Spider-Man

aka: Spider-Man 64
Moby ID: 4333
PlayStation Specs
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Description official descriptions

Spider-Man is the first 3D game to star the popular web-slinger. It is loosely based on Spider-Man: The Animated Series and Spider-Man Unlimited and features some of the voice cast from each and similar character designs.

Peter Parker is attending a demonstration of the reformed Dr. Otto Octavius's new invention when an imposter Spider-Man steals the device. Spider-Man must work to clear his name and uncover the sinister motives behind the device's theft.

This game features appearances not only by most major Spider-Man characters, but cameos by numerous other characters from the Marvel Universe, such as the Human Torch, Punisher, Daredevil and Captain America.

Spider-Man's webs are greatly emphasized. He can use them both for navigational purposes, like swinging or ziplining, and for offensive and defensive combat, such as tying up a villain, coating his fists with web for extra oomph, or building a protective shield. His web supply is limited though and he must find new cartridges or risk running out. The wall-crawling powers are also prominently features. Spider-Man can cling to any wall or ceiling. This is used for basic environmental navigation and for stealth as there are many sequences where you crawl over the heads of unsuspecting thugs, or drop down and catch them off-guard.

Combat is based around Spider-Man's ability to jump, kick, punch and web. By combining these with direction and in various combinations, Spider-Man is able to throw objects such as furniture, hurl web balls, yank enemies into melee range and follow up with a flurry of hits, among other things. There are a number of boss-battles as well, all of which are puzzle-based.

Missions vary from the fairly common fight-your way-to-the-goal or find-the-key-that-unlocks-the-door types to races to catch some or evade them or just trying to avoid the police.

There are several side goals in addition to the main mission including multiple unlockable Spider-Man costumes and numerous hidden comic book covers to find.

Spellings

  • ספיידרמן - Hebrew spelling
  • 蜘蛛侠 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Screenshots

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Credits (PlayStation version)

178 People (112 developers, 66 thanks) · View all

Producer
Associate Producer
Executive Producer
Senior Vice President Studios
Executive Vice President World Wide Studios
Vice President of Marketing
Director of Marketing
Brand Manager
Publicist
Legal
QA Manager and Senior Project Lead
QA Project Lead
QA Floor Lead
Testers
For Marvel Comics
Lead Designer
Lead Programmer
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 51 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 96 ratings with 10 reviews)

Decent first attempt at 3D web-slinging action

The Good
Despite coming out as late as 2000, Neversoft's Spider-Man is actually the first attempt to introduce the webslinger into fully 3D gaming - and it does a genuinely good job at giving you control over Spidey's powers. The web-swinging, while not exactly realistic, gives you some really nice mobility and the three web-related attacks add variety to the simple beat 'em up mechanics. The cherry on top is the wall- and ceiling-crawling, allowing you to make actual use of all three dimensions to navigate the levels, and often adding the stealth element of simply dropping on top of an unsuspecting enemy.

The overall design approach of alternating between web-swinging segments among New York's rooftops with tighter, more precisely designed interior levels does its job as well, providing the base for an interesting, varied experience.

The Bad
Unfortunately, as you proceed, the game turns out to be quite a bit more repetitive than it seemed at first, with many levels following the same design ideas, and severely lacking in enemy variety. The combat, despite the cool selection of web attacks, ultimately isn't varied enough either, feeling more like a simple beat 'em up than a genuine action-adventure experience.

Another weak point of the game is its camera system. While it technically does a good job of following the main character, his movement specifically while turning is so clunky and awkward that the camera suffers from it a lot. The first-person web aiming mode is slow and doesn't make up for a lack of regular camera controls (although, to be fair, the argument could be made that with a game this 3D-oriented controlling the camera with two buttons wouldn't have been enough, and the game had to work with analog stick-less PlayStation controllers).

The game also has a rather minor, but very noticeable fault in the graphics - while the gameplay engine, although based on Neversoft's earlier titles, looks genuinely good, the character models in the cutscenes are some of the worst the PSX has ever seen. The difference between the two, while of course not affecting how the game actually plays, can be really jarring.

The Bottom Line
Overall, Spider-Man 2000 is a decent first attempt at making a 3D Spider-Man game. It's not quite as creative as it could've been and definitely suffers from the heavily outdated hardware it was designed for, but it does deliver a pretty cool webslinger experience. 6/10

[played in emulator]

PlayStation · by Pegarange (282) · 2023

Do whatever a spider can !

The Good
I played the Nintendo version of this game first and was impressed, but not flattered. BOY did that change when I picked this up ! NOT ONLY does this version have cinematics , better sounding voice acting , and the same actors from the TV show , but it has lots of voice work from STAN THE MAN LEE ! It does not get cooler when Stan is describing the characters in the view mode with is famous humor and wisecracks.

First as always, I'll get right on the graphics. They have one edge over the other versions, in that they are sharper, and have little fuzz. This game uses the Tony Hawk game engine and I have to say this must have been some feat , or miracle of programming to turn a skateboarding game into a third person action game. The buildings, the characters, and the cutscenes all are very well done. Special mention should go to the purple monsters which move almost real goo. Something I didn't the Playstation was capable of. Spider Man himself is obviously going to be the best looking character in the game, and he is. Except that he has no web lines on suit. Not even in the cinematics!

The sound is quite good with a lot of memorable tracks, and Spidey's always humorous one liners. All the voice actors from the cartoon ( which I used to watch ) are all here. They are actually more convincing in the game than they are in the show! Stan Lee provides lots of commentary for the game. Example, when a new set of levels starts, like the basement levels he tells of the looming danger ! And, as mentioned earlier, describes the characters in the view mode. A last note note on the sound, I feel you should know my favorite line in the whole game is the following, " Leave him alone chuckles!" " Butt out web head." "Spider Man ? I ask for the police, and I get this! "

The controls are limited in their positives so I'll discuss them in the bad section.

The last positive note is there are TONS of unlock-ables. And even though some are useless, They are still too irresistible to pass up ! Unlockable comic covers made explicitly for the game, AND almost all the greatest Spider Man covers of the past are there for gawking ! Different costumes that give you special powers are also a nice touch. Your skills a little rusty ? Well check out the practice modes for training or for records. Still not satisfied? Play all your favorite levels again with the level select. Plus there is a cheat that allows you to play the game again with minor changes. Example is in one of the early levels, when you must rescue people, there is a empty room that if you step on the floor, he'll disco dance ! A little stupid, but funny ! And want to see all your favorite hero's and villains ? Take a look at the character viewer.



The Bad
THE CONTROLS ARE TOTAL CRAP ! Seriously ! They fight you so much that you'll often find that you'll fall off things only to receive instant death from the endless bottom ! And the camera isn't much help either. It always follows Spider Man true, but you'll be getting a good look at his side a lot whenever you have to turn around. It is far too slow and you have little con-troll over it ! And the aiming system, unless you are sitting still, is worthless. And some loading screens are very drab.

The Bottom Line
If you'r a diehard Spider Man fan totally get this game ! If you never read Spider Man, SHAME ON YOU ! Then go get this game ! For every other gamer, get it ! You'll love it ! And to dismiss myself properly, I leave you with a, EXCELSIOR !

PlayStation · by GAMEBOY COLOR! (1990) · 2007

Decent game ruined by poor design choices and bugs.

The Good
I've always loved Spider-Man, so I figured that I'd love this game. I started with the training sections and it was a lot of fun to swing from building to building, then crawl up the walls. Spider-Man is well animated and the graphics for the city, are decent, if not outstanding. In the first couple of levels, it was a lot of fun to crawl on the ceiling and drop down on unsuspecting thugs, taking them out from behind. There are extra costumes to use (if you can unlock them), comic book covers to collect and a character viewer where you can see the 3D model for any character that you've encountered in the game and read a short bio. Stan Lee is on hand to do the narration.

The Bad
Sadly, all of the above is virtually ruined by the poor design choices made by the programmers and the numerous bugs in the Windows version.

The first problem is the controls. Spider-Man can only turn in set increments of about 45 degrees. This makes it nearly impossible to line up jumps properly, aim at enemies, or pick up items in a hurry. To compensate for this, the game auto-aims to some extent, however it often makes poor choices about what to aim at, or it fails to aim at anything in particular. There's also an aiming mode, where you can move a crosshair onto what you want to shoot, or where you want to swing to. Unfortunately, aiming mode is so slow and awkward to use (no mouse support) that you can only use it when not under attack. Different moves are often accomplished by using a combination of buttons. For example, to shoot impact webbing, you have to press forward and the web button at the same time. Unfortunately, where other games allow a split second between button presses, Spider-Man requires you to press them at EXACTLY the same time. Because of this, you will often end up doing something you didn't intend because you didn't get the timing right. It also means you can't do things like move and shoot at the same time. Finally, the movement controls are camera relative, meaning that Spider-Man moves relative to the camera and control directions will change when the camera moves.

Speaking of the camera, it only updates its position when you stop moving. Only then will it swing around behind Spider-Man. So, while in the heat of battle, you will often be trying to guide Spider-Man while looking at him from the rear, left, right and front, with the controls constantly changing based on the camera angle.

Then there's the save system, which only allows you to save at the end of a level. So a single mistake means you have to play the entire level over again. Apparently game designers consider endless repetition to be fun.

As if the above wasn't bad enough, the Windows version of Spider-Man is so poorly programmed that it has numerous bugs when run on a more modern system.

Bug #1: When you change any of the game options, it writes a config file called Spidey.cfg to the game's directory. This file then prevents the game from launching on modern systems. This means that you have to delete the CFG file and re-configure the options each time you play. This bug does not occur on older systems.

Bug #2: In the Catch Venom level, there is a cutscene in the middle of the level, after which, Venom and Spider-Man are supposed to swing to a building to continue the chase. On modern systems, Spider-Man falls to his death after the cutscene and the level ends in failure. If you set the resolution to 1280x1024, he survives the cutscene, but swings to the wrong building and then Venom gets away, ending the level in failure. Yes, you read that correctly, on modern systems, the game can't be completed without cheating because the developers made it possible to die in a cutscene!

Bug #3: After running the game once, then deleting the CFG file and running it a second time, the game often loads in slow-motion mode, where just the first of the four logo animations takes about ten minutes to display. Even if you skip the animations, it still takes about 2-3 minutes to get to the main menu and another 2-3 to select the Quit option and activate it. You need to reboot between sessions to avoid this.

Bug #4: Occasionally, the game stops responding to the controller, or it gets stuck moving in the last direction you pressed. Usually it recovers after a little bit, but by then you've failed the level and will have to start it over again.

Bug #5: On a later level called Stop the Presses, I experienced several crashes to the Desktop.

Lest you think I'm running Spider-Man on some super-modern uber-system, I have a 1.8Ghz system running Windows 98SE and a GeForce4 MX440 graphics card. Activision claims this system is too new to run the game without encountering the above bugs. When I asked them why games that are even older, like Half-Life, still run properly, they had no answer.

The Bottom Line
Spider-Man had the potential to be a great game, and indeed the first few levels are fun, even with the control and camera problems. Unfortunately after the beginning, the game becomes a chore to play. The lousy controls combined with the horrible camera system make fighting your way through the later levels extremely frustrating. If I hadn't bought this used for only $1.99, I'd feel ripped off.

Windows · by Rekrul (49) · 2007

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Trivia

After unlocking the storyboards, if you look at the last one, you can see that the Lizard was meant to be in the final cutscene.

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  • MobyGames ID: 4333
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Jason W. Owen.

Macintosh, Dreamcast added by Corn Popper. Windows added by Kartanym. PlayStation added by Jim Fun.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Crawly, Zeppin, DreinIX, colm52, Zaibatsu.

Game added June 15, 2001. Last modified March 22, 2024.