The Amazing Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin

The Good
Spider-Man 's Sega CD outing is pure spun gold. It is a well-designed, action-packed platformer that improves upon the Sega Genesis version. This is arguably Spider-Man's greatest 16-bit video game, and one of the best Sega CD games.

Spider-Man looks great, is easy to control and has a wide range of attacks at his dispoal. The CD game has hundreds of possible levels that you can explore, fun animated sequences to help move the story, and a cool, rocking soundtrack.

Basically, it feels like the designers looked at the Sega Genesis Spider-Man and asked, "How can we make it better?" They added more levels, more bosses, more character animation, more attack moves, better music, better intermission sequences and more non-lineral gameplay.

The Bad
Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin has elements of non-lineral game play, but they don't amount to much.

Collecting digital images of classic comic books is fun, but doesn't actually impact the gameplay. The game does have different endings, depending on whether or not you get to the kingpin, defeat him and save your wife.

Most of the levels that you can play, in addition to the required levels, get repetitive quickly. It was an fun concept in 1993, but it has not aged especially well.

Quite a few aspects of the game have not aged well. The intermission sequences looked cool back in 1993, but not so much in 2018.

The voice acting is, mostly, ok, although sometimes it sounds as if actors were cut off mid sentence.


The Bottom Line
The Sega CD edition of Spider-Man vs The Kingpin is certainly the superior version. The cartridge version ain't shabby, but the CD edition controls better then the cartridge version. It has more levels, more bosses, more character animation, better music, better intermission sequences and multiple endings.