Go look. You won't find a bigger comic book video game fan on the internet than me. I consider myself an expert of sorts. I pucking rule, ok? Anyway, yesterday I was humbled when the existance of "Spiderman: The Video Game" was brought to my attention.



I'm not gonna lie. I didn't think it was possible for a game like this to escape my eye. And yet, it did. So what did I do? Well, immediately when I got off work I headed to my local arcade and they had JUST gotten a new cabinet of the game in. I didn't play it on MAME I can tell you that much*.



So how is the game? If you are a Marvel Comics fan then the answer is, "awesome." I say this because the character select screen gives you the following options: Spiderman, Black Cat, Hawkeye (?), and The Sub-Mariner aka Namor (?!?). Believe me, Hawkeye and Namor are NOT two of Spiderman's "go to" partners when battling crime. The only justification I can come to here is that Hawkeye was included simply because of his popularity that was probably at it's peak when the game was released in 1991. Namor though, I have no idea.



But that's cool. It's fun to see Marvel characters in games especially when they're playable. For this reason, and maybe this reason alone, is why I enjoyed Spider-Man: the Video Game. The characters, locations, and sprites are all reminiscent of a simpler time in Marvel Comics.



All you need to do is play the first level when you get to Venom to know what I'm talking about. It just felt really cool seeing Eddie Brock lying in the background only to transform into Venom half-way through your battle with The Scorpion. It's things like that where the game sucks you in just a little bit and makes you enjoy the Marvel Universe.



However, if you're not a Marvel fan, I would recommend you stay way from this game. Each of the four characters has three moves: punch, jump kick, and then jump, hold the down direction, and hit punch to do a lunging flying attack. Spiderman has the coolest one of these, he swings on a web and kicks.



But the game also does this really weird thing where it goes from a standard "3D beat-em-up" view, to a 2d sidescroller. It's hard to explain since I've never seen it in a game before...but it's weird. When you switch to this mode your hero suddenly has long range attacks. For example, Spiderman shoots webs and Hawkeye shoots his arrows. Namor shoots lightning for his hands. I don't know where or when he picked up this power, but it was a good thing he did or he would have been out of place! This mode is also a shame because you fight Electro and Dr. Octopus this way...and they each have ONE move that they do as they stand there and you hit them. It took me a total of 7 seconds to beat Dr. Octopus.



The other gripe is one that I never would have thought they could have messed up: sound effects. They are so bad. Whenever you hit a guy you hear this high-pitched, semi-goofy, "AAAAAAAYYYYYYEEEEEE." But when there are six of these goons attacking you on the screen, the squirrelly cry can become somewhat maddening.



All that aside though, if you are like me and hoping to build that dream MAME cabinet one of these days, you definitely have to include this in your list of games.








*All lies