The first time I played this game was when it was first released, almost 20 years ago. Being a young fan of comic books, I was very excited to discover what it would be like to be Spider-Man on my PC. You should know that this is a special game, judging by the fact that I still have the original floppy disks and booklet so many years later. In fact, the booklet is one of the few comic book items that made it into my condo, once I got married!
I'll address the story first.
It doesn't seem that a lot of creativity went into the overall story, especially when you see who some of the villains are - i.e. Batroc, Boomerang, Machete, etc. With a few exceptions, none of these guys were ever much of a threat in the comics. Having said that, the game has the same charm as an old comic book, and despite the simplicity of the story, it stills serves a good purpose. Rhino and Electro are still there, and Dr. Doom is probably one of the top Marvel villains of all time.
The graphics in this game are surprisingly good, considering the date of the release. The characters move and act the way you would expect, and Spidey in-particular makes good use of his
webs. His low, mid and high-range web attacks are very useful against all of the villains.
I read another review that made the controls seem difficult. I find them to be quite intuitive, and appropriate - considering the lack of proper game controllers, etc. That being said, it can be somewhat random to determine which attack you might be doing at any time, but the gameplay mechanics are simple enough.
This is a game that won't take long to beat, even though it is a little challenging, but it is certain worth the nostalgia that it brings out. It would certainly be worth spending a few dollars for such an investment, if one doesn't already own it.
I'm not sure how well this game did when it was first released. I hope it sold a lot of copies, but it doesn't seem like many people even knew about it. Perhaps comics weren't very popular then? I'm not sure. But this is a very charming game with great graphics, great gameplay and a story that Stan Lee would probably be proud of.
And finally, I want to add that this game is a testament to the quality of the games that were made, before the high-tech systems we have now. I hope some programmer is going to take this game and update it through Flash with better graphics, better sound and tweaked controls.
