Spider-Man

The Good
I played the Nintendo version of this game first and was impressed, but not flattered. BOY did that change when I picked this up ! NOT ONLY does this version have cinematics , better sounding voice acting , and the same actors from the TV show , but it has lots of voice work from STAN THE MAN LEE ! It does not get cooler when Stan is describing the characters in the view mode with is famous humor and wisecracks.

First as always, I'll get right on the graphics. They have one edge over the other versions, in that they are sharper, and have little fuzz. This game uses the Tony Hawk game engine and I have to say this must have been some feat , or miracle of programming to turn a skateboarding game into a third person action game. The buildings, the characters, and the cutscenes all are very well done. Special mention should go to the purple monsters which move almost real goo. Something I didn't the Playstation was capable of. Spider Man himself is obviously going to be the best looking character in the game, and he is. Except that he has no web lines on suit. Not even in the cinematics!

The sound is quite good with a lot of memorable tracks, and Spidey's always humorous one liners. All the voice actors from the cartoon ( which I used to watch ) are all here. They are actually more convincing in the game than they are in the show! Stan Lee provides lots of commentary for the game. Example, when a new set of levels starts, like the basement levels he tells of the looming danger ! And, as mentioned earlier, describes the characters in the view mode. A last note note on the sound, I feel you should know my favorite line in the whole game is the following, " Leave him alone chuckles!" " Butt out web head." "Spider Man ? I ask for the police, and I get this! "

The controls are limited in their positives so I'll discuss them in the bad section.

The last positive note is there are TONS of unlock-ables. And even though some are useless, They are still too irresistible to pass up ! Unlockable comic covers made explicitly for the game, AND almost all the greatest Spider Man covers of the past are there for gawking ! Different costumes that give you special powers are also a nice touch. Your skills a little rusty ? Well check out the practice modes for training or for records. Still not satisfied? Play all your favorite levels again with the level select. Plus there is a cheat that allows you to play the game again with minor changes. Example is in one of the early levels, when you must rescue people, there is a empty room that if you step on the floor, he'll disco dance ! A little stupid, but funny ! And want to see all your favorite hero's and villains ? Take a look at the character viewer.

The Bad
THE CONTROLS ARE TOTAL CRAP ! Seriously ! They fight you so much that you'll often find that you'll fall off things only to receive instant death from the endless bottom ! And the camera isn't much help either. It always follows Spider Man true, but you'll be getting a good look at his side a lot whenever you have to turn around. It is far too slow and you have little con-troll over it ! And the aiming system, unless you are sitting still, is worthless. And some loading screens are very drab.

The Bottom Line
If you'r a diehard Spider Man fan totally get this game ! If you never read Spider Man, SHAME ON YOU ! Then go get this game ! For every other gamer, get it ! You'll love it ! And to dismiss myself properly, I leave you with a, EXCELSIOR !

The Good
I've always loved Spider-Man, so I figured that I'd love this game. I started with the training sections and it was a lot of fun to swing from building to building, then crawl up the walls. Spider-Man is well animated and the graphics for the city, are decent, if not outstanding. In the first couple of levels, it was a lot of fun to crawl on the ceiling and drop down on unsuspecting thugs, taking them out from behind. There are extra costumes to use (if you can unlock them), comic book covers to collect and a character viewer where you can see the 3D model for any character that you've encountered in the game and read a short bio. Stan Lee is on hand to do the narration.

The Bad
Sadly, all of the above is virtually ruined by the poor design choices made by the programmers and the numerous bugs in the Windows version.

The first problem is the controls. Spider-Man can only turn in set increments of about 45 degrees. This makes it nearly impossible to line up jumps properly, aim at enemies, or pick up items in a hurry. To compensate for this, the game auto-aims to some extent, however it often makes poor choices about what to aim at, or it fails to aim at anything in particular. There's also an aiming mode, where you can move a crosshair onto what you want to shoot, or where you want to swing to. Unfortunately, aiming mode is so slow and awkward to use (no mouse support) that you can only use it when not under attack. Different moves are often accomplished by using a combination of buttons. For example, to shoot impact webbing, you have to press forward and the web button at the same time. Unfortunately, where other games allow a split second between button presses, Spider-Man requires you to press them at EXACTLY the same time. Because of this, you will often end up doing something you didn't intend because you didn't get the timing right. It also means you can't do things like move and shoot at the same time. Finally, the movement controls are camera relative, meaning that Spider-Man moves relative to the camera and control directions will change when the camera moves.

Speaking of the camera, it only updates its position when you stop moving. Only then will it swing around behind Spider-Man. So, while in the heat of battle, you will often be trying to guide Spider-Man while looking at him from the rear, left, right and front, with the controls constantly changing based on the camera angle.

Then there's the save system, which only allows you to save at the end of a level. So a single mistake means you have to play the entire level over again. Apparently game designers consider endless repetition to be fun.

As if the above wasn't bad enough, the Windows version of Spider-Man is so poorly programmed that it has numerous bugs when run on a more modern system.

Bug #1: When you change any of the game options, it writes a config file called Spidey.cfg to the game's directory. This file then prevents the game from launching on modern systems. This means that you have to delete the CFG file and re-configure the options each time you play. This bug does not occur on older systems.

Bug #2: In the Catch Venom level, there is a cutscene in the middle of the level, after which, Venom and Spider-Man are supposed to swing to a building to continue the chase. On modern systems, Spider-Man falls to his death after the cutscene and the level ends in failure. If you set the resolution to 1280x1024, he survives the cutscene, but swings to the wrong building and then Venom gets away, ending the level in failure. Yes, you read that correctly, on modern systems, the game can't be completed without cheating because the developers made it possible to die in a cutscene!

Bug #3: After running the game once, then deleting the CFG file and running it a second time, the game often loads in slow-motion mode, where just the first of the four logo animations takes about ten minutes to display. Even if you skip the animations, it still takes about 2-3 minutes to get to the main menu and another 2-3 to select the Quit option and activate it. You need to reboot between sessions to avoid this.

Bug #4: Occasionally, the game stops responding to the controller, or it gets stuck moving in the last direction you pressed. Usually it recovers after a little bit, but by then you've failed the level and will have to start it over again.

Bug #5: On a later level called Stop the Presses, I experienced several crashes to the Desktop.

Lest you think I'm running Spider-Man on some super-modern uber-system, I have a 1.8Ghz system running Windows 98SE and a GeForce4 MX440 graphics card. Activision claims this system is too new to run the game without encountering the above bugs. When I asked them why games that are even older, like Half-Life, still run properly, they had no answer.

The Bottom Line
Spider-Man had the potential to be a great game, and indeed the first few levels are fun, even with the control and camera problems. Unfortunately after the beginning, the game becomes a chore to play. The lousy controls combined with the horrible camera system make fighting your way through the later levels extremely frustrating. If I hadn't bought this used for only $1.99, I'd feel ripped off.

The Good
Spider-Man is one of the best games based off of Marvel Comics' legendary web-slinger. It stays true to the original comics with a surprisingly decent storyline and great gameplay. Although the port to PC is fairly infamous for featuring a few almost game-breaking bugs, it remains an excellent game.

The plot begins with Peter Parker attending a science expo given by the "reformed" Otto Octavius (Dr. Octopus), when an impostor Spider-Man takes out the security guards and steals Octavius' new piece of technology. Parker also bumps into Eddie Brock (Venom), making things even more chaotic. Parker, the real Spider-Man, exits and puts on his costume to search for the perpetrator, but gets an unexpected report from Black Cat that a nearby bank is being robbed and the criminals are taking those inside hostage. From here, things get start to get interesting. The story is told with surprisingly well-acted cutscenes, most of which are entertaining to watch. Spidey creator Stan Lee also narrates, and does a decent job.

Before getting to the gameplay, it should be mentioned that the developers added a lot of nice extras to the game. You can unlock costumes for Spider-Man, such as the famous Symbiote suit, each of which has special features making gameplay under those costumes a bit different. Also included is a character viewer (allowing you to view and read about characters featured in the game) and the "Comic Collection", where you can view the covers and info for influential Spider-Man comics (unlocked by finding them in the game's levels). You can also view the cutscenes and storyboards for each one, but not before you complete the level before each scene.

Aside from the campaign, which I'll get to next, there is a training mode with five different scenarios to refine your gameplay skill: "Time Attack", where you attempt to kill as many enemies as you can within 60 or 120 seconds, "Survival Mode", where you try to survive as long as possible with an endless wave of foes approaching, "Speed Training", where you try to web-swing to the end of the area as quickly as possible, "Target Practice", where you shoot your web at famous villains while trying to avoid shooting your friends, and "Item Collection" featuring two gameplay modes with the goal of collecting as many medallions as possible within a set amount of time. These objectives may work to hone your playing skills, but probably won't keep your interest for very long.

Finally, there is the main campaign. It stays very true to the comics, with a fairly accurate recreation of Spidey's New York. The villains also replicate those seen in the comics - the generic thugs aren't far from something that would be seen in the Spider-Man universe, and main foes such as Venom and Scorpion are replicated well. Other Marvel characters such as Daredevil make cameo appearances, and the Fantastic Four's headquarters even makes a showing.

The gameplay is enjoyable and, in typical Spider-Man fashion, features a lot of web-slinging and wall-crawling, as well as punching, kicking, and jumping. Spider-Man can use his web to do different things to attack: he can shoot a web, hurl a ball of webbing, or make a dome of webbing around himself for protection and then break out of it to attack nearby enemies. You can also cover your hands in the white stuff, doing extra damage with punches. Webbing can also be used from swinging to another location (obviously) and to zip-line to whatever is above, such as the ceiling on the inside of a building. You also must collect health to survive and web cartridges to keep a steady amount of webbing along the way. Another item is the rarely seen Spider-Armor, special armor that turns Spidey black and white and adds an extra layer of health.

Graphics and sound are solid. The visuals are pretty well done for 2001, but could have been better. The audio consists of some pretty good music and sound effects which aren't outstanding but get the job done. As I said earlier, the voice acting is well done and the characters sound as they should, with Stan Lee doing some respectable narration.

The Bad
Now, here's what you've all been waiting for: the "almost game-breaking bugs" I noted earlier. There are two: when you reach the Daily Bugle building to fight Scorpion, there is an in-game cutscene where Spider-Man breaks through the window to enter. However, he will fall below and the game returns to the cutscene before. After another in-game cutscene in the game in the level "Catch Venom" where you have to chase Venom to his hideout, Spider-Man falls to his death. Unfortunately, using a level skip code is the easiest way to combat these bugs. Thankfully, these should be the only two levels you might have to skip.

The default controls are awful. However, you can change them, so it isn't much of a problem. Also, the camera only updates its movement after Spidey stops moving. This could create issues for some, but it never really affected the game for me to be honest.

The Bottom Line
Overall, Spider-Man is an entertaining diversion for fans of the web-slinger. It proves worthy of bearing Spidey's name, and despite the bugs in the PC version, it remains a great game.

The Good
Spider-man, as one of the most popular superheroes ever conceived has therefore had many videogames based on his exploits. Many were quick to call this incarnation of Spidey games the best. Yet MOST Spider-man games are pretty good. (I wonder how many people that claim that this “best” Spidey game, have actually played the other ones.-MM-) That includes Sega’s Spider-man arcade game, as well as their Spider-man vs. The Kingpin. So in this review I will not examine: is this the BEST Spidey game? It will be more on what makes it good/better/worse, than previous titles.

“Welcome, true believers.”-Common Spidey intro, Stan Lee-

In Spider-man, the infamous web head has been framed by a Spidey imposter! After he makes off with the newly re-formed Doctor Otto Octavias.(AKA Doctor Octopus.-MM-) Now the cops are out to capture Spidey. Meanwhile the city has been blanketed by a strange green fog. As Spider-man you must clear your name, while facing some of the web slingers greatest foes. And of course save New York City…again. This game is loaded with various levels all with different objectives. Some will involve fighting a super-villain, stopping a bank heist, or even crawling through dank sewers. One might think that a character like Spider-man that can do so many things would make for a game with confusing controls, and awkward mechanics. But like many of the web-heads other video game adventures, the controls are simple and easy to master. And also do a stellar job at emulating Spidey’s powers.

Fists Of Fury

For instance, “X” punches, while “B” kicks. Hitting these buttons repeatedly form combos. You can even mix punch/kick combos. “Y” is used to activate webbing. You can shoot web to tie up foes. Create web spikes, that increase Spider-man’s attack power. And my favorite grab a foe with your web line and then pull them back and into a wall.

As one would expect from a Spider-man game, you can also web swing. The 3D Spidey games do a better job overall of emulating Spider-man’s swinging. But like it’s 2D predecessors the basics are the same. That is to say that web swinging is easy to do. Something that some may take for granted, unless they have played games with bad superhero controls.(I.e. In Batman: Dark Tomorrow, using Batman’s grapple was an exercise in futility.-MM-)

You can also Zip line. A web technique that allows you to quickly web sling to another building, or up to the ceiling. This at the time was new to Spidey games, and is a most excellent feature.

Secret Agent Man

Spider-man also packs in tons of secrets. There are comic books to collect. Which are ingeniously hidden through out the game. Alternate costumes to unlock, when certain requirements are met. You can view character models in the 3D character viewer. The Playstation version had a unlockable mode called, “What If”. (“What If” comics featured alternate realities of the Marvel Universe. Such as, “What If, Spider-man killed the Lizard?”-MM-) And like the comic series of the same name, it was an alternate version of the game. It was nearly impossible to unlock. New to the Dreamcast version, some of the “What If” elements are already in the story mode.(Look for a cameo by Ghost Rider, among others.-MM-)

Graphically the DC version is superior in every way to that of the PSX, and N64.(You can actually see the web lines on Spidey’s suit!-MM-) Anyone that claims otherwise must be blind. Edges are clean, and lines run straight. Objects look more clear, and the view distance is greatly increased. Granted this game does not look as good as the Xbox Spider-man movie game. But it IS the best looking version of this particular Spidey game.

Sound wise the Dreamcast version excels as well. It is no secret that the Dreamcast had a much better sound card than that of the PSX and N64. The music sounds better, as do the voices and the sound effects. The voice overs themselves are a mixed bag. The voices of Black Cat, and Doc Ock are from the 90’s Spidey cartoon. And sound great in the roles still. It is a different Spider-man, and while not as good as the voice actor from the T.V. show the new Spidey does a good job. However many voices are poor. The thugs in particular. But some more major characters have poor voices as well. Such as Carnage.

The Bad
Evil Incarnations

Now that I have expressed the good, how about I go into the negative. As this game is not perfect. Firstly some levels are feel like filler. As if the design team needed to make the game longer than it was, and therefore added things that seem unnecessary. Yet that is not the worst of it some levels are just plain crap.

The save system is flawed at best. You can only save your progress after the certain levels. Not after every level as in better designed games. So you often end up playing parts over, or having to play longer than you wanted to. This may not bother everyone as much as it bothers me. But then again being mainly a PC gamer, I am used to save systems that allow you to save when ever you want.

There are also some weak plot points. I would spoil them if I gave them away. Allow me to just say this: Spider-man/Peter Parker is supposed to be a genius. Yet he does not see some things in the game clearly, which makes it look like he is in fact an idiot.

Why is the voice quality so mixed? You have some great voice overs, and then you have some terrible ones. Where is the consistency?

The Bottom Line
Overall this is a great Spider-man game. Not the BEST, but I don’t even know which one I would pick as my personal favorite. There are many versions of the game. Web head fans will want to play any version they can get there sticky hands on. If you have the means however I really recommend this version of the game. After all, who doesn’t want to play the best version of a game?

The Good
Despite coming out as late as 2000, Neversoft's Spider-Man is actually the first attempt to introduce the webslinger into fully 3D gaming - and it does a genuinely good job at giving you control over Spidey's powers. The web-swinging, while not exactly realistic, gives you some really nice mobility and the three web-related attacks add variety to the simple beat 'em up mechanics. The cherry on top is the wall- and ceiling-crawling, allowing you to make actual use of all three dimensions to navigate the levels, and often adding the stealth element of simply dropping on top of an unsuspecting enemy.

The overall design approach of alternating between web-swinging segments among New York's rooftops with tighter, more precisely designed interior levels does its job as well, providing the base for an interesting, varied experience.

The Bad
Unfortunately, as you proceed, the game turns out to be quite a bit more repetitive than it seemed at first, with many levels following the same design ideas, and severely lacking in enemy variety. The combat, despite the cool selection of web attacks, ultimately isn't varied enough either, feeling more like a simple beat 'em up than a genuine action-adventure experience.

Another weak point of the game is its camera system. While it technically does a good job of following the main character, his movement specifically while turning is so clunky and awkward that the camera suffers from it a lot. The first-person web aiming mode is slow and doesn't make up for a lack of regular camera controls (although, to be fair, the argument could be made that with a game this 3D-oriented controlling the camera with two buttons wouldn't have been enough, and the game had to work with analog stick-less PlayStation controllers).

The game also has a rather minor, but very noticeable fault in the graphics - while the gameplay engine, although based on Neversoft's earlier titles, looks genuinely good, the character models in the cutscenes are some of the worst the PSX has ever seen. The difference between the two, while of course not affecting how the game actually plays, can be really jarring.

The Bottom Line
Overall, Spider-Man 2000 is a decent first attempt at making a 3D Spider-Man game. It's not quite as creative as it could've been and definitely suffers from the heavily outdated hardware it was designed for, but it does deliver a pretty cool webslinger experience. 6/10

[played in emulator]

The Good
The perfect introduction of Spider-Man to the new millennium. The game shows that this was made by Spider-Man fans with its story, writing and solid performances. Plus, Stan Lee is the narrator! How cool is that? The story follows Peter Parker as he tries to find the impostor Spider-Man that stole technology from a reformed Otto Octavius during a science expo. To make matters worse, a green fog has covered New York City (leftover from the original PS1 version). In thirty-ish levels, you will fight against one of Spidey's greatest rogues such as Scorpion, Rhino and even Venom all while getting closer to the true masterminds. Graphics wise, it is an improvement over the limitations of the original Neversoft PlayStation version (Mary Jane and Black Cat).

The Bad
Controls and camera take some time getting used to (especially in boss fights and that Venom chase level). There are the occasional glitches in 2 levels of the game. Certain boss and enemy character models although getting a more detailed look thanks to the work of Treyarch on the Dreamcast port have gotten an almost campy feel (Rhino, cops/SWAT officers and the bald henchmen).

The Bottom Line
One of the finest superhero games of the twenty first century. To those who complain about FPS, I advise you to read the Spider-Man Dreamcast preview article where they interviewed the art director Christian Bušić. It will clear up that particular quirk.

The Good
I think all of us would be hard-pressed to find a good Spider-Man game prior to this release, with only vaguely entertaining games like Maximum Carnage or Capcom's fighting games. And that's due to the simple fact that no game bothered to really exploit the most interesting aspects of the web-slinger, by that I mean not beating up criminals while dressed up in red/blue tights, but actually being some sort of urban ninja that gracefully leaps and swings around buildings thanks to his superpowers.

Gray Matter's/Activision's Spider-Man game stands in my mind as the first game that actually bothered to address this and modelled the game around Spidey's superhuman acrobatics and crawling feats. It's also no surprise that this is the character's first polygonal game (which surely made it all possible). Anyway.

Spider-Man is a 3D action adventure title (genre which needs no introduction) in which you throttle around a set of stages following your spider-sense (represented via an onscreen compass) towards a certain objective which usually includes beating up one of Spidey's many foes or solving a light puzzle or another miscellaneous objective (such as tailing an enemy or escaping the law). Along the way you get to fight with several henchmen/thugs with a collection of punch/kick combos and your good ol' webbing which following arcade rules has a set of special moves which allow you to shape it as Scarlet Spider's Impact Webbing, or other useful modes. You also can collect special power-ups and bonus secrets to help you along the way.

Navigating the gameworld is pretty easy thanks to a full-fledged control scheme and interface that allows you to zip-line into any wall or ceiling or instantly start swinging around, with the wall crawling (which you get to use indoors as you work your way through vents and sneak around) turning the ceilings translucent and keeping the perspective. Camera control is automatic, and the controls neglect the mouse (a legacy of it's console origins) but a handy manual camera/target mode allows you to quickly position yourself and carefully explore your surroundings.

While the graphics are a mixed bag I'll at least say that they are extremely well animated, with Spidey specially leaping and moving in very life-like ways (a must since shoddy animation would have really hurt the game), the level design is simple yet attractive, with the most exciting levels by far being the ones that take place around the NY skyscrappers in which the camera zooms out significantly and proceeds to give you a birds-eye view of Spidey swinging around as he chases a foe or escapes the police. It may not sound like much but it would be the most majestic Spider-Man has ever looked since Alex Ross's "Webs" or until the Spider-Man movie.

Last but not least, this game started a trend by being loaded with extras, which include everything from challenge gameplay modes, extra costumes (with different attributes) character databases, and other additions that considerably extend the value of the title.

The Bad
As I mentioned, the graphics are a mixed bag, with cartoony and rather embarrasing models (just look at the broadshouldered thugs), shoddy low-resolution textures and really limited draw distance which causes New York to be eternally trapped in fog as the game's engine can't display too many buildings (another console legacy problem). Sound-wise the game is no winner either, seeing as how it conforms to an aspect of the game that really ticked me off and which is that it's a very kid-oriented product. Apparently there are some marketing people that still think that comics are only for kids, so they sugar-coated the whole game with such elements as cartoony criminals that use laser weapons (Remember G.I.Joe?? It's okay for people to be shot just as long as it's not by a firearm and there's no visible wounds involved), a straightforward and simple story, saturday morning cartoon-like music and just plain infuriating voice acting with every character voiced by cleancut cartoony stereotyped voices. The worst one by far however is the inclusion of Stan Lee as a narrator of sorts who treats the player as if he were a two year old retarded kid by going: "...Oy Kiddos!! How are you today? Well if it isn't our jolly friendly neighbor Spidey-man! Let's see in what exciting super-adventures he gets today! Watch out evil-doers! There goes our hero looking for adventure!!..."

Good god... I swear I was never more embarrased from playing a game (well maybe except when playing Tron 2.0 but from entirely different reasons).

The Bottom Line
Despite some irritating flaws, the worst use ever of Stan "The Man" Lee and generally making you feel like an inbred gradeschooler, "Spider-Man" is the worthiest title to date to bear the name of the legendary webslinger.

Just make sure nobody you want to respect you is around when you want to play it....

The Good
The graphics are great and the movie viewers are excellent. The gameplay is so simple, that you don't need to read the manual. The AI is good and sounds are incredible. With over 4 diffrent uses for web, diffrent kinds of web, over 5 diffrent enemies, a slew of super villians like venom and carnage, you can't go wrong.

The Bad
Nothing.

The Bottom Line
Buy it. I don't care if you hate Spider-man. Buy it. You will be hard pressed to find a better action\adventure game for the playstation.

The Good
The game is true to the comics, and is very exciting. Spider-Man includes various missions, incredibly tough levels, and lots of exciting action. The game includes various characters from the comic series & lots of surprises and incredibly challenging puzzles, the controls are easy to learn, and the graphics are smooth.

The Bad
There are few flaws in this game that are in fact a bit too small to mention. No complaints!

The Bottom Line
The result: An action-packed game with smooth graphics and a few challenging puzzles. A must-play.

The Good
The graphics for Spider-Man are surprisingly good, though lacking detail it still looks alright! The game also runs quite smooth for the most part. All the classic characters are here, Doc Oc, Venom, Carnage, just to name a few. Peter boy also has a couple of cool moves he can perform... i had no idea until i read the manual. There's also some very, very cool extras in the game like the comic collection, different costumes and story boards. The replay value however is high since different costumes can make the game harder/easier depending on which you choose.

The Bad
The controls grrr no mouse support. i'm so use to using the mouse in my games and this one is all keyboard. The camera angles, what a pain in the ass. It takes time to get use to it, i kept running into the damn walls. And lining up a jump..OY! You have the perfect path in your sites, you take a few steps back but this involves turning around which changes the camera position, you can't walk backwards... i'm not use to that. Must be the FPS addiction i got goin' on. Screenshots, typically what i do is hit the print screen key (with the printer OFF) and then paste it into photoshop later for some editing. Not with this one, the print screen key approach doesn't work, though there are other ways this is just the easiest for me. The voices for the game are so, so. What annoyed me most was when i wanted to explore the area, Spidey pipes up and says "i should follow my spidey compass" fine, shut up! keep exploring and he pipes up with "news flash! i need to follow my spidey compass blah blah blah" arrogant little shit. LOL Worst of all the game was too easy and just too short, i beat it with such little effort.

The Bottom Line
Certainly not a bad game at all, the game is good and the extra stuff makes this a must have for any Spider-Man fan!