Spider-man | DJcube

With great power comes great responsibility.

NA release: 16th April 2002
EU release: 7th June 2002
JP release: 13th February 2002
Developer: Treyarch
Publisher: Activision (NA/EU), Capcom (JP)
NGC Magazine Score: 72%
Mods Used: None

When Treyarch was given the task of making a Spider-man game based on the first Sam Raimi film, they very clearly looked at Neversoft’s Spider-man game for the PS1 and N64, as this feels a lot like a sequel to that game in terms of how it controls and plays, even offering a “classic” control move based on that, and a similar web power structure.

While the city levels still only let you move around a small square of city and you can’t walk on the ground, it certainly looks far more impressive, with no fog covering the ground and layers of lower detailed buildings to successfully sell the look that you’re in part of a colossal city.

Webbing into the sky still looks ridiculous, though, and the few chases in the game come across as a bit silly as Vulture and Green Goblin just fly around in circles, which is sometimes handy as they’ll head straight back to Spider-man so you can close the gap.

The levels inside buildings are much more focused on wall climbingh and hand-to-hand system, with a simple but satisfying system and unlocking more combos as you find them hidden in levels. This is where the controls and camera do trip up a lot, though.

The camera is quite bizarre, as this one doesn’t affect Spider-man’s movement until you stop moving. So if you hold forward while moving the camera, Spider-man will still run in the same direction, and you can only “fix” this by stopping for a moment to reset the controls to now be based on where the camera is facing.

This issue is made far worse in the horrible stealth levels, as you can never tell which direction you’re going to be moving when you push the stick. You also can’t tilt the camera up or down, restraining your view and making it difficult to track enemy movements. You’ll end up failing a ton of times just because of the controls and camera.

One nice thing that works well is that, while this is based on the film, it mostly does its own thing, with the film scenes mainly being at the start and end of the game. They managed to get Tobey Maguire fairly late in development and, frankly, his voice acting is pretty bad, especially with the awkward and respective quips given to the character (games should not repeat the same line of dialogue after only five seconds). The end scene is also rather awkward, with Tobey’s Spider-man and MJ (who doesn’t look or sound like Kirsten Dunst) snogging right next to the Green Goblin’s dead body.

Complete the game on hard and you’ll unlock Green Goblin mode. Here you can play through all the main levels as the Green Goblin, using his glider instead of webbing around. It’s a great way to play through the levels again, and the dialogue is reworked to change the story to be Harry Osborn investigating his father’s death and dealing with an imposter Green Goblin. Indicantally, he’s played by the original Spider-man choice for the game, Josh Keaton, who would still get to play Spider-man in later games and shows.

While fiddly, Spider-man is still a fun and engaging game. It was massively overshadowed by its sequel game, but it’s still a really good film tie-in.

Fun

The most important aspect of any licensed superhero game has to be the extent to which the developers can capture the essence of the character and the universe in inhabits, and in all fairness, Treyarch have done a remarkable job. The Spidey model itself is spot-on, boasting a healthy amount of texture detail on his sui (he even has shiny eyes) and they’ve also managed to get his stance and the way he moves pretty much perfect.
Geraint Evans, NGC Magazine #69

Remake or remaster?

A collection of Spider-man games would be nice.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to get Spider-man (2002).