Spider-Man in 3D! The games let you feel like Spider-Man by swinging through rooftops, mowing down mobs of baddies, and overcoming insurmountable odds in epic boss fights.
What Is It? The game starts with a Spider-Man impostor stealing Doctor Octopus’s latest invention and the New York City streets becoming flooded with poisonous gas which, in a total coincidence and not at all related to technical limitations, prevents Spider-Man from going down to street level throughout the adventure. Shortly after, you will be swinging between rooftops with surprisingly competent swing mechanics.
It’s tough to compare any classic Spidey-game to the new entries, but this 25 year old game mostly holds up well in terms of web-traversal. You don’t have as much control in the air as you might like, but once you understand the physics and limitations at play, you will be traversing fast enough to keep up with Venom (or hit the Game Over screen if you don’t!)
However, the game does not spend all that much time outdoors, as most of the entirely linear game is indoors. Indoor traversal is aided by a crosshair aiming mechanic which allows you to attach your web to a specific spot. There are sections towards the end of the game where you will need to do this quicker than is comfortable, but those don’t appear often.
The gameplay is mostly beat-em-up style combat. The face buttons are mapped to kick, punch, web, and jump which tells you about all you need to know. There is an impressive variety of moves featured here, it is definitely worth reading the instruction manual to learn them. Understanding how to create your own punch power-ups with your webbing is crucial to taking on bosses and difficult enemies, for example. The combat is nothing groundbreaking but feels good, with small combos typically sending your enemies flying to create some space to operate. I was surprised at how difficult the normal enemies were by the end of the game, notably the symbiotes are immune to your webbing and can take you out in just a few hits.
There are light puzzle aspects such as hitting switches in a certain order to open a series of gates, making your way through a maze, or finding a safe place to detonate a massive bomb inside of a bank.
The bosses are where the game really shines with each having their own distinct feel. The fights are a lot of fun and genuinely tough except maybe The Lizard, the first boss, who is a simple hand-to-hand fight. The game does an excellent job of making Spider-Man feel appropriately under matched against these villains who are bigger, faster, and stronger than him.
The Best Part: The volume of superheroes and villains they cram into this game. The heroes generally show up for a brief cameo between missions, but they all do a great job of conveying their personalities in their brief screen time. The villains are often much more well fleshed out. Mysterio is a late game boss with a total of about 15 seconds of screen time (excluding the actual fight), but the game perfectly builds him up to the point where you can leave with a solid understanding of the character. Adding to this, each character in the game gets a brief profile voiceover, accessible through the menus, by Stan Lee himself.
The Worst Part: The occasionally janky controls. This is to be expected in the early 3D era, but the thing that really stood out to me is how many of the problems in this game are the same in the modern Spider-Man games. When you’re chasing someone and accidentally cling to the side of a building instead of swinging to the next, you instantly fall behind because there’s no easy way to get to the top of a building when you’re on the side. It was instant shades of Spider-Man 2018 the first time this happened to me. Elsewhere you will attach to the wrong wall indoors, fight the camera in select spots, and other minor annoyances that are noticeable but not game-breaking.
The Verdict: Spider-Man is wrapped in a comic book coating that feels just right. There are a bunch of superhero cameos, with only Black Cat sticking around beyond a short cutscene. The game can be beaten in about 5 hours, but it cycles through villains quickly while doing a good enough job of tying them into the main story. Each big story section gets its own comic book cover. It feels like a few years of a comic condensed into a few fun hours.
Put together a bunch of memorable villains, a lot of fun cameos and add in good, even if slightly dated, gameplay and you have something that is worth revisiting today. It is tough to suggest this is a must-play given the recent run of Spider-games out there, but I will say that I had a great time in my few hours with this game. If you want a condensed Spider-experience and are used to early 3D controls, this is a great option.
How to Play: PlayStation 1*, N64, Dreamcast
*console played on for this review
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