Gaming
Games
Trace the gaming evolution of Marvel's Spider-Man
With Marvel's Spider-Man swinging its way onto the PS4 in a few weeks, we swing our way through the web slinger's love affair with video games.
Spider-Man has appeared in video games since the early 1980s. That's almost as long as Mario and Peach's infatuation with having makeout sessions in and around castles, and in that time there's been a lot to love. The 1990s were a side-scroller fan's beautiful nightmare; the 2000s fixated on exploration and giving Peter Parker his own makeovers; and the last few years, well, moving on.
Insomniac Games' neoteric version of Spider-Man hits shelves in just a few weeks so it's a good time to 'thwip' our way through an abbreviated version of his video game history.
Spider-Man (1982)
It's true: the first Spider-Man game and Marvel Comics title made its debut on the Atari 2600. It was shamelessly '80s, as it arrived in the same year as Diet Coke and Runts candy, and it held its own as a Parker Brothers exclusive in which you captured generic bad guys and used your web shooters to scale buildings and defuse explosives set by the Green Goblin. It was a simple idea for the 'beep-boop' generation, but it was a hopeful starting point for the web head himself.
Proving AAA batteries aren’t entirely useless
© Coleka
The Amazing Spider-Man (1990)
With a little help from Rare and Acclaim, Spider-Man made his way over to the Nintendo Game Boy at the dawn of the '90s, and the entry was kind of perfect for what it was: a pea soup-style beat-em-up packed with kicks, double jumps, hamburgers and Mary Jane. It featured a stellar soundtrack – courtesy of composer David Wise (Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country) – and for some bizarre reason, it proposed the idea of the web slinger getting 'quippy' with super villains via cellular phones and walkie-talkies. The banter wasn't great by any means, but at least it stirred up the idea of Spider-Man musing over a home phone with Scorpion on the other end.
We all get by with a little help from our friends
© Coleka
Spider-Man: Return Of The Sinister Six (1992)
Spidey's introduction to the NES was somewhat based on The Amazing Spider-Man #334-#339, which found Doctor Octopus fully tapping into his inner Pinky And The Brain with the help of his Sinister Six BFFs (Electro, Mysterio, Vulture, Sandman, and Hobgoblin). The action itself made it a pretty standard side-scroller, but one that was notably difficult due to flaky controls, bad guys who could regenerate health, and Spidey being restricted to a 'one heart, one continue' lifestyle. Its box art however is a genuine '90s relic that still ‘delivers a giant helping of Marvel fuzzies.
A SNES classic with the right amount of ‘snikt!’
© IMDb
Spider-Man And The X-Men In Arcade's Revenge (1992)
Spider-Man's SNES team up with the X-Men is an imperfect byproduct of development hell, but it represented Marvel's desire to dip cartridges in an endless bucket of comic book lore.
Taking notes from the Uncanny X-Men #123-#125, it followed the premise of the gang being abducted by a villain named Arcade, who sticks Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Gambit and Spider-Man in a simulated program called 'Murderworld'. Apocalypse is there – not to mention a handful of other Marvel baddies, including Juggernaut, Rhino, Selene, Master Mold, and Obnoxio The Clown – and as you'd expect, it's about as random as Arcade's recent appearance in The Unbelievable Gwenpool #12-#13.
Spidey and Venom go full Creepy Crawlers
© Amazon
Spider-Man And Venom: Maximum Carnage (1994)
Here's the thing about Maximum Carnage: it looks unbelievably '90s, features Venom as a playable character and even has an uncredited take on Black Sabbath's The Mob Rules. That said, it would also provoke you to use your pearly whites to rip the heads off of your sister's new Barbie doll collection. It was (and still is) meticulously difficult and while it holds up as one of the most underrated superhero games, it's also responsible for spawning SNES/Genesis-era outrages like Lethal Foes (1995), Separation Anxiety (1995), and the Sega 32X’s Web Of Fire (1996).
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash Of Super Heroes (1998)
Because Capcom's Wolverine is still bae
© Fandom
Clash Of Super Heroes is an arcade port that was preceded by a handful of titles that visualised Capcom's fetish for pitting Ryu against Wolverine, but for PlayStation and Dreamcast owners, it was the start of something new. It more or less chucked Spidey into the fighting genre head first and boosted his worldwide appeal with a fundamentally sound, hyper-flashy fighter that brought his quippage and thwippage to life. There's also his over-the-top Maximum Spider super, which when you think about it, is actually older than Go-Gurt, Furbys, and the McDonald's McFlurry.
Like Tony Hawk, but with way more 'thwipping'
© Amazon
Spider-Man (2000)
Spider-Man is a classic in its own right. Not just because Neversoft did the unthinkable, make an Amazing Spider-Man game using the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater engine, but for the fact they gave the 32-bit and 64-bit generation a full-fledged superhero game that leaned on the source material as a whole.
In one full swing, 2000's Spider-Man webbed up interesting power ups and 1vs1 brawl mechanics, threw in a bunch of alternate costumes and collectibles, and steered the whole thing with '90s voice actors (Rino Romano, Jennifer Hale) and narration from Stan Lee. It also never shied away from being quirky and it carried all of the above over to a proper PlayStation sequel, 2001's Enter Electro, which had the web cartridges to implement a 'Create-A-Spider' mode.
Was the game better than the movie? Probably
© Fandom
Spider-Man: The Movie (2002)
Despite Tobey Maguire's awful attempt at voice acting, the PS2's Spider-Man is a pretty great game based on its importance to the franchise. It suffered from trying to take its previous level-based beat 'em up concept to a new console cycle with new expectations, but it pushed Treyarch and friends to develop two more film-based titles in the process -- zeroing in on the mechanics of web swinging while ironing out the kinks that come with combat, storytelling and open-world exploration.
The mini-series also never felt obligated to stick to Sam Raimi's storyboards, which is a plus for developers (then and now), and for those of us who spent most of our childhood blindly renting licensed video games like Acclaim's Batman Forever and 2004's Catwoman.
Ultimate Spider-Man (2005)
If the Spider-Man: The Movie trilogy is a direct spawn to 'THPS Spider-Man', then Ultimate is its nerdy 13-year-old cousin who adores Funko Pops, jawbreakers, and cell-shading everything in sight.
The spin-off was developed with writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Mark Bagley at the helm, and its story eventually morphed its way into Ultimate Spider-Man #123-#128's War Of The Symbiotes arc, which was published by Marvel Comics in 2008. It expanded on Spider-Man 2's manual web shooting mechanics while adding a whole lotta Venom, but it's more known for being an innovative gap-bridger between two long standing mediums, pushing creative types to look beyond the Comix Zones of the past to let their freak flag fly with style and grace.
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (2006)
Since Wolverine is more of a 'raging daddy' type than an upstanding do-gooder, it was up to the friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man to be the face of Raven Software's Ultimate Alliance series. It's not a beloved accolade given the fact the squads-only RPG was seen as more of a bargain bin grab than a timeless peek into the heroes and villains that make up the Marvel Universe, but it set the standard for B-tier superhero games that live by a niche. Without it, there wouldn’t be Marvel Heroes or the toxic timesuck that is Marvel Puzzle Quest, and we probably wouldn't be looking at a Square Enix-led Avengers-meets-Ultimate Alliance reboot. If the latter happens, it's only fitting that Deadpool narrates it. We need more Bob Ross jokes.
Spider-Man: Web Of Shadows (2008)
For the PS2/360/Wii generation, Web Of Shadows gave Spider-Man fans an original story that placed comic book favourites such as Venom, Mary Jane and Black Cat at the forefront, but it fumbled the source material by trying to balance its choice system with clunky camera controls and technical glitches as far as the eye can see. It also struggles in a visual sense, as its textures, colour palette and pure hatred for lighting effects attempt to establish a 'darker tone'.
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (2010)
Shattered Dimensions is a bit of an oddity. It was developed by Beenox written by the Amazing Spider-Man's own Dan Slott, featured voice acting from Neil Patrick Harris and revolved around a plot in which Madame Webb tasks four different versions of Spider-Man from various realities (i.e. Amazing, Noir, 2099, Ultimate) to retrieve the fragments of the 'Tablet Of Order And Chaos'.
It's a lot to digest – especially when you consider the game’s art style and the way in which each wall crawler approaches combat and gameplay systems – and despite its minor flaws, it illustrated a shift into a new Arkham-esque revamp of the franchise that was worth playing.
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Here's an opinion for you: Andrew Garfield was a pretty decent Spider-Man. He had 'that look', set off on-screen fireworks with Emma Stone (as Gwen Stacy) and even tugged at a few heart strings being the theatre buff that he is. It has nothing to do with Beenox's last-gen take on The Amazing Spider-Man films, but, in a way, both were overlooked for being a reboot of a previous iteration despite their underlying qualities. The 2012 entry into the series wasn't visually enthralling or a massive leap forward in terms of AI loops and animations, but it did feature a return to an open world sandbox version of Manhattan, which made it a joy to pick up and play. There was a tie-in sequel, of course, but no one's allowed to talk about that.
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (2013)
Traveller's Tales' Lego Marvel Super Heroes is in the running for being the best Marvel game of all-time, because of its Pixar-minded approach to the source material. It went above and beyond, with 155+ characters and a LEGO version of Marvel's New York. It also delivered two sequels that are totally worth playing (2016's Marvel Avengers and 2017's Marvel Super Heroes 2) and went full Spider-Verse, with playables such as Spider-Woman, Venom, Carnage, Green Goblin, Electro, Rhino, Vulture, Mysterio, Curt Connors, Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson.
Lego Marvel Super Heroes is also one of the few games in which you can nose dive off the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier as Spider-Man and web swing your way through a bustling metropolis in a glitch-free way that just 'feels right'.
Marvel's Spider-Man (2018)
Marvel's Spider-Man raises a lot of questions. Who the hell is Mister Negative? What's up with Peter Parker’s memeable face? How many villains is too many? And will we finally get the chance to recreate that upside-down kiss scene with Mary Jane Watson while Death Cab For Cutie's Title And Registration gently weeps in the background? There’s no telling what's in store with Insomniac's debut, but given their history (Resistance, Ratchet & Clank) it's bound to be a compelling and tightly composed action-adventure that leans on key writers (Jon Paquette and Dan Slott) and scores (by John Paesano) to add a new annotation to the word 'immersion'.
The internet and its communities have placed a lot of trust in their efforts since hearing that the team that made Sunset Overdrive are working on a new Spider-Man game so only time will tell. If all else fails, at least there's a Photo Mode and the potential to turn Vulture into a #selfiequeen.
Spider-Man is swinging its way to PS4 on September 7.
