The Spider-Man Video Games thread!

[Xenon]

So personally I find that the quality of the comics recently has been somewhere between "dumpster fire" and "complete disaster" and after foolishly giving them a year to explain themselves have dropped the comic. But I came back when they changed writers last time, which was "almost four years" prior to this current run. Recently people have insisted to me that "almost four years" is a life changing amount of time. And while I can't say anything that dramatic, I did get used to reading new Spider-Man adventures every fortnight or more. And honestly, if the last two months have taught me anything it's that pure negativity is bad for you. So what is to be done? Well there's always Video Games! And with the upcoming Spider-Man 2 from Insomniac coming this fall, rather than just continuing to post in the announcement thread, I figured the board could use a general Video Games thread to talk about the various games that have been released starring our favorite Wall Crawler.

For me, as I am wont to do, I started by taking a look at the games from teh beginning. Despite my long standing love for both Spider-Man and Video games I really haven't played many of these before. A combination of a small budget and a licensed titles generally poor quality, I only had one Spider-Man game before 2000. I picked up a few after that point (and when I started reading the comic I started getting more), but my backlog is such I haven't even delved into a lot of the ones I've owned for years (Shattered Dimensions.....<_<). So screw it, might as well just run it back from the beginning. I suspect I will skip some of these, but I'll be chronicling my run through nearly every Spider-Man game from the first to the last. These old 2D licensed games are pretty short, so my first report is going to have a lot to cover.


Spider-Man
Platform: Atari 2600
Released: 1982
Rating: 4/10
Notables: First Game. First Appearance of Spider-Man. First appearance of Green Goblin
Thoughts: Based on what I can find this is the first licensed super hero game ever released, and for an Atari game it's actually not that bad. You climb up a building by using the one button to shoot out a web which Spidey will then climb. Using the joystick you can angle the shot 45 degrees and then swingto readjust your horizontal placement, but Spidey doesnt' move at all if not on a web. BAd guys will come out of windows and near the top there are bombs. your web can't cross these obstacles, but if you have spider-man cross them you get points and more web fluid. If you miss your shot Spider-Man will fall, though you can shoot a new web to try and catch yourself as long as you still have web fluid. If you hit the ground you lose a life, lose all three lives and it's game over. The goal of each level is to make it past the Green Goblin (who is flying back and forth along the top) and cross over his big bomb at the top of the building. Do this andyou get a new harder building, and that's...pretty much it. As an arcade style game this is fine. It's not amazing, but it's simple enough and accomplishes the limited goals it sets out for itself. You could do a lot worse.

Questprobe featuring Spider-Man
Platform: Atari ST, C64, various other home computers of the early 80s.
Released: 1984
Rating: 3/10
Notables: First appearance of Madame Web, Doc Ock, Electro, Hydro Man, Sandman, The Lizard, Ringmaster (some versions ) and Mysterio
Thoughts: This is an old school text adventure. There's a command prompt, you tell Spider-Man what to do, he does it. He can climb on the ceiling and walls, punch bad guys (mostly useless), and eventually shoot webs (if you find the chemicals necessary and make them). Death is common but just sends you to Limbo and you can just leave. The goal is to find a bunch of Biogems and give them to Madame Web. Various Spider-Man villains are strewn throughout the building, but they act as puzzles and don't independently act. The problem is...I hate old school text adventures. So i didn't enjoy this. I tried playing it for a while and then i just watched a long play, which is the same thing given there's no action. I think my problem with this style of game is that I think of creative solutions to the problems and then when they aren't honored by the game's logic I cant' think of other solutions cause I'm mad what should have worked didn't. It's a me problem. All the same, I have no doubt that had i had this as a small child I would have poured hours into solving it. But now....no thanks.

The Amazing Spider-Man and Captain America in Doctor Doom's Revenge
Platform: MS-DOS, others
Released: 1989
Rating: N/A
Notables: First appearance of Boomerang and Hobgoblin, kinda Mysterio
Thoughts: I tried to play this but I couldn't get it to run on my computer, unfortunately, so again, another longplay. The two heroes each have their own stagtes which you'll play through in a predetermined order. There are two types of stages. Stages where you fight a bad guy, and stages wher eyou dodge obstacles thrown at you. The controls look stiff and the fighting looks bad. Spidey and Cap are the exact same, Cap throws his shield for Spider-Man's webs. But it's the best looking game so far easily, and will be until we get to the Arcade game. In between levels there are even cool comic panel cutscenes to progress the story forward. There's also a ton of villain in here, the ones I don't recognize I assume are Cap's. Machete, Rhino, Zaran, Batroc, Eduardo Lobo, Boomerang, Rattan, Electro, hobgoblin, Grey Gargoyle, Hulk but really Mysterio, Oddball, Dr. Doom. Whew. Shame it seems to control poorly.

The Amazing spider-Man
Platform: Amiga, others
Released: 1990
Rating: N/A
Notable: First appearance of Mary Jane (maybe, depends on when in the year this came out)
Thoughts: This is another one that, if I was a kid, I would have loed this thing, even if I would have preferred more punching. Alas, I don't have the patience these days and emulating old computers is too much of a hassle. So another longplay here. This one has a pretty simple plot. MJ is relaxing at home watching a movie, Mysterio kicks the door in and kidnaps her (how he found out who Spider-Man is is anyone's guess). When Peter arrives home ther's a business card for a movie studio and nothing else. This is essentially a puzzle adventure game. You move Spider-Man around the rooms attempting to figure out how to get through the next room by hitting switches, mostly. Honestly it doesn't look like that much fun and you only fight things like rats and mummies through the course of the main game. Mysterio is in the last room trying to crush Mary Jane between some walls, but you just hit a switch and he'll falll to his defeat. Is this the best spider-Man game thus far? Probably. But that's not saying much. And that's all I have to say about that.




The Amazing Spider-Man
Platform: Game Boy
Released: 1990
Rating: 5/10
Notable: First appearance of Mary Jane (maybe, depends on which came out first), Scorpion, Rhino, and Venom
Thoughts: This has cutscenes, and opens up with Mysterio calling Peter and taunting him that MJ has been kidnapped again. Between every level you'll get Peter and the upcoming villain and it's probably the best most Spider-Man part of this. This is what I would call a standard action platformer. Move right, punch bad guys, jump over obstacles. Spidey has webs you can shoot at the bad guy or use to swing. In late levels you need to swing over some large gaps to make it, but in the earlier ones you can use them to essentially skip the level, though that isn't recommended. Enemies drop items that you have to catch before they hit the ground. The most important being extra web fluid. You can also find burgers throughout the levels to heal, so that's nice. Mysterio, Hobgoblin, Scorpion, Rhino, Dr Ock, and Venom, the one who actually kidnapped MJ, round out the roster. Venom is also the hardest boss (Doc Ock is almost impossible without a specific strategy but easy if slow with it), while Rhino is the easiest. This is....actually pretty good? It's pretty standard, but you have the characters, the boss fights are fun, and it even has a couple of levels where you climb up the side of buildings. You can kinda tell this was made by Rare of Battletoads and Donkey Kong Country fame. Unfortunately, it's let down a bit by its sadism and controls. The controls aren't terrible, but the web swing isn't consistent, which is a problem since some times if it doesn't come out you just fall to your death. And while the first half of the game is tough but pretty fair, the back half is just brutal with an unending swarm of evil birds and oddly perched guys with guns. You have three lives and three continues to beat the whole game which....is just not a lot. I got through with plenty of Save State abuse, but I don't feel bad. They were trying to cheat me, lol.

[Xenon]

Not done yet.....

Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin
Platform: Genesis, Master System, Sega CD
Released: 1991
Rating: 5/10
Notable: First appearance of Kingpin and JJJ
Thoughts: Another Action platformer, but this time with a distinct Genesis style. The premise here is that Kingpin has planted a bomb that will destroy the city in 24 hours if it's not defused. He then goes on TV and blames Spider-Man for the whole thing. Pretty simple, go through the level, get to the end boss, kick his butt. The levels are actually pretty short though, so there's not a ton more to do besides beat the bosses. A couple of interesting things are here still though. Spider-Man's web fluid is limited. You can find pick ups througout the level, but other wise you can only refill your fluid with cash. How do you get cash, why, you equip your camera and take pictures. Normal enemies are worth a little and you only have limited film, but get the boss and you'll get a fat paycheck at the end of the level. Though web fluid is crazy expensive. Health, also, can be refilled with pickups, but doesn't come back between levels. However, at any time, you can just...go home. It's one of the things you can select on the pause menu, and when activated Peter will go to his apartment and heal over time. Time being the important thing, because that 24 hours thing was real. There's a timer that ticks down the whole time you're playing, and while you're in your apartment it just drains super fast. So those are some interesting mechanics. While she's not the focus of the story, MJ gets kidnapped right before the last level. Once you defuse the bomb, you have to fight Kingpin, and the whole time you're doing so MJ is slowly being lowered into a vat of acid. You can and need to web up the gears to slow it down, but you gotta beat Kingpin before she goes all the way in. Only a couple of flaws really hold this back. Controls are again a little spotty, but enemy hit boxes are kind of a nightmare. Enemies just get weird prolonged invincibility at times, and it feels really unfair. Difficulty in the later bits is also questionable. THe last level before the last level you have to beat a motorcycle boss, Hobgoblin, and then Venom all back to back with only one healing item. It's rough. The last level makes you fight Electro, Venom, Lizard, and Hobgoblin all in the same room before defusing the bomb. And Sandman in one of the earlier levels requires using the fire hydrant to beat (though it is a one hit kill). Kingpin also has this ridiculous hitbox where you're hitting his ascot and nothing else. It's not the worst thing once you get used to it, but considering you're on a timer and his punches send you flying it's extremely frustrating.

The other notable thing here is that this was remade in 1993 for the Sega CD. I'm not going to do that again, but it's notable in a few ways. There's a series of animated cutscenes that help tell the story. It's almost entirely the same, but MJ gets kidnapped much earlier here for some reason. in addition, levels for both the Vulture and Mysterio have been added, and at times you can pick what level you want to go to next as opposed to just having it decided for you. The photo taking and aprtment healing mechanic seems to be gone as well. Additionally, there's a bad ending where you can beat the Kingpin but fail to save Mary Jane. It does look like an improved product, but I can't say I enjoyed Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin enough to revisit it that way. I just wanted to note the remake since I wouldn't cover it as a separate release down the line.







Spider-Man: The Video Game
Platform: Arcade
Released: 1991
Rating: 7/10
Notable: First appearance of Black Cat.
Thoughts: I grew up in this era and I never saw this machine. I didn't know it existed until the mid-2000s and I was quite annoyed that I hadn't heard of it before. After playing it, I think I see what happened. This isn't a bad game by any means, it's a fairly standard arcade brawler. Move left and right and up and down and punch everything comes your way. You can attack, jump, jump attack, swing attack, or push the attack and jump together for a super attack. That's pretty much it. There is one gimmick here, which is that parts of each stage zoom out and the characters start shooting instead of punching. Webs, the grappling hook, arrows, lightning. You even fight a couple of bosses exclusively in this mode, Electro and Doc Ock, for instance. It's not...substantial, but it's fun enough. It's designed to suck the quarters from impressionable young kids but...this one is kinda generous? I finished the game in about 20 credits, which isn't small but it's not really that much either. You get 400 life per credit and your super only costs 10 life, so there's no reason to be shy about using it, and there are even a generous amount of healing items. This is generally good for the player, but it may have led to this machine not being very popular, since it couldn't suck the quarters as easily being that generous. The other problem is that, while I enjoy the graphics as a whole, the Spider-Man sprite has this weird long neck thing going and I just couldn't take it. I had to spend most of the game as Black Cat to avoid the issue. And that's the other thing I always hated about this game. The character selection. Look, I get it, finding four characters to fill a roster of Spider-Man characters wasn't the easiest in 1991. Nowadays there are enough Spider-Men you don't even need Felicia (though you still should). This game though, stars Spider-Man, Black Cat, Hawkeye, and Namor. Now, obviously Spider-Man and Felicia make sense, but what the heck are those other two doing here? Like I at least like Hawkeye but I hate Namor. It's also worth noting they're the worse characters. Characters seem identical except for special moves and swing attack. Peter and Felicia swing on a web/grappling hook, while Hawkeye and Namor do a much worse dive kick. And Speical move wise Peter's is just the best, with a long range web spray, while Hawkeye's single arrow and bow hit are kinda lame and Felicia and Namor's AOE attack somewhere in the middle. So there's no reason to use them. There are also two obvious replacements for them, Prowler and Puma. Prowler has a long history with Spider-Man and he has an awesome look. Amongst Spider-Man's allies hobie was such a perfect person for this game, and it's a shame we just get Hawkeye instead. And Puma, though JMS dropping him completely led to his complete erasure AFAIK, was a major Spider-Man character at this time and indeed would remain one throughout the rest of the 90s (his pairing with Felicia was actually one of the few hookups of hers that made sense to me). I don't particularly LIKE Puma, but he's another obvious choice if you're making a Spider-Man game in 1991 and need partners. And if you wanted to dig a little deeper, another great choice would be Hector Ayala, the White Tiger. He was retired at this point, but he had a lot of page time in Spectacular and also would have been a great choice. But alas, instead we're stuck with dum dum Namor. The best part of the game is the wide variety of bosses. Despite only being technically four levels, a ton of the rogue's gallery is here. Scorpion, Venom, Hobgoblin, Green Goblin, Electro, Doc Ock, The Lizard, Kingpin, Sandman, and Doctor Doom. Almost all you'll fight repeatedly and all of them look fantastic. It's worth going through this one once just for the visual spectacle, weird Spider-Man neck thing or not. The last note I have is that this game was made by Sega, and I get the feeling they didn't have a total grasp on the material, similar to Konami's X-Men game that would come soon after. Besides the Hawkeye and Namor thing, there's also the fact that Black Cat uses the "Jackpot" phrase as a catch phrase, both sometimes during her special and at the end of level summary. I wonder if they thought MJ was the Black Cat? Just a curious note.

Also interesting to me, Venom has now been in 3 games, pretty quick after his debut, but Kraven has yet to appear at all. I know he's dead at this point and so not at the top of the list, but GG was the villain in 1982, so....it's just a little weird (I guess Atari GG could be Harry).

Just noting, this is the first game I genuinely recommend. There's some fun to be had in the Kingpin game or even the first GB one but this one doesn't have their qualifiers. It's just fun and beautiful, even if a little mindless in an era of free play.

[Xenon]

One final dump to get us going....




Spider-Man 2
Platform: Game Boy
Released: 1992
Rating: 5/10
Notable: First appearance of Carnage, First appearance of Graviton?
Thoughts: This game is more ambitious than it has any right to be. It's much more of an adventure game than it's predecessor, and there are even some RPG elements. The plot here is that Spider-Man has once again been framed for some bad things, and he's out to clear his name. The interesting thing here is that the game is kind of open world? Like there are no levels, there are just different parts of the map which you can access in various ways. You start in the city with the Hobgoblin flying around. You can fight him right away but that's a mistake, you need to explore. Not only can you find an orb that gives you an extra life and one that increases your strength, you can also find key items that you'll need to progress in the game, including a key card, crowbar, and once you beat Hobby, a can of oil. And even once you're ready to beat him, you can't just punch him in the face, no. You first gotta bring down his glider by attaching yourself to it, causing him to crash eventually. Once you beat him, you fly on his glider to an industrial area, where after accessing a high tech lab to get an antidote for Connors and tlak to the Black Cat, you go into the sewers, beat up the lizard, and turn him back for a password. Then you fight Graviton...a villain I've literally never heard of before. But apparently he's a thing. Beat him and climb back through the sewers to reach an amusement park, where you need to flee from Carnage and get out to finally find Mystero's blimp where you fight him. This game isn't great, the controls are questionable at best (they really need more buttons than they have), but it is interesting seeing so many key items being necessary to progress through the game. And, similar to beating the sandman in the Kingpin game, you need to figure some stuff out, not just beat people to death. Additionally, the Mysterio boss fight is genuinely a great one. In the game you have Spider-sense, but it's woefully underused through most of the game. However, it's key in the msyterio fight. Mysterio will constantly summon fake version of himself while teleporting around the map, and if you leave the real one alone long enough he'll cause a quake that will damage you. But not only does only the real Mysterio hurt you, your Spider-Sense only goes off when he appears. So as long as you're paying attention, you immediately know when the real one appears because you're spider-sense starts blaring. It's primitive, but for hardware made in the 80s it's really quite impressive. Really ended the game on a high note. Though since you have to jump down through a platform and the controls for that are questionable at best, also kind of a low note, lol.


Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
Platform: NES, Master System, Game Gear
Released: 1992
Rating: 2/10
Notable: First appearance of Vulture
Thoughts: Yhis is a pretty barebones slapdash effort. No cutscenes, no frills, just Spider-Man and six levels of bad guys. Electro, Sandman, Mysterio, Vulture, Hobgoblin, and Doc Ock. Good Lineup, even if I prefer my Sandman good at this point it's good to finally get the vulture into one of these games. Levels are again quite shore, though occasionally you do have to equip an item to get through, at least in the first three levels. They seemed to have given up in the last three. Actually this game feels very low effort overall, a mixture of problems from past games. Control is again a mess, but for the most part you shoud just skip enemies and only fight the bosses. And of course they're relying on difficulty to get you through. You can only take five hits, though the game is funny about what counts as a hit? Sometimes you get punched and just...nothing happens. It's like there's a difference internally between getting hit hard and getting hit. Bosses don't have any trouble hitting you though, and you only get one continue and you don't get healed between levels so...yeah it's pretty brutal. You can web swing as long as you can attach to something, but you can only shoot webs when you pick up "attack webbing", where it will shoot out of your next ten attacks. You generally want to save these for bosses or certain extremely powerful enemies you don't want to get close to. The only reason to beat most enemies is that every 2000 points you get a point of life back. This means you get nothing if you're already full, so keep that in mind. Honestly I had some fun with this game thanks to my save states, but I would have been enraged by it had I gotten it at the time. This is a bad game and it's not really worth playing. And apparently the NES version is by far the superior one compared to its contemporaries. Player beware.

[Vegan]

Fun thread idea and interesting write ups. Graviton is honestly a pretty fun villain. One of those guys who is kind of like Electro, where he’d be basically a god if not for his insecurities holding him back. Had some good stories with the Thunderbolts in the 90s. Let’s see, would 92 be around the time of Acts of Vengeance? I know Graviton and Spidey fought a time or two during that crossover

[Frontier]

I have a long history with Spider-Man games dating back to the Gameboy and Playstation era .

[Kevinroc]

Is this thread going to talk about the general Marvel games that feature Spider-Man? I know most people would want to talk about the Capcom fighting games.

[Xenon]

Is this thread going to talk about the general Marvel games that feature Spider-Man? I know most people would want to talk about the Capcom fighting games.

I think those are fair game. I plan to do a Spider-Man run through of each myself. AS long as you can play as Spider-Man in the game it fits. Miles included, of course (for the one game that's relevant).

[Xenon]

Fun thread idea and interesting write ups. Graviton is honestly a pretty fun villain. One of those guys who is kind of like Electro, where he’d be basically a god if not for his insecurities holding him back. Had some good stories with the Thunderbolts in the 90s. Let’s see, would 92 be around the time of Acts of Vengeance? I know Graviton and Spidey fought a time or two during that crossover

If he fought Spider-Man I would be surprised if it was in a Spider-Man book. Not impossible because remembering all 1500 comics 10 years after I read them is difficult, but I would be surprised.

[CaptainUniverse]

If he fought Spider-Man I would be surprised if it was in a Spider-Man book. Not impossible because remembering all 1500 comics 10 years after I read them is difficult, but I would be surprised.

Spider-Man fought Graviton twice during Acts of Vengeance. Once without the powers of Captain Universe (a battle Peter lost) and once with the powers of Captain Universe (which resulted in Peter owning Graviton so hard that he though he'd been hit by Galactus).

[Phoenixx9]

Spider-Man fought Graviton twice during Acts of Vengeance. Once without the powers of Captain Universe (a battle Peter lost) and once with the powers of Captain Universe (which resulted in Peter owning Graviton so hard that he though he'd been hit by Galactus).

That's only because Graviton was not hit with the Phoenix Force, lol!

[Daibhidh]

Does Midnight Suns count as a game in which you can play Peter? I think they've clearly got an interpretation of Spider-man as a character.

[Huntsman Spider]

Does Midnight Suns count as a game in which you can play Peter? I think they've clearly got an interpretation of Spider-man as a character.

It should, yeah. Probably the best modern rendition of the symbiote suit (albeit as an alternate costume and not necessarily plot-relevant) in videogames until Insomniac Games' Spider-Man 2.

[Webhead]

Owning potato computers has long prevented me from playing the newer games, so I can only speak for the oldies, but 2000 Spider-Man, the SEGA TAS-based game (I own a Genesis, beautiful thing) and Spider-Man 2 are my favorites.

[Daibhidh]

Probably the best modern rendition of the symbiote suit (albeit as an alternate costume and not necessarily plot-relevant) in videogames until Insomniac Games' Spider-Man 2.

I'm not a fan of the plot-relevant symbiote suit.

[Huntsman Spider]

I'm not a fan of the plot-relevant symbiote suit.

Understandable. It does take some getting used to, I'll admit.