I would like to start this review off by stating the obvious, this is definitely a great time to be a PC gamer. We finally have a reliable handheld PC in the Steam Deck. It still feels like a dream when I take my Steam Deck out and can see my massive Steam library in the palm of my hands. What else could we possibly want?
Oh, I Know! How about some of the best PlayStation-exclusive games of all time? The Sony floodgates have opened and games are pouring out at a rapid pace. In the past five months alone, we’ve received Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, Uncharted The Legacy collection, Sackboy: A Big Adventure, and now Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. So I hope this thanksgiving you gave praise to the gaming gods for all of these blessings we’ve recently received.
I quickly want to point out that Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is not a sequel to Spider-Man. It’s completely fine to play this game and have not played Spider-Man. Consider this more of a Spin-Off, Once the game begins you will receive the option to watch a narrated montage of what took place in Spider-Man, mainly focusing on Miles and how he became a Spider-Man.
without mentioning spoilers, Peter Parker is going on a trip with MJ and is leaving Miles in charge to watch over New York City. Miles will battle with new and familiar foes from the Marvel Universe as well as stop random street crimes while swinging around the city. Thanks to an app created by his friend Ganke, people can request help from Spider-Man. These are a bit lengthier and offer a variety of gameplay variations.
For example, a local shop owner has gone missing. Miles will obtain clues from NPCs and other items found to track down the missing person. You will need to use some of Miles’ special abilities to gather the intel needed. These are fun to do when looking to take a break from the campaign and just do something different within the city.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales right from launch had the verified green check mark which is great! The green check mark means the game has been optimized to work on the Linux-based Steam OS so if you plan on picking this game up solely to play on Steam deck, then you’re good to go. The default settings have it running at a solid 30 FPS.
Now with some tweaking in the graphical settings, you can bump this up to 60 FPS along with some enhanced sharpness. Just keep in mind that in doing so the battery on your Steam Deck will drain like water from a hole at the bottom of a paper cup. I made such tweaks and got about 2 hours of gameplay before needing to charge. I reverted back to the default settings and still had a great experience with a little over 3 hours of playtime on a single charge.
You will also notice the gyro settings are also on by default. If you find this a bit jarring, no worries. Just go into the controller settings in-game or on the Steam Deck and turn it off. The beauty of this and all the other PlayStation releases is we have so many customization options when it comes to how they perform. During my sessions, I had the performance menu displayed and overall, it ran like a champ. At times the Steam Deck fan would sound like it’s on overdrive but this is no different than when playing on a desktop PC and only occurring during heavy battles which consist of multiple enemies and quick transitions to cut-scenes.
I personally like to be immersed in my games so I always have a headset plugged in. I didn’t encounter any slowdown or screen tearing but did have an issue during a particular part of the story in which I was walking around and could interact with random NPCs for short conversations. There was one NPC that every time the conversation was complete I was unable to move as if I was stuck. Now this game is constantly receiving updates and yesterday I returned to this NPC and the issue was resolved. I’m mentioning this just in case you encounter the same issue with another NPC. It appears the port developers Nixxes Software are aware and continue to squash any little bugs that pop up.
Now I also put in some time with the game on my PC which is an I7 16GB RAM with Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660. It’s by no means a beast but it gets the job done and it’s connected to my 40-inch 4k display. I always find it funny when they list the minimum system requirements because NO modern game should be played on the bare minimum specs and according to their spec sheet, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales can run on an i3-4160 3.6 GHz or AMD equivalent, 8GB RAM, and an Nvidia GTX950 or AMD Radeon 470.
Now if you know anything about video cards then you already know these cards mentioned are years old, but hey, I’m sure they tested the game on these specs and found it playable. On the flip side, if you have anything better than said specs you should be fine. The game looks amazing on PC and with some tweaking can look even better. Nixxes Software has done an amazing job porting both Spider-Man games to PC and ensuring they perform just as well on the Steam Deck. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a fresh new perspective and a great addition to the ever-growing MCU video game landscape.
This review was written based on a digital review copy of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales for PC provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
