Spider-Man: The Video Game (1991)

Preliminary: I have a bad feeling this is just gonna be another brawler I can't click with. But I like that there are different characters you can pick from, all of which are cool, and I like the voice acting so far. But we shall see...

So far the depth issue I usually have with brawlers hasn't been too bad. And I like the special spidie movies. hmmm

Interesting that there are sorta-platformer segments. Hmmm maybe this will be worth a full playthrough. I always loved Venom as a villain. And this seems like it'd be a lot of fun with my brother if he comes over this week (tho I'm sadly super busy with grad school classes twice this week argh).

It got a bit clunky during the platforming big-Venom boss fight at the end of what I assume is considered the first stage? Some mediocre responsiveness to jumping after a hit and whatnot. And you'd think Spiderman could walk faster :-p But otherwise, surprisingly solid start for a brawler! And I didn't have to abuse infinite continues or savestates at all yet! Tho that was just the first stage haha

Well sure enough, it's using infinite Continues time :-p Love that you can switch characters then, which helps make this a game that can be played solo tho I do wanna play it with other/s. I'm loving Black Cat so far! I like how fast she is and how her special move is like an Area of Effect move. Very useful. Michael and I aren't feeling well so it's time to head to bed (the Daylight Savings Time change probly isn't helping either), but this has piqued my interest despite its genre being one that usually can't hold me. Oh one other thing to note, it's a bit annoying that some enemies can duck during the brawler segments yet you can't duck or choose to hit low (you can during the platformer segments). I will have to do some research to see if I'm missing something, everything else has been intuitive so far tho, so I doubt it. (Some really cool Look too

Day 2

Ugh this Green Goblin boss is really annoying. Completely exploits the depth issue of brawlers that I don't like. And the fact that you move soooo slowly (like in most brawlers). Argh, this was on track to being a 4+ star, butttt.

I was debating about calling it quits cuz it feels like it's devolving into just another brawler but I thinnnnk I'm getting back into the groove. I just beat Dr. Octopus in the platformer segment. I think it's Mission 3? The Sound and Look aren't amazing, but they both still have such a classic arcade vibe it feels worth pushing through. I think.

It's definitely doing more and more of the coin eating antics of brawlers tho. I was officially going to call it quits after the Sandman boss fight but I just read there's only one more Mission after this so I suppose I should just finnish...

Yea I do still wanna play this a bit with my brother but like most brawlers, really just the beginning is particularly fun. The positives I noticed at the beginning (not too much depth issue, not too much coin eating antics) all became exploited the opposite direction for late game. So it goes. I think I will just try out the final stage and move on.

The settings and new enemies of this final stage are interesting. Like a dark cave with hellboy-esque enemies.

Oh god not a boss rush which of course meant that awful Green Goblin flying part again. Maybe some of the other characters are better for it but I've been sticking with Black Cat. We also find our preferred character in multi-character brawlers like this :-p

Jeez this just wont end will it... How many forms will Dr. Doom have, mostly with the same mechanics (tho some of the hypey sound effects were cool). And now Venom too. Great ending screen and tune tho

Look: 8/10 Classic arcade vibe.

Sound: 8/10 Classic arcade sound, nothing special tho.

Play: 7.5/10 The best of the brawlers so far imo. Plus I actually finished it!

Feel: 8/10 Gotta give credit for my favorite of the brawlers so far.

Attachment: 8/10 The fact I wanna play this with my brother says a lot. And the fact I actually could play it solo. It maybe deserves a 4 for that, but I dunno. Brawlers... Yada yada. Maybe if I return to it and really enjoy it with other/s

Overall: 7.9/10

Completion: Main Story

Playtime: ~1 hr

This game is so shoddy and buggy yet is somehow more fun than it has any right to be. It honestly feels like a reskin of some generic beat em up. The four playable characters look different, but play essentially the same. There is a "special" that is kind of different for each character but functionally the same. Spiderman shoots out a weird web thing, Black Cat swings her whip, Namor punches out lighting and Hawkeye shoots his bow. The bow attack is the only move that feels different. It can be inconsistent to pull off this move. You have to push the jump and attack button at the same time with little room for error. This resulted in me using the special half the time I tried. Whenever you use a special, you lose HP.

What's strange about this game is how HP works. The more credits you put into the game, the more your HP increases. It seemed to be roughly 1 credit = 400 HP. Most enemies hit for about 4 HP (excluding bosses). If you put in 5 dollars you basically have 8000 HP. It's not too hard to avoid damage either so you basically become immortal.

The game also makes use of vector scaling. In the first level you fight Venom. After beating him he absorbs this weird stone tablet that makes him gigantic. No idea what the tablet was because it doesn't come back for the rest of the game... But when he becomes big, the screen zooms out and becomes a shooter (not a good shooter mind you). In these shooting sequences, you can actually just ignore every enemy and walk to the end. Unlike normal gameplay, there aren't soft locks that force you to kill all the enemies until you get to the boss.

Bosses die quick and can be stun locked. There were a few times where my friends and I formed a sandwich around the boss and punched him to death before he could even move.

So yeah, gameplay is pretty trivial, there are constant issues with layering in the graphics where shadows will cover player models or you will clip through a surface because of how poorly made the game is. The best part is "the walk." You can't run in this game and all characters walk at a dawdling pace. Spiderman looks drunk the way he lazily sways his arms around. When he punches, he has his feet planted firmly next to each other and leans forward, not using his hips. It's impressive. The most terrifying part of this game are in the final stage's ape men. They have rubbery arms, potbellies and shriek like banshees. The way their bodies move is pure nightmare fuel.

As mentioned in the title above, I was very curious how many people worked on this game. When credits rolled... not a single credit was listed besides it was made by Sega. Clearly they were relying on brand recognition between Sega and Spider man. It got me playing, so mission accomplished.

Fun time with friends though. Just bring beer. It is basically "so bad It's good."

“From everyone who has been given much, much will be required…” -The Gospel of Luke 12:48 [NASB]

In the 90’s, Sega and Marvel Comics came together to produce a Spider-Man arcade game, one of the forgotten Spidey games in history. I remembered this game chatting with readers in our comment sections since we recently covered beat ’em ups in our Elemental Challenge, and also because they’ve released yet another Spider-Man movie, Homecoming. In case you don’t want to see Uncle Ben get shot and hear his “Obligation of Nobility” again (spoiler, Uncle Ben dies?), or if you don’t want to stir up old nightmares about Tobey Maguire’s cry face, you can read the following review on a Spider-Man video game that’s actually good. Please disregard that Sinister Six game on the NES… it’s LJN.

Spider-Man: the Videogame was something that really fascinated me as a kid, for a few reasons. One, it was a beat ’em up, in other words: a highly accessible and straightforward coin-munching romp representative of a genre I enjoyed. I always sought out these sorts of games in the arcades I frequented and infrequented.

Two, it featured frickin’ Spider-Man. Spider-Man and later Batman were my childhood favorites before I turned to the dark side (colloquially DC Comics). Spider-Man comic books were the earliest comics I remember buying with my own ill-gotten gains. The 90’s Spider-Man animated series was a perennial staple in my diet of cartoons, until I grew up and wondered why they all talked at the pace of Speed Racer. I loved Spidey’s candy-colored world, his villains, and his powers. His snarky optimism was a big draw for me as a kid. I collected Spider-Man action figures and trading cards (remember those Marvel cards you put together in sets of 9 to make bigger images?).

Reason three why this game captured my heart: I only saw and played it once. I never played it again, as a kid. I now remember looking for it in the arcades whenever I went but its elusiveness eventually let it slip out of my mind. I wouldn’t rediscover it until I was an adult and then all those memories came back, how I first encountered that four-player cabinet in some dark, brick room at an airport, how I pumped in quarter after quarter but had to give up anyway when it was time to go. Walking away from an arcade machine you’d just put real money into before getting a game over, just so you know, makes for a horrible, sinking feeling in your gut, causing you to hate your parents until dinner time.

Spider-Man: the Videogame was notable for the sheer amount of characters that populated it. Their designs are based on the work of Spidey artists from the 60’s through 80’s. A lot of these, if not all of them, are the character designs I usually think of when you talk about Spider-Man, Black Cat, Kingpin, Hobgoblin, Scorpion, Venom, and so on. The game is populated with tons of bosses and mini-bosses that cover the bulk of Spidey’s baddies but there are also other Marvel antagonists thrown in, namely Doctor Doom, the last boss.

Click here for the full review... https://thewellredmage.wordpress.com/2017/07/09/spider-man-the-videogame-1991/