to kill him. As she stabs him, Miles intervenes and the two are pushed out of the room, before debris covers the way back in for Phin to finish the job. Enraged over Miles lying and believing he trapped her in Roxxon’s base, she threatens Miles to never meddle again, with Miles unable to tell her that her plan would destroy Harlem due to his injuries.
 

As Miles manages to return home in a severe state, Rio discovers him in his suit, and he’s left to tell her the truth; he is Spider-Man. As Miles tells her of everything that’s been happening, she’s keen on protecting the people of Harlem and prepares an evacuation, and Miles looks to his father’s picture with a determination to do what’s right.  
 

Miles discusses with Ganke the subject of Phin’s location, and he pins it down on the Oscorp Science Center; the place where Miles and her had showcased their wining science project. As he suits up and slings his way there, he’s sniped by an unknown force. It’s the Prowler, but he’s not here to hurt Miles. No, he’s here to protect him, but placing him in an underground cell so that he won’t get hurt. Aaron recalls losing his brother, and he doesn’t want to lose Miles, no matter the cost. Miles, however, determined with inheriting his father’s legacy as a hero, isn’t ready to bow down, and the two are caught in an unfortunate battle of ideals; justice with risk, or safety. After the strife, Miles sticks Aaron down with his webs, and heads to the Oscorp Science Center.
 

In a cool flashback sequence, Miles recalls viewing all the gizmos and machines built by the greatest minds of their generation with Phin as they were ready to present their project in the past, even running into Peter Parker for the first time alongside Otto Octavius, Peter’s mentor and fellow scientist. As the flashback ends, Miles finds the Nuform container at the place where their project was presented, but Phin intervenes once again and takes the container, with her eyes set on Roxxon Plaza. Miles is about to tell her of the devastation she’ll unintentionally cause, but he’s interrupted by more Underground goons, and he’s left with no choice but to confront her at the plaza.

As he returns back to the streets of Harlem, he’s met with a war against the Undeground and Roxxon Plaza, with one side hellbent on destroying it, whilst the other was set on preserving it to ensure Simon Krieger’s reign. As Miles, suited up as Spider-Man, takes a stand and puts a stop to the fight, he groups up with some remaining civilians yet to evacuate, alongside his mother who was brave enough to stay in the warzone to help any victims. Suddenly, the Prowler once again appears, with a new ideal; embracing the justice of his brother and letting Miles fulfill his purpose. With a rekindled spirit, Miles heads to the plaza to stop Phin and the damage she’ll cause. Miles attempts to reason with her, but after his lying, she assumes he’s merely bluffing under the belief that Krieger had told him nonsense and continues with her plan. After a struggling clash against the two, the generator starts letting off streams of energy that erupts through the Harlem streets, blatantly outside of Phin’s predicted radius of Roxxon Plaza. After realizing what she’s begun to cause, a bunch of debris sends the two falling next to the generator and leaves them nearly dead.
 

The generator is blazing with energy and is set to explode at any moment, it’s howling blisteringly through the air and causing mayhem. Miles crawls to Phin, and stands up with every bit of his strength, and heads to the generator. For the people of Harlem, for Phin, for his father’s legacy, for Aaron to start a new life, he walks towards the danger. The Nuform energy is distorting his senses, leaving him struggling to merely walk, but he keeps his head held high and makes his way closer, and closer, and closer, to the Nuform. Against the waves of energy, to the debris hurling in his direction, he continues to march on with everything his body can physically muster. At last, he makes direct contact with the generator, and grabs on with all his willpower; he’s willing to absorb all of the generator’s berserk energy if it means protecting anyone, letting out a desperate, yet defiantly brave scream.
 

With the streams of energy coursing through his body, it’s apparent that he can’t keep it held in. As Rio and other onlookers approach the generator to inspect what’s happened, Phin gathers the energy to stand up. Having studied the power of Nuform, even she’s aware that Miles can’t keep it held forever, and with her technology equipped, picks up Miles and runs up the plaza’s main tower to hurl them both into the sky for Miles to let out the wild energy, holding Miles in a final embrace in the sky.  
 

Miles falls back to the ground with Phin nowhere to be seen. His mother runs to him, not ready to lose another close one, but is ecstatic to see him still alive, and proud of what he’s done; he’s fulfilled the legacy of his father who once protected Harlem before him. The first words that Miles can muster is if everyone is alright, and his distraught over Phin’s sacrifice, again emphasizing his concern over others.

The onlooking citizens, despite now knowing his identity, return his mask, and upon the quick arrival of journalists eager to know who Spider-Man truly is, an interviewed person states; “He’s our Spider-Man.” Four weeks later, Krieger is arrested after his involvement with Roxxon goes public, alongside their push of Nuform despite the dangers, and Miles roams the streets of Harlem once again.

 

And that puts a close to the story. This story section is already 4000+ words, making it longer than any of my previous reviews with all their sections! Man, the story of Miles and his journey through Harlem was awesome. It was brief compared to its predecessor, but damn was it awesome. It’s definitely an incredible game, and if this is the stuff that Insomniac is creating, then I can’t wait for what they’ll have next in store!

 

Gameplay:

 

The gameplay for Miles Morales features the same fun web slinging and zipping around like it’s predecessor, Marvel’s Spider-Man, with the usage of R2 trigger, alongside both triggers to directly zip to one point, in which you’ve got a brief period to press X to jump whilst maintaining your momentum which allows for some pin-point accuracy as you sling through Harlem. This very brief overview of web slinging sincerely cannot do it justice; both Spider-Man 1 and Miles Morales handle web slinging so perfectly, it’s so fun just booting up the game just to do this!
 

But how exactly does Miles Morales separate itself from Spider-Man 1? Well, that bioelectric power that Miles had been accustomed to is known as “Venom”, akin to the venom of spiders in part to the sting that Miles can leave in his wake. You’ve got tons of usages for this ability in combat, such as directly striking one enemy via the Venom Punch with L1 + Square, which can leave them electrified in which additional melee attacks will deal more damage. If you need to quickly get away from a wave of enemies, you can utilise the Venom Dash via L1 + Triangle to run through anything in your path, alongside the Venom Jump (L1 + X), which allows you to spring into the air alongside any enemy within your radius, allowing you to initiate air combat and leave everyone electrified for more damage.
 

The venom energy exhausts a meter, and you gain it back by dealing damage, so if you time your venom jumps, you can bring a TON of enemies in the air and do enough damage to perform ANOTHER venom jump and repeat the process. It’s sick to have these options at your disposal.
If that doesn’t satisfy you, you’ve got the explosive Mega Venom Blast (L1 + Circle + Triangle), which allows Miles to violently release his stored energy, stopping anything in his past, with a huge cost of the venom meter, best used as a last resort.
 

And the best part? You can chain these together. Have a bunch of goons with particularly strong one? Venom Punch the big one and immediately venom jump to continue your combo and then deal damage mid-air against the other enemies and gain back your venom meter to chain into other combos.
 

How do you deal other combos? We’re at the tip of the iceberg, because that’s ONLY the venom powers; you’ve also got the ability to sling any nearby object around you as an additional crowd-control tactic, alongside slinging weapons that enemies may have, and throwing it right back at them, leaving them defenseless.
 

You’ve got suit upgrades at your disposal, allowing you to camouflage mid-combat to initiate stealth combat, as you slowly approach enemies from behind to deal an instant defeat on unsuspecting foes, you’ve got the ability to sneak from ceilings and walls above and web enemies to them, you’ve got holograms that deal damage for you, deployable mines that electrocute within a small radius, gravity mines that can pull enemies into one spot which you can chain into a venom jump that’ll take advantage of everyone being caught within the attack. If you’re in a pinch, you can use your Venom meter to instead heal back some HP by pressing down on the D-Pad to restore health, prioritizing defence when it’s best suited for you. You can scan the environment to seek out enemies with R3 if you’re in stealth, and you can use the Triangle button to web up enemies and melee them into walls to leave them stuck that way.
 

You can also time the dodge button (Circle) at the perfect moment to web up an enemy, and you can gain the ability to instantly defeat an opponent with a perfect dodge, rewarding risky gameplay. With all this, you can even web sling around in battle as you can anywhere else.

The options in Miles’ gameplay are very diverse, and there’s a ton of tools at your disposal, leaving a unique sense of gameplay that Spider-Man 1 didn’t offer. It’s cool to see Insomniac shake up the formula with Miles’ venom ability!

To showcase these abilities even more, Peter Parker has set up stations across Harlem in which you can individually test out each of Miles' abilities, from slinging through hoops to test your agility, to full-on battle simulations, alongside stealth situations in which you rescue hostages without being seen at all, you've got to put each ability to the test.

Difficulty: 4.5/10 (If not being played on the easiest difficulty)
Enjoyment: 9/10

 

 

Dude this is such a long review, but some how I read the whole thing.

Must be cus you have outstanding writing skills.

Your good dude, too damn good at this.

 

[Shrooba]

2 hours ago, Wild-Arms-R said:

Dude this is such a long review, but some how I read the whole thing.

Must be cus you have outstanding writing skills.

Your good dude, too damn good at this.

 

Thanks, it took a while to write it but I'm glad you like it! ?
I'm here spending ages writing one long review, and then you've got @DrBloodmoney talking in-depth about multiple games at once! ? It definitely takes a lot of time and consideration to write about multiple games at the same time!

As a side note, I've got another review planned for tomorrow, on Sonic Colours: Ultimate. Needless to say, this'll probably be my first not positive review! ?
I completed the game before Miles Morales, but I wanted to start with a good note, so that's why I did the Miles review first, also since it was the poll winner last time!

[Arcesius]

I can't say that I'm usually interested in Spider-Man, but I read the entire thing and holy hell was it entertaining!  Just took a while to read everything, hence the delayed answer ?

 

I'm glad that you decided to talk about the story... Really seems to be the star of the show for you, and it shows! Usually most people simply talk about the gameplay, which seems to be solid in all Spider-Man games by insomniac so far... 

 

What I heard about the first game is that it becomes a bit repetitive with time... Does the shorter nature of the Miles Morales entry solve the issue of repetition? 

 

Nice write-up for sure  

 

 

P.S: The bug with the spoiler-brackets happens quite often.. Whenever I use one I always check if it works for me, and edit the post if it doesn't.. It's weird and annoying, but the spoiler warning was more than visible here ?

Edited October 1, 2021 by Arcesius

[Shrooba]

3 hours ago, Arcesius said:

What I heard about the first game is that it becomes a bit repetitive with time... Does the shorter nature of the Miles Morales entry solve the issue of repetition? 

 

Nice write-up for sure

Thanks!
When it comes to repetition in the Spider-Man games, I'd personally say it's more so when it comes to raiding enemy bases (Roxxon Bases and Underground Hideouts in Miles); essentially it's just beating a certain amount of enemies and accomplishing the same tasks. But even then, you can approach each fight differently; you can take the stealthy route and beat every enemy without been seen, or just going in guns blazing (not literally as Miles doesn't shoot people! ? But you get the idea).

When it comes to the campaign for Miles Morales, usually when you're engaged in story missions, key characters often communicate with you; not just random orders, but actual dialogue which is pretty cool. They don't repeat the same quotes over and over; it's all stuff that relates to what you're doing and their own thoughts etc. It's sort of the same philosophy as Valve games where cutscenes are integrated within the gameplay.

That being said, you're required to do NG+, so you have to do everything a second time. Granted, in the case of Miles Morales, it isn't that long since it's a shorter story.
Where as with Spider-Man 1, you've also got the DLC packs as well, so I think that's where the notion of repetition comes from, but they've got great storylines too.

Given that you're doing Sine Mora EX at the moment, the Spider-Man games are nice to unwind with, so they're some good games to chill out with once you're done with that! And you will get it done mate. You've pulled off some killer games, so you'll get it done. ? Seeing as it was a game you were intimidated by at first, just starting it is always the big step. Starting hard games is like first dipping into a pool; it's cold at first and you may be hesitant, but once you take the plunge, you adapt... Now if only I could convince myself of this! ?  

Edited October 1, 2021 by Shrooba

[Wild-Arms-R]

11 hours ago, Shrooba said:

Thanks, it took a while to write it but I'm glad you like it!
I'm here spending ages writing one long review, and then you've got @DrBloodmoney talking in-depth about multiple games at once!  It definitely takes a lot of time and consideration to write about multiple games at the same time!

As a side note, I've got another review planned for tomorrow, on Sonic Colours: Ultimate. Needless to say, this'll probably be my first not positive review!
I completed the game before Miles Morales, but I wanted to start with a good note, so that's why I did the Miles review first, also since it was the poll winner last time!

I’m a little curious hear what someone who actually understands gaming thinks about the game.

I recently 100% the game and while a good overall Sonic game. I think it may just be slightly overrated by its fan base…or underrated. 
Idk the Sonic Fandom is kinda bipolar and hard to please at times.

Edited October 1, 2021 by Wild-Arms-R

[Grotz99]

After reading about the feedback about the Miles Morales review, makes me want to play it sooner just so I can come back and read your review.

[Shrooba]

18 hours ago, Wild-Arms-R said:

I’m a little curious hear what someone who actually understands gaming thinks about the game.

I recently 100% the game and while a good overall Sonic game. I think it may just be slightly overrated by its fan base…or underrated. 
Idk the Sonic Fandom is kinda bipolar and hard to please at times.

I'll have my review posted right now, so I do hope you'll like it! ?
 

18 hours ago, Grotz99 said:

After reading about the feedback about the Miles Morales review, makes me want to play it sooner just so I can come back and read your review.

It's a really good game for sure, Insomniac have been on a roll lately! Definitely good to pick up and check out. Looking through your trophy list, I see you've got a PS5, so that's a great console to try it out on!
 

Completion #64
Sonic Colours: Ultimate - 8th September 2021
Completion time: 1 day, 10 hours


Time for another review! A solid week and a bit without anything, and we get two relatively back-to-back with Miles and this!
 

Sonic Colours as a game is actually rather simple; the story essentially boils down to “Sonic and Tails are at Eggman’s Interstellar Amusement Park and need to save these alien creatures called the Wisps by shutting down evil mind-controlling generators.” That’s the whole game. Regardless, I’ll still have a dedicated story section because I think it’s still worth talking about each planet in the game. Despite all the rave and hype when this game first came out in 2010, I don’t think this is as great as Unleashed, but credit where it’s due, this game has some genuinely very creative level premises (I say premises, because the level designs in question leaves MUCH to be desired unfortunately), and is the last Sonic Team (developers of the mainline Sonic games) game to ONLY feature original stages. Yep, it’s been 11 years since of 3D Sonic games rehashing old levels, even something that Mania did. I actually quite like the original Sonic Colours on the Wii.
 

And only one of the 3D Sonic games in the past decade is good, being Generations. Colours was good for it’s time, but that falls just out of the decade bracket having been a 2010 game, so Generations is the last one from 2011-2021. Lost World was mediocre, and Forces was disrespectfully mediocre. If Sonic Forces were a person, it’d be the kind to pay off hundreds of dollars of rent exclusively with five-cent coins.
 

When it comes to Sonic Colours: Ultimate however… I feel a bit of disappointment. I never would’ve thought they’d mess up a WII REMASTER for the PS4, running on a PS5. Never in my wildest dreams would I have anticipated this, and I’ve seen Sonic hit some lows.

I decided to hold off on my review for this game to see if they’d patch out anything, but they only released one minor update that doesn’t fix anything prominent on the PS4 version (but there WERE, oh I don’t know, just major seizure glitches on the Switch version that could be a danger to any kids playing the blue hedgehog game). Having been nearly a month now, I’ve figured it’s time to start writing this thing. It’s Sega’s fault for letting yet another rushed Sonic game get released, and this is the third strike; it happened with Sonic 06, then Sonic Boom, now this. Sonic Forces at the very least was not a glitchy game, but this is, and I’ll get to that in the gameplay section of the review.

When they finally patch the PS4 version, I may do another playthrough and add any additional thoughts.

After all that said, I do promise that I like the blue blur! ?

I was initially going to do a separate section for the game’s development as I usually do, but I find it imperative to discuss in relation to the gameplay, so it’ll be discussed there. But that brings us right to the music! 

Music:

Sonic Colours’ music was composed by series veteran Tomoya Ohtani. Having worked on Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic 06 and Sonic Unleashed, Ohtani was well versed with Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic Colours’ soundtrack is quite diverse to account for the different premises introduced through the game’s main worlds, Tropical Resort, Sweet Mountain, Starlight Carnival, Planet Wisp, Aquarium Park, Asteroid Coaster, and Terminal Velocity respectively. There’s additionally Eggman’s simulation area featuring retro mixes of each main track when unlocking the Chaos Emeralds for Super Sonic. 

I’ll have a lot to criticize for Sonic Colours: Ultimate, but one point I’ll always stand by is that Colours is a very original game with brilliant premises. Tropical Resort features a sweet guitar rhythm signifying the fun adventure of Eggman’s resort before discovering the true nature of his plans, Sweet Mountain features incredibly bombastic brass sections telling of the food wonderland around Sonic. Starlight Carnival’s music features whimsical synths of the spatial trek across the conglomerate of gigantic ships with shiny interiors. Aquarium Park’s music features a soothing piano and pays attention to the Asian underwater scenery. Asteroid Coaster’s music contains a blazing guitar as Sonic travels across the dangerous unfinished rollercoasters and hidden depths of Eggman’s wisp factory. Lastly is Terminal Velocity, another rock track as Sonic runs through a space station as he runs against pursuing robots of Eggman’s army, with the second act fitting of chasing a blackhole. Did I mention that the main tracks from act 1 of each area also receive remixes for the following acts? It’s a cool shake to what’s presented and there’s a ton of musical variety. Tomoya Ohtani is an excellent composer. One of the best Sonic OST’s! Sonic music almost never disappoints. ?

Sonic Colours: Ultimate features new remixes of the tracks, and while some are really good, there’s the weird sore thumb; Sweet Mountain’s music. The once organic brass is now changed to a more synthetic replacement and inclusion of piano rather than relishing in the bombastic brass, but the rest of the remixes are all good, albeit some don't work within the context of the level.

Take the changes to Planet Wisp’s music, which once had a blissful piano melody as you ran through the untouched forests that Eggman’s factories hadn’t tarnished yet from this:

Into this:
 

I won’t lie, the remix is still really good music on its own and does sound pretty awesome. However, it just doesn’t fit the context of the beginning of the level. I’ll go into Planet Wisp’s music a lot more in the story section however, as the level design of Planet Wisp has some fantastic visual storytelling, with the music being a fantastic boost to that. 

So overall, the Sonic Colours soundtrack is awesome, and some of the remixes apart from Sweet Mountain’s music are also pretty good! While Planet Wisp's new remix isn't fitting, it's still great music on it's own.
 

Story:

 

So how does the game begin, you ask? Well, it’s akin to Sonic 1 and 2, in which you begin immediately with gameplay; it’s even got the same act to act structure. You start off on Tropical Resort, the entrance to Dr. Eggman’s Interstellar Amusement Park, a theme-park in outer space. I won’t ask how anyone in space would be able to breathe, that’s a can of worms too bodacious for our moustached doctor to delve into. I’ll chalk it up to space canonically being breathable in the Sonic universe. It’s revealed that Sonic and Tails made it to the resort since Eggman had built a giant elevator from Earth all the way into space. Very convenient, eh?
 

As Sonic roams the resort, he stumbles across two robotic figures, Orbot and Cubot. You’ll find this very hard to believe, but Orbot and Cubot are shaped like an orb and cube respectively. I know, I know. You can refrain from your shocked gasps, it’s really true. Bloody insane, isn’t it?

And what do these two fine gentlemen happen to be doing, you ask? Oh, just standard run-of-the-mill resort cleaning procedures; capturing escaped colourful aliens for totally not dubious purposes.
 

Luckily for them, Sonic is the fastest thing in existence, and saving the aliens is no problem for him.
As Sonic wonders what’s happening, the cyan-coloured wisp he just saved suddenly fuses with Sonic’s body and sends him shooting at blistering speeds across the park. After the absolutely traumatic experience of having a foreign creature fuse with his body without warning and shooting him at high altitudes against his will, the cyan wisp teleports Sonic right in front of Tails and exits his body. As Sonic returns, Tails announces that he’s working on a strange gizmo that can hopefully communicate and translate dialogue between them and the alien creatures. As Tails asks where Sonic was, Sonic responds by talking about the strange things with the aliens (the thing that just happened right in front of Tails), in which he then responds by saying that he finds it hard to believe… even though it just happened right in front of him.

 

Tails is meant to be a smart character, so surely, he’d realise something that just played out right next to him. But I digress…

With the realization that capturing these little critters is obviously not good, Sonic and Tails started catching on to Eggman’s scheme, and speak of the devil, the next cutscene goes right to Eggman’s perspective, as he counts vials of gigantic capsules containing the aliens, displeased with the short stock at hand.
 

As Orbot asks if Eggman wants him to get more, he sarcastically replies by asking for a cheeseburger and a shake, in which Cubot declares enthusiastically that catching a cheeseburger would be substantially easier. Which is objectively true; getting a cheeseburger is much easier than capturing cognitive and conscious living beings fighting for their lives, so I gotta hand it to Cubot for this one. ?
 

As the robots leave, Eggman declares that he’ll manipulate their “Hyper-go-on” powers to his advantage, which we’ll see happen later. While frolicking in his own genius, Sonic is seen standing by, ready to foil another plan. In retaliation, Eggman sends out “the Big Boy” (yes, only the first boss is called this, not the final boss unfortunately as mind-shatteringly awesome as that would be).
And what is the Big Boy, you ask? It’s a giant ferris wheel with arms and a giant eye which totally isn’t its weak spot. ?
 

After the Big Boy was unfortunately beaten in a rather short battle (rest in peace, you absolute legend), Sonic meets up with Tails who’s been continuing his progress on his translating device. After finding that it’s rather inaccurate, they can at least decipher that the blue wisp that’s been following Tails is named “Yacker”, and that he’s from an alien race called the “wisps”. With the resolve to save them all, they set off to one of two planets: Sweet Mountain, or Starlight Carnival. Interestingly, the order these cutscenes is the same irrespective of which planet you choose first, but the scenery changes, which is actually a really cool touch to account for being able to approach the order of planets differently, while still making the story cohesive.
 

Besides that, Orbot and Cubot are seen cleaning up the remains of the Big Boy (it’s actually kind of morbid when you consider the morality of a robot sweeping up the remains of a fellow robot, but I digress ?), and THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: one of the pieces of the Big Boy is lodged in a giant contraption connecting the theme park to Earth, emitting a mysterious purple energy…

The two decisions Sonic has to explore, being Sweet Mountain and Starlight Carnival, are two planets in which one is entirely covered with confectionaries and candy, with giant explosive rockets filled with jelly beans, a mountain with a giant burger on top of it, and candy canes that Sonic can swing across. Starlight Carnival on the other hand isn’t necessarily a “planet”, but more so a conglomerate of giant spaceships, presumably part of Eggman’s fleet, with disco-themed interiors.

As Sonic makes his way through either area, he stumbles across a strange machine emitting purple waves, and after a strife with a guarding robotic boss, the machine shuts down. Sonic declares this action as the “BBBE”, or “Best Boss Beating Ever”. He said it, not me. With Tails rightly unenthused with this remark, Sonic asks if Yacker’s given any updates on the situation, and Tails talks about the aforementioned “Hyper-go-on” energy that Eggman monologued earlier. It’s essentially what allows the wisps to fuse with Sonic and grant him temporary abilities.

Importantly, Sonic refers to it as a battery, with Tails commenting that even that’s an understatement… It seems Eggman is using these wisps as an energy source for an “evil purpose” as the translator describes… but for what? That, my glorious readers, will be discovered later.

And, very unfortunately, comes one of the most infamous lines in the entire series from Tails’ translator; Baldy McNosehair. What is this, you may ask? It’s a “TOTALLY FUNNY” (in the most fathomably sarcastic quotation marks I’ve ever typed in my entire life) nickname for Eggman. Yes, Dr. Robotnik had been called Eggman since Sonic Adventure 1, but at least that was always his name in the Japanese releases for Sonic games so it made sense… but Baldy McNosehair? Yeesh. Sonic was always meant to be for all ages, not 2-year-olds exclusively. That was the whole premise of Sonic since his debut. But I digress.

With this discovery, Sonic and Tails make a dash for the next planet to shut down another one of these machines, a generator of Hyper-go-on power. As they approach the next one, Eggman is seen hiding behind the generator with two vials of purple energy, and attempts to zap Sonic with his energized beam. Tails, being actually really reliable in this scene to the game’s credit, pushes Sonic out of the way. It’s a small moment but I really do think this is a good moment for Tails; for all he could’ve known, that beam could’ve instantly killed him, yet he was willing to push Sonic out of the way and take the hit.
 

But what does this beam do? As it turns out, it’s a mind-control ray, and Tails is now in Dr. Eggman’s control. As Eggman describes himself, the ray runs purely on hyper-go-on energy. But unfortunately for our doctor, his hyper-go-on supply was quite measly, and Tails is soon lifted from his grasp. This could’ve been the opportunity for a neat boss fight against Tails, but I digress. Right before Eggman gets away, he claims that he’ll gather more energy, and control not just one person, but the entire universe…  

From this point, Sonic beats another boss and shuts down the next generator. From this point, this is essentially what the story is; just going planet to planet and shutting down the next generator. As Sonic and Tails approach the next planet, something is immediately very off… It doesn’t look “complete” by Eggman’s standards. It’s a beautiful homeworld with its waters corrupted with a purple haze, with factories haphazardly built as chainsaws cut down any trace of wildlife. This is the wisp’s homeworld, Planet Wisp. I don’t think Colours is as good as Unleashed, but I really gotta hand it to this game, Planet Wisp is one of the best premises for Sonic in the entire series. Excuse my tangent here, but Sonic has always been about fighting for freedom; the first Sonic game has been about freeing woodland creatures from being turned into robots, and I think the wisps is an interesting modern parallel to that. Only seen previously in Sonic CD, we’ve rarely seen Eggman in the process of taking over a planet. As you begin act 1 of Planet Wisp, you’re met with a gorgeous piano melody as Sonic initially runs through the rustling grass and trees of the homeworld’s forest, before stepping onto the clanky metallic structures that have dominated any trace of nature. Take a look at the first 30 or so seconds of act 1 to see what I mean:
 

I know it’s gameplay, but I think it’s fitting for the story section since visuals tell a story. You’ve got the bombastic and wacky nature of Tropical Resort and Sweet Mountain, but Planet Wisp is the core of Sonic Colours. It’s a beautiful world corrupted by Eggman, and this is some of the best visual story telling of any Sonic game, contained in this one area. I’ve been criticising Sonic Colours quite a bit so far in the review (and I’ve got a lot more to talk about later on in the gameplay section) but this is one of the best beginnings to a Sonic level. It’s a shame a big chunk of the rest of the level is 2D. As featured earlier, Planet Wisp’s remix changes the point of the original track, but it’s a DLC thing anyway, so unless you have that then you still have the original Planet Wisp music, and it’s a very awesome track to supply this moment.
 

But enough of that, let’s get back on track! Sonic’s shut down another generator and has two to go: One is contained within Aquarium Park, a Japanese-themed underwater park with tons of Eggman’s special sushi and robotic fish, alongside Asteroid Coaster, a roller coaster built upon a group of gigantic asteroids and green ooze, filled with containers and capsules which I'll discuss in a second.
 

The generator in Aquarium Park goes smoothly, but something goes awry in Asteroid Coaster… Sonic happens to find the factory where Eggman converts the wisps into purple variants (which can actually be utilised in gameplay as well, which I’ll discuss later), and used for their hyper-go-on energy, transported by containers from the entirety of the area. Tails arrives to the scene and mentions that Yacker has been nowhere to be seen for a while… Determined to free the wisps, Sonic shuts down the final generator.
 

With the generators gone after defeating another giant robot, Tails reports that the locked wisps have been freed since Eggman’s power had been destroyed… It would seem that the corrupted purple wisps was merely a temporary state where they were mind-controlled like Tails, and isn’t a permanent change. The two head back to the resort area and celebrate with the freed wisps, but Eggman’s got one final card up his sleeve. Alongside the elevator ride that took Sonic and Tails to the amusement park is a giant mind-control device…

Remember the Big Boy? Well, as it turns, out, a part of him just so happened to be lodged into that very mind-control machine, and as Eggman attempts to unleash it’s power, the exposure of energy left by the Big Boy renders the machine corrupt, and the energy starts to implode on itself.

Completely baffled at the machine’s backfiring, Eggman sets to deal with Sonic directly. Meanwhile, Sonic and Tails make a mad dash towards the elevator to escape the crumbling theme park. As Sonic runs back, you unlock the final area in the game, Terminal Velocity, the space station that serves as the elevator’s transit route. It’s got some killer music as you run down and dodge robots that chase you down with lasers, alongside getting a cool view of the Tropical Resort and the Earth below. Like I said, credit where the game’s due, it’s got some awesome level premises.

As the two finally make it back to the elevator, Eggman confronts them with a special robot fuelled with the last remnants of his purple energy. Tails shows a bit of hesitance towards fighting, and Sonic decides to shove him into the elevator so he can fight Eggman alone. I get it, gameplay restraints and all so you can have both Sonic and Tails playable for some reason, but this is such a weird moment. Tails’ entire character progression is learning to fend for himself and prove that he can be an equal to Sonic, such as his storyline in Sonic Adventure 1 describes, so seeing this happen really devalues Tails. It’s unfortunate for sure.
 

But regardless, Sonic teams up with each coloured wisp and unleashes an ultimate combined attack on Eggman’s last creation and stops him for good. However, with the mind-control machine still imploding, and with valuable time spent fighting Eggman, Sonic has to run down the rest of Terminal Velocity in act 2 to outrun a literal blackhole. Once again, another awesome premise for a level! Unfortunately, all the levels in Terminal Velocity are autoscrollers, and thus are short setpieces.
 

But that aside, given how large the blackhole has become, even Sonic is unable to outrun the impending doom, but with the rest of the purple wisps being changed back due to all of Eggman’s energy truly being gone, they’re able to team up and safely transport Sonic back to Earth, where he meets up with Tails. He just finished his translation device, and luckily, they find Yacker who managed to survive, and thanks them for saving their planet and their friends. With that, the planets are restored to their original order, Eggman’s amusement park is destroyed, and the world is saved!

A simple story for a Sonic game, but it’s humour leaves a lot to be desired, and Tails was definitely done dirty in the end. Overall, it’s a cool premise for a story that harkens back to the idea of fighting against tyranny, but it’s muddled lines like “Baldy McNosehair” that trivialize the significance and weight of the situation. Not saying humour isn’t allowed in Sonic games, but you need to strike a balance with this sort of thing otherwise it just panders purely to young audiences, when Sonic is meant to be enjoyed by everyone.
 

Gameplay:

 

Next is the gameplay. Ever since Sonic 06, Sonic Team and/or Sega saw to it that the standard gameplay at the time, the adventure formula, had to be shifted for something new to take the series in a new direction. Starting with Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Team decided to stray from the gameplay used in the Adventure games and Sonic 06, and focus on blasting at insane speeds through linear-shaped levels. This would be known as the boost formula, which aimed to emphasize Sonic’s speed to the highest degree the series had ever seen up to this point. First, you’ve got Sonic’s main controls within the environments, such as the standard moving with the thumb stick, circle to stomp, and X to jump. Sonic also has the ability to perform homing attacks on enemies, by pressing X midair, which instantly locks on to any enemy and strikes them. In doing so, you can chain it on not just enemies, but anything that can be targeted (such as regular springs or the asteroids in Asteroid Coaster). Essentially the standard gameplay of the boost formula. Sonic Colours: Ultimate specifically was handled by Blind Squirrel Games, as Sonic Team is busy working on their next big game.
 

However, the main gimmick of Sonic Colours are the “Wisps”, intergalactic aliens that Sonic can temporarily absorb to gain special abilities as explained by the story.
 

You’ve got a plethora of wisps, such as:
 

The standard light-blue wisp, which fills your boost gauge. What’s interesting about the boost (and an actual awesome feature in Sonic Colours: Ultimate specifically, credit where it’s due) is that if you time your homing attacks, your boost gauge actually fills in small increments, allowing you to boost longer than you usually could in the original Sonic Colours as you don’t need to just rely on the wisps to boost anymore.
 

The cyan-coloured laser wisp, which lets you to aim in which direction you’ll zip to, allowing you to ricochet off walls in diagonal lines, and hitting special cyan diamonds which can transport you to exclusive areas with the cyan wisp. You’ve also got these weird corkscrews that you can laser through to move underground as well.
 

The yellow-coloured drill wisp, which allows you to drill underground at either a steady pace, or at an increased speed to find hidden collectibles and passageways.
 

The green-coloured hover wisp which lets you fly mid-air and dash across a trail of rings (essentially the light-speed dash of this game).
 

The orange-coloured rocket wisp, which similarly to the hover wisp is a mid-air-based wisp, but it shoots you at an alarming rate into the air, in which Sonic enters a brief period of gliding down, either at a controlled slow descent or a fast dive.
 

The purple-coloured frenzy wisp, which can absolutely destroy everything in it’s path by eating objects; the more it devours, the larger (albeit slower) it becomes. I’m not sure if it’s intentional, but the frenzy wisp becomes harder to steer the bigger it gets.
 

The pink-coloured spike wisp, which allows Sonic to spindash akin to the classic games, and also stick to ceilings and roll across spikes safely.
 

The blue-coloured cube wisps, which allows any blue rings in the area to turn into solid platforms, letting you to reach new areas. It’s set to a timer, so you need to plan your actions before activating the wisp.

And new to Sonic Colours: Ultimate, a light-green ghost wisp from Team Sonic Racing, which lets you phase through walls and reach exclusive hidden areas for extra rings.

So, how does this game differ from its predecessor in the boost formula, Sonic Unleashed? First and foremost, Sonic Colours was made to supposedly improve upon Sonic Unleashed, being that that game was divided between the daytime stages with the standard boost gameplay, and the night-time stages with brawling Werehog stages akin to God of War. Critics HATED the Werehog, and Sonic Team saw to it that they’d make a game purely of just boost gameplay. While this is great on paper and the Sonic equivalent of the best gosh darn thing since sliced bread, the issue is that each world in Sonic Colours starts strong with a decent length act… followed by another 5 acts of 2D clunky blocky platforming. I’d dare say Colours is a 2D game with 3D setpieces rather than just a proper 3D game. Some of the ONLY levels in Colours to be fully 3D are Terminal Velocity Act 1 and 2, which are purely autoscroller levels and a level in Asteroid Coaster where you're just running in the same circle repeatedly. Granted, Terminal Velocity act 2 being an autoscroller is alright because the point of that level is showcasing Sonic running from the blackhole in a genuinely cool moment, but these being the ONLY purely 3D levels in a game released over a decade after Sonic Adventure 1 which was only 3D is disappointing. To be fair though, this is an overall issue with the boost formula as a concept, as running really fast means you need more time to react, and thus emphasize linear level designs. I'm not biased against the boost formula though, as I love Unleashed; it can work.
 

I suppose there’s some bosses that are technically “only 3D” such as the final boss, but those also autoscroll through one literal path. It actually sucks because like I said earlier, these were some bloody awesome level premises, and it would’ve been brilliant to see the potential realized here, but it relies way too much on 2D. To play the devil’s advocate, even Sonic Unleashed had its fair share of 2D sections, but what played to Unleashed’s cards was that you’d only have a couple story-related daytime stages in each area, and they were fleshed out levels. Granted, Unleashed had some abundantly 2D stages too, but those were bonus content; all the 2D blocky stages in Colours are required to beat the story. What made it advantageous in the case of Unleashed is that if you were to play through the story, every boost stage would be expansive with tons of alternate pathways and secrets. Eggmanland, the final Unleashed level, is a testament to this.

I’ve gotta be fair though; whilst Terminal Velocity is an autoscroller, I can’t help but admit it… it’s a pretty awesome setpiece. It’s such a cool couple levels. It would've been great to see proper 3D moments.

Allow me to clarify, 2D gameplay can work, such as with the original Sonic trilogy, but in the case of Colours, it isn’t level geometry that meshes; you’ve got tons of scenarios where you have to stand on switches and wait agonizingly as platforms and lasers slowly move for you to cross. It’s a stop and go philosophy that goes against the point of learning the level design to your advantage in the other games. Unleashed has moments where you wait for things sometimes, but it's not like you need to stand on switches for it to happen; it just does on it's own.
 

But regardless, I at least had fun with the original game. Sure, it’s not as good as Unleashed, and levels where you wait for platforms to move by pressing switches is a bit tiresome, but it’s still good innocent fun, and I would be lying if I said the wisps weren’t innovative for their time. I actually had a ton of enjoyment playing it when I was younger and I look back on it fondly. As ironic and bizarre as it would seem after all I said, I like the original Colours for the Wii. But seeing how the game has changed the series to this day, it in the long-term is a bit odd. For the past 10 years, Sonic games have been relying heavily on the wisps; it was a cool thing for Colours like I said, but when they’re shoehorned into every new game, it shows that Sonic Team is simply running out of ideas to push the series forward, and just stick to what used to work. This is similar to their overuse of Green Hill Zone in Sonic Lost World and Sonic Forces.

And all that is just from regular Sonic Colours, so what of Sonic Colours: Ultimate? The original game was from the Wii, so surely remastering a Wii game to the PS4 wouldn’t be an issue, right? Unfortunately, the new version, Sonic Colours: Ultimate, is seriously tarnished with bad bugs and glitches. There’s a plethora of glitches, but I want to be unbiased, so I’ll only recall upon bugs that I personally encountered, these are things that never happened in the original Wii version of the game:

1. Save corruption.
That’s right, not just a regular crash, but my save being lost. Luckily, it happened only in the first area of the game but having to constantly back up my save every 30 minutes or so to maintain my progress is simply not acceptable. As unfortunate as games like Sonic 06 were, I never experienced my save being completely lost on a game like that. I put myself through 100%ing Sonic 06 on the Xbox 360, and I had no save issues there. But with Sonic Colours: Ultimate? I did. As a matter of fact, this has been the only game I’ve ever played in my whole life to have a save corruption issue. I feel bad for the people nearly done with the game, only to have their saves corrupt at the last minute.

2. Weird physics in Asteroid Coaster Act 2.
There’s this one ramp in this act where one specific boost pad sends you going WAY too fast. So fast in fact, that it literally launches you into the sky, way above where you’re intended to go, and you’ll most likely fall to your death. This was not present in the original Wii version. Momentum is the essence of Sonic, and failing this is sad to see. 

 

3. Wisp music doesn’t play often.
When you activate a wisp, a short theme is meant to play for each one you use. A LOT of the time, however, the music outright fails to play, and all you’re left with is hearing sound effects amidst an awkward and frequent silence. 

4. Result screen music doesn’t play often.
Similar to the previous point, the music is also often absent on the results screen; what’s meant to symbolise a triumphant victory is now met with nothing. 

5. Asteroid Coaster Act 4 goal ring didn't spawn in Egg Shuttle, had to purposefully die to redo level.
The Egg Shuttle is essentially a time trial where you do all the levels in one go. You’re allowed to die, but you cannot restart a level. Essentially, Asteroid Coaster Act 4 is pretty much near the very end of the game, in which you’re looping around one planet on an autoscroller until the goal ring eventually spawns. Unfortunately for me, it ended up not spawning at all, and I spent several minutes waiting for it to happen. I was nearly tempted to redo the entire run starting from Tropical Resort Act 1, but I decided to purposefully die to reset the stage, and that worked.
 

6. Phasing through rings is slower with hover wisp, can't get an entire line of rings in Starlight Carnival.
As I mentioned earlier, the hover wisp can dash along a line of rings. For some reason, the hover wisp buffers when trailing rings and goes slower than intended, to the point where a line of rings temporarily activated by a switch can’t even all be obtained. Luckily, a Red Star Ring in the trail needed to unlock Super Sonic can at least be grabbed, but you should be able to go along the entire trail,

7. Sound effects are mixed poorly.
There’s this one mini boss you have to fight in one of the acts of Asteroid Coaster, and I kid you not, the explosion sound effect is so horrendously loud that it drowns out any trace of music and legitimately can hurt your ears if you’re wearing a headset. The blackhole in Terminal Velocity Act 2 is also extremely loud when it shouldn’t be.

 

I know this review’s been a bit harsh at times, but believe me: I don’t take any glee in tearing apart this game. I genuinely enjoy the blue blur’s adventures, and this series has been a huge part of my childhood. The reason why I’m so frustrated with it is because I care, I’ve been invested in this series for so long. I WANT Sonic to be good, and seeing another rushed release is sad to see. For this port, I can’t help but give it a score of 6/10. It’s okay at best, which is unfortunate because the original Colours on the Wii is something I’d give at least a mid 7 for, maybe even an 8 despite my issues with the abundance of 2D sections; it’s good cool ideas and kickass music regardless. Because of this, I'll give Colours and Colours: Ultimate a separate rating, because the original Colours is still a good game. As for the developers who worked on the remaster, Blind Squirrel Games, I don't blame them; Sega has time and time again rushed the release of their games, so it's most likely Sega's fault with the Colours remaster.

Enjoyment of the original Sonic Colours on the Wii: 7.5 to 8/10
Enjoyment of Sonic Colours: Ultimate played on a PS5: 6/10
Difficulty: 3/10

Edited October 2, 2021 by Shrooba

[Wild-Arms-R]

Excellent write up, It’s nice to see a objective review regarding a Sonic tittle, and I think your right. It’s good but not great but with that said there are some extra points I’d like to share.

 

The level design and aspects of the core gameplay(wisps mostly) we’re imo heavyly inspired from Mario.

I feel this was the case due to not only original wii only status( the same console Mario is on)

but also can be seen in its general design.

 

The game leans on more explanation ranter being fast with the boost gameplay.

This can be seen in how the game rewards you with S ranks by using the wisps to explore levels to find red star rings(aka green stars in Mario)

This focus encourages experimentation of said powers in each stage to uncover secret routes and such.

The game even rocks 7 level per world(yet again like Mario)

 

Just thought I’d put that out there, it still doesn’t make Sonic Colors a great game(or even close to one of the series best) but it did help me appreciate the game more after I finally achieved the platinum.

 

Hopfully we get remastered Generation next so we can get to play the best of the boost era games on modern consoles.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Wild-Arms-R

[Shrooba]

@Wild-Arms-R Glad you liked the review! Those are some great points you make as well. Especially how Sonic Team tried to make something that'd appeal to Mario fans; I additionally think they really took that concept a step further with Sonic Lost World. Despite Lost World having a bad story, I actually do respect Sonic Team for trying something new, even if it did lean to similarly to the Mario Galaxy games (even though SA2 had Mad Space with the whole gravitational planets thing as well ?). With whatever they'll be doing with the upcoming 2022 game, I sincerely hope it's something great.

On the note of the platinum, I actually think Colours: Ultimate has a really fantastic trophy list when it comes to Sonic games, asking you to S rank everything and collect all red rings; it asks for a true 100% completion which is great to see. I wonder if they'd shake Generations' trophy list up if it gets a remaster since it similarly asked for 100% completion.

[Wild-Arms-R]

7 hours ago, Shrooba said:

@Wild-Arms-R Glad you liked the review! Those are some great points you make as well. Especially how Sonic Team tried to make something that'd appeal to Mario fans; I additionally think they really took that concept a step further with Sonic Lost World. Despite Lost World having a bad story, I actually do respect Sonic Team for trying something new, even if it did lean to similarly to the Mario Galaxy games (even though SA2 had Mad Space with the whole gravitational planets thing as well ). With whatever they'll be doing with the upcoming 2022 game, I sincerely hope it's something great.

On the note of the platinum, I actually think Colours: Ultimate has a really fantastic trophy list when it comes to Sonic games, asking you to S rank everything and collect all red rings; it asks for a true 100% completion which is great to see. I wonder if they'd shake Generations' trophy list up if it gets a remaster since it similarly asked for 100% completion.

You know your probably the only person I know who has compared Sonic Adventure 2 Madworld stage to SMG, I like it lol.

 

I don’t mind it enither that the game is slower paced wants you interact more with the stages tho, reminds of the older genesis games in that regard(Sonic Origins collection hype)

And in the note of Sonic Mario ranted stuff, I hear the new upcoming Sonic Rangers is gonna be open world-ish(Mario Odyssey) style.

Couod be stellar, or could be Sonic 06(I’lm kidding it won’t ever get that bad again)levels. 
 

Well anyways I look forward to that Generations Remaster review one that day bud. ?

Edited October 4, 2021 by Wild-Arms-R

[Shrooba]

Update!

Time for another update! My 2 week break is over, and it's back to Uni for the next 5 weeks. ? Once it's over though, I'll have 3 and a half months off with plenty of time to get to my backlog; I'll definitely do FFX around that point, along with a ton of other games!
On the note of other games, here's how the poll's currently standing, it's very close between BioShock 1 Remastered and Okami HD! These are the two big contenders it would seem! I said I'd keep the poll up until F1 2021 is completed and I'm a man of my word! ?


Apart from that, my initial goal with my review schedule was to release 1 review in my order from Sonic Mania back from 2019 onward, and any recent game completion if I happened to 100% anything in the meantime. Needless to say, I'm sorry for the wait on my Crash 3 review! ? Since I'll be preoccupied with Uni for quite a long time, I'll try to complete F1 2021 in the meantime, but I always like to put a ton of consideration into what I write in a review, and I don't want to rush it amidst my responsibilities, so my apologies for the wait! I hope you guys enjoyed the Miles Morales and Sonic Colours: Ultimate reviews!
To compensate, I figured I'd give another quick secondary update; a few more games that I've placed in my backlog!

Gran Turismo 6 -  PS3

My poor PS3 has been neglected for quite some time, so I figured I'd add another PS3 game to the backlog! After F1 2021, I figured this would be a good game to tackle! I'd love to have another Gran Turismo on my profile. The game is divided between a regular list with a platinum, and three DLC trophies-- luckily, the DLC is part of an update, but the painful thing is that GT6 has a TON of updates, and the PS3 is very picky with how you go about it; you've gotta sit just looking at the screen, unable to do anything else! ?  And what is the DLC? It's a tribute to none other than one of the greatest racers of all time, Ayrton Senna! @Destructor-8 What stage do you reckon you'll tackle this one at?

Cyber Shadow - PS5


If it wasn't obvious from my profile picture, I love Shovel Knight! It's one of the greatest indie games out there, and the developers behind the game, Yacht Club Games, had recently published another game, Cyber Shadow, made by Mechanical Head Studios! It features some fast-paced looking gameplay, and it seems like a lot of good fun! Needless to say, it looks pretty kickass! @AJ_Radio Once you're done with the nightmare that is Mighty No. 9, if you like Shovel Knight then I think you'd like this game! ? Check out some gameplay of it. I believe it's also had a PS4 release.

Little Nightmares - PS4


Needless to say @KindaSabbath, your review sold me on the game! ? From the artistic expression of the game, to the trophy list offering a lot of variety, I'm very interested to see how this game will be! I always like puzzle/platformer games, and whilst I've rarely dabbled into things that tip towards the line of horror (I suppose Ravenholm in Half-Life 2 counts!), I look forward to the experience!
Once the current poll is finished, I'll probably add these three games into the next poll and let you guys decide what I should prioritize after whatever will win!

Edited October 6, 2021 by Shrooba

[rjkclarke]

58 minutes ago, Shrooba said:

Ravenholm in Half-Life 2

 

B-but - we don't go to Ravenholm remember?

 

Man I love that area, that has atmosphere out the wazoo!

 

Looks like you've got some fun times coming up, especially when you get to Final Fantasy X and Okami.... Gran Turismo 6 too judging from we've spoken about in my thread the last day or so I suspect you'll have a blast with that also.

[Shrooba]

37 minutes ago, rjkclarke said:

 

B-but - we don't go to Ravenholm remember?

 

Man I love that area, that has atmosphere out the wazoo!

 

Looks like you've got some fun times coming up, especially when you get to Final Fantasy X and Okami.... Gran Turismo 6 too judging from we've spoken about in my thread the last day or so I suspect you'll have a blast with that also.

Ravenholm was an awesome experience for sure. I distinctly remember there being an achievement for HL2 where you had to make it through the entirety of Ravenholm using only the gravity gun, and holy hell it was a lot of fun. Goes to show how innovative that weapon was-- honestly it's more akin to a multitask tool! If only the Orange Box had trophies on the PS3 version...

When I get to GT6, seeing as you've done the Senna DLC, you wouldn't mind if I asked for tips, would you? ? I reckon that's the first thing I'll do when I start it, I usually like tackling the hardest aspects of games first to get it out of the way! But then first, I gotta sit through the never-ending pile of updates... ? I could probably run across the entire world in 80 days and it'd still be going!

[HoorayForTyler]

@Shrooba: I wanted to update you and let you know that I finished up Psychonauts on my alt account, and I’ve gotta say…

 

What a game. It almost starts off making you think it’s strictly a kid’s game, but as I played more and more I slowly drifted away from that mindset and started to realize the devs probably wanted you to feel like you were in a fever dream or on an acid trip while traversing the levels. ? I don’t want to spoil anything though, especially if you haven’t delved into it yet. 
 

Graphics might be a bit dated also, but it does not detract away from the enjoyment whatsoever. You almost forget about the game’s grainy textures and get lost in the story, characters, and gameplay. The only thing I found slightly daunting was the figment collectibles as there is well over 1000 of them spread across the entire game, but nothing one can’t manage and they’re organized in the menus is such a way that makes it easy to track them thankfully. 
 

I’m probably going to do a platinum speedrun for the game after I learn the ins and outs a bit more, and watching speedruns for the game on YouTube I’m seeing just how dedicated some people are to optimizing the 100% category. When you eventually get to the game do tell me what you think of it! I’ll be playing the second game by the end of the year as well. ??

[Shrooba]

Momentarily popping back in for another update, folks! Sorry for the wait; I’ve still got a few more weeks left before my Uni break and there’s still work to be done (4 assignments to go!), but I’m checking in to declare that I'm not dead! ?

I’ve managed to 100% F1 2021, and so I’ve ended the poll! Usually, I’d write up a review for it right now, but that’ll have to wait (alongside my long awaited Crash 3 review). Looking at the poll, those results were really close! But in the end, Okami HD nabs the win with 5 votes! Therefore, I’ll be focusing on this game next when my schedule frees up.
Psychonauts only had 2 votes, but @HoorayForTyler based on what you've said, it's definitely something I'll be checking out soon after Okami!

Here's the poll results (praying that Imgur actually works and posts the fricking image!!! ?):

If the image didn't post for whatever reason, then the results are:
BioShock 1 Remastered - 4 votes
Hyper Light Drifter - 4 votes
Okami HD - 5 votes
Psychonauts - 2 votes
The Spectrum Retreat - 0 votes

With 0 votes, looks like The Spectrum Retreat will uh... be "retreating" into the backlog!... Yeah I apologize for that one. ?

At this point, I’d log off into the abyss for another 2-3 weeks, and while I will be doing that, I just wanted to quickly give an apology to @rjkclarke and @DrBloodmoney; I did say I’d look at your Hue and latest GoW reviews respectively (plus keeping up with all the other reviews). I do promise that I haven’t forgotten to read them, and I’ll absolutely check them when I return back later on! This goes for all other people whose checklists I read, but I wanted to specifically address you guys since I did promise to check ‘em out!

 

I’ve been gone for quite a while, and it’ll be a bit of time before I properly return, but I’ve kept you all in mind! Until we meet again! ?

[Wild-Arms-R]

On 10/29/2021 at 1:26 AM, Shrooba said:

Momentarily popping back in for another update, folks! Sorry for the wait; I’ve still got a few more weeks left before my Uni break and there’s still work to be done (4 assignments to go!), but I’m checking in to declare that I'm not dead!

 

I’ve managed to 100% F1 2021, and so I’ve ended the poll! Usually, I’d write up a review for it right now, but that’ll have to wait (alongside my long awaited Crash 3 review). Looking at the poll, those results were really close! But in the end, Okami HD nabs the win with 5 votes! Therefore, I’ll be focusing on this game next when my schedule frees up.
Psychonauts only had 2 votes, but @HoorayForTyler based on what you've said, it's definitely something I'll be checking out soon after Okami!

Here's the poll results (praying that Imgur actually works and posts the fricking image!!! ):

If the image didn't post for whatever reason, then the results are:
BioShock 1 Remastered - 4 votes
Hyper Light Drifter - 4 votes
Okami HD - 5 votes
Psychonauts - 2 votes
The Spectrum Retreat - 0 votes

With 0 votes, looks like The Spectrum Retreat will uh... be "retreating" into the backlog!... Yeah I apologize for that one.

At this point, I’d log off into the abyss for another 2-3 weeks, and while I will be doing that, I just wanted to quickly give an apology to @rjkclarke and @DrBloodmoney; I did say I’d look at your Hue and latest GoW reviews respectively (plus keeping up with all the other reviews). I do promise that I haven’t forgotten to read them, and I’ll absolutely check them when I return back later on! This goes for all other people whose checklists I read, but I wanted to specifically address you guys since I did promise to check ‘em out!

 

 

 

I’ve been gone for quite a while, and it’ll be a bit of time before I properly return, but I’ve kept you all in mind! Until we meet again!

 

I’ve meaning to start okami myself(along with Dragon's Dogma) for awhile so should be a interesting read when you put it out man.

[Shrooba]

Back for another update! Still catching up with the other checklists but it's been a month of radio silence here so I figured I'd fill in that void! ?
Progress on Okami HD is going well, I've made a good dent into the game so far, and I've also started Ghost Recon: Breakpoint (since I'll be playing it with some of my IRL mates), the sequel to Wildlands which I also finished recently. I'll definitely be writing up the next reviews soon, but I'll get up to date with the checklists first.
If I had to say, the following order of the next reviews will be:

1. Crash 3/Warped (I've been promising this one since the beginning of the universe)
2. F1 2021
3. Ghost Recon: Wildlands

I've added a few more games to the backlog, some of which have been inspired by my recent looks at the checklists I've caught up with so far-- and that's another great thing about this side of the PSNProfiles forums; you get inspired by what other people are playing! ?

Final Fantasy VII - PS4


Yup, the iconic and rather classic FF7. I've seen DrBloodmoney's take on this game and needless to say, it's given me the motivation to pick it up, especially since it's on sale! I've played all the KH games without platinuming a single Final Fantasy, and alongside FF10 it's nice to have a few games from this series on the ol' backlog.

The Jak and Daxter series - PS4


Naughty Dog were on a roll with Crash Bandicoot during the PS1 era, ending with the big bang that was Crash Team Racing, and they quickly went back to it by creating another great 4 games, in the Jak and Daxter series. The whole bundle was also on sale like FF7, so I can't wait to get to this one!

Yooka-Laylee - PS4


I'm a big Banjo-Kazooie fan, I spent a lot of time in my earlier years 100%ing both Kazooie and Tooie on the Xbox 360, and they were a blast. I know this game isn't rated as highly as the original Rare titles, but this is one I'm eager to dive into nonetheless!

Far Cry 3 - PS4

 

Far Cry. Now this is a series I've heard a lot of, but haven't at all played! ? This is apparently the game that really sparked the formula of the series, and I do love single player shooter games rich with story like Half-Life, so this is one I'm interested to check out!

And lastly, there is potentially the GTA Trilogy... but the originals were taken off of the store. ?
@YaManSmevz This brings me back to your take on Vice City, and I also see you're playing San Andreas. I know those are the original versions so you haven't played the "remasters", but seeing as you have good knowledge on the original ports, would you reckon that the remastered trilogy seems like a good edition? Or is it not worth it? I've seen scathing reviews of the remaster but I wanna hear a take from someone adjusted with the series already.


But anyway, I'll continue to catch up with all the checklists I'm following, and thanks to all of you people for sticking around when I post my spiels! ?
 

[YaManSmevz]

2 hours ago, Shrooba said:

Progress on Okami HD is going well

 

I think you may be the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me with Okami - that one's gettin another bump up the backlog!

 

2 hours ago, Shrooba said:

Yup, the iconic and rather classic FF7.

 

I'm gonna place a fat bet that you won't be disappointed?

 

2 hours ago, Shrooba said:

 Far Cry. Now this is a series I've heard a lot of, but haven't at all played! This is apparently the game that really sparked the formula of the series, and I do love single player shooter games rich with story like Half-Life, so this is one I'm interested to check out!

 

Same! I've owned the PS4 version of Far Cry 3 for a while (and still have the 360 version in a box somewhere) and have been meaning to get to it forrr-eee-vvveerrrrr (as they say in The Sandlot).

 

2 hours ago, Shrooba said:

And lastly, there is potentially the GTA Trilogy... but the originals were taken off of the store. 
@YaManSmevz This brings me back to your take on Vice City, and I also see you're playing San Andreas. I know those are the original versions so you haven't played the "remasters", but seeing as you have good knowledge on the original ports, would you reckon that the remastered trilogy seems like a good edition? Or is it not worth it? I've seen scathing reviews of the remaster but I wanna hear a take from someone adjusted with the series already.

 

Thanks! It's nice to be thought of?

 

I didn't have much interest in the remasters beyond maybe watching videos to see how they ended up looking, and sadly the resulting backlash has made me feel that I was right to stick to my guns - this is one of those cases where I didn't want to be right, y'know? It's pretty shitty how they pulled the original games too, because I think everybody should have a chance to experience these games, early '00s jank and all, but cannot in good conscience recommend purchasing the new trilogy.

 

Maybe keep an eye out to see if they relent and re-post the original trilogy, or if in the future patches to the new trilogy can make the games more comfortably playable (but even then still only at a huge discount). But barring that, and it genuinely pains me to say this, I would strongly suggest you sit those out altogether.