I bought my first Game Boy solely for the original black-and-white Spider-Man game. It was a deft little side scroller with lots of nice Spider-Man touches. The bosses were pretty lame, but the in-town webswinging was nice... a great early showing on the Game Boy.
Now, positioned during the Spider-Man lull between the death of the FOX cartoon series and the live action movie, Spider-Man has re-appeared in a great action title for Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. The PSX version actually came out months ago, but I decided to wait for the N64 version, figuring it would have improved graphics and such.
It does, but the N64 version does have quite a few costs too. Someday, I'll pick up the PSX version and do a complete comparison, but until then you're going to have to live with me bitching about the N64 edition.
Finally, finally, finally, we have a game that lets you act as Spider-Man might actually act (for the most part.) He can webswing, he can climb up the walls and ceilings, he has multiple webbing attacks. And there's lots of audio samples that fly out randomly during the levels for some of that classic Spidey wit.
The levels are designed around Spider-Man abilities, instead of just being regular old levels with Spider-Man grafted on them. On more than one occasion, I could not find my way out of a level... only to suddenly remember to look up... and there would be a hole in the ceiling to climb out. I must be very dim to have fallen for that one several times. Many sequences require long distance webswinging between gigantic sewer pipes or skyscrapers. Several levels break up the run-and-gun monotony... one has you scurrying up the side of a building while a helicopter launches missiles. Another forces you to keep up with Venom as he zig-zags through the rooftops. The final boss fight is a show stopper, mainly because it's not much of a fight... more of a flee. You have to keep ahead of the boss while leaping and webswinging through a windy escape route.
Spidey also has lots of furniture and props to pick up and hurl. The interior levels show off some very nice detailing, like filing cabinets, security cams, and potted plants... but the exterior levels have a tendency towards weirdness. Processor limitations force the skyscrapers to draw in out of the fog. A few sound effects gamely try to make it feel like a full fledged city, but the vast stretches of emptiness between the buildings turn it into a Mario-style floating platform level.
Thanks to Nintendo's archaic cartridge format, the cutscenes of the PSX version have been lost and turned into awkward, momentum-draining slide shows. The slides kill all of the game's energy; it's like having a commercial break in the middle of Saving Private Ryan. They did try to make the slide shows look like a comic book... but I DON'T WANT TO READ A COMIC BOOK IN A VIDEO GAME. I want to PLAY a comic book. The main menu lets you re-play any of the slide shows; it should come with a voucher for a personal apology phone call from someone at Nintendo.
Speaking of bonus features, Spider-Man is a true product of the modern day action game... packed with a theme-appropriate passel of bonuses! Scattered throughout the levels are hidden Spider-Man comic books. The books have no purpose other than to be collected, but it's something to do. There is also a fun selection of alternate costumes, which, one found, can act as cheats for the game. For example, wearing the black symbiote costume gives you unlimited webbing. And, a few training levels let you set records of speed, kills and endurance. Shame there's no two player version.
But this game has a dirty, ugly secret. The controller scheme seems designed to make your Spider-Man play difficult; it sabotages all of the web abilities and makes you resort to the more-accessible kicks and punches. Damn! They got so close to a superb comic book game and then they scuttle it with a clumsy button system. Each of Spidey's web attacks comes out of combining the C-up button with a joystick direction. So more often than not, you won't have the timing right and Spider-Man will end up jerking himself to the left instead of shooting impact webbing. I really wish they would have playtested this and cleaned up the buttons (see sidebar), because it does a great job of shooting Spider-Man right in the ass.
