Spider-Man

aka: Spider-Man Vs. the Kingpin
Moby ID: 140575
SEGA Master System Specs
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Description

The Kingpin is framing Spider-Man for planting a bomb in New York City. Spider-Man only has 24 hours to find the keys that will let him disarm the bomb and clear his name.

The game consists of eleven stages including boss fights and bomb defusal. The game has a counter that continually counts down until the bomb will explode. After the second stage, Spider-Man is given the option to exit a stage at anytime to return home and recover his health, but doing so will cost him precious time and he will have to restart the stage from the beginning again. Spider-Man must search through each stage thoroughly as the boss of the stage will only appear when all the humanoid enemies are defeated.

Spider-man can punch, kick, jump, and can also fire a webshot that will temporarily stun enemies. Spider-Man can also climb walls and use his webs to swing. Spider-Man can only use his web powers as long as his web cartridges are not empty. Spider-Man can refill his web cartridges by taking photos of the supervillains he comes across and selling the photos to the Daily Bugle newspaper.

The game has four difficulty levels with the hardest difficulty level Nightmare featuring random attacks from Venom.

A same titled game came out for the Genesis that features a similar story and general level progression, but the design of the levels are different.

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Credits (SEGA Master System version)

12 People

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 74% (based on 14 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 20 ratings with 1 reviews)

The Above-Average Spider-Man

The Good
The game does feature some nice, 8-bit animation, graphics, music and sound effects. It is not just a carbon copy of the initial Sega Genesis edition.

Here the game's intermission cut sequences have been drastically redesigned from the original Sega Genesis edition, including a nice little cameo from Doctor Strange.

Clearly, someone designing the game is familiar with the comic book characters, and was trying to give their some 8bit respect.

It was nice to see some creative easter eggs in the game (including the ability to put on the black Spider-Man costume from the Secret Wars comic book mini series).

The Bad
The Sega Master System controller itself was not well designed, which is a reason why the system was not terribly successful in the United States.

In this game, the method to switch between (for example) your camera or to journey back to your apartment gets cumbersome when you are also trying to quickly execute an offensive move.

Again, I realize that part of the problem is the controller itself, but be prepared for some level of frustration when your planned attack or web swing is mistaken by the game as a desire to make your inventory screen pop up.

The game -- even on the normal setting -- becomes very difficult early on. Some of this is due to the game play mechanics, but the game itself can be quite unforgiving.

For example, If you are not careful you can get stuck (fairly early on in Electro's level) by a series of flying lightning bolts which prevent Spider-Man from moving.

I realize that being a superhero is not supposed to be easy, but the Sega Genesis and Sega CD versions of Spider-Man were a bit more balanced in their levels of difficulty.

The Bottom Line
The game deserves above-average notice for its 8-bit audio and visual effects. The easter eggs and little changes to the story line also demonstrate a respect for gamers and comic book nerds in general.

If you can get past the dodgy game play mechanics, cheap hits and high level of difficulty, 'Spider-Man' can be an enjoyable platformer for the Sega Master System.

SEGA Master System · by ETJB (428) · 2020

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  • MobyGames ID: 140575
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Alaka.

SEGA Master System, Game Gear added by Freeman.

Additional contributors: Jo ST.

Game added January 14, 2020. Last modified April 24, 2023.