When it comes to licensed games of the 8-bit and 16-bit era, most of the time, you’re not sure about how the game in question is going to hold up. It could potentially be a hidden gem that not many others know about, it could be just a bland title that doesn’t really leave an impact, but it doesn’t really do anything that wrong either, or, more then likely, it is going to be one of the most unpolished and unplayable pieces of trash that you are ever going to experience. But, there is a way to determine the quality of some of these games, primarily if they just so happen to have a little rainbow logo on it. At first, it is unassuming, but if you are familiar with that logo, you know that you are going to be in for something awful. This was the logo of LJN. For those familiar with the NES and SNES library, you would know that whenever you saw that rainbow on a game’s case, chances are it was gonna be pretty terrible, and while this hasn’t always been the case, and while LJN themselves aren’t the one’s responsible for the game’s quality since they are just the publisher, it seems way too convenient that most bad licensed games on the platform just so happen to have their name on it. I myself haven’t played any of LJN’s games, but I have known about them for a LOOONG time, as well as the infamous reputation that they have carried with them from this era, so I figured I may as well go ahead and experience one of these games myself to see just how bad they could be, and the game I chose to figure that out with was Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six.

Yes, half of the reason why I chose this game was because of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 being released just recently, but also halfway because I just picked something at random. I didn’t think the game would be that bad, because after all, from what I saw online, it was only about 15 minutes long, and it seemed like a very simple game that I could just up, play and be done with in no time. I mean, how bad could it possibly be? Well, it turns out, it could be VERY BAD. Yeah, big surprise, this game fucking sucks, and while I can’t judge it too harshly, because it is short enough to where it doesn’t feel that insulting, but on this short journey you will have, you won’t be feeling like Spider-Man, but instead feeling like you are being tortured throughout your entire playthrough.

The story is you’re Spider-Man, they are the Sinister Six, KILL, not much more to be said, the graphics are… alright, with the levels themselves being somewhat lazy, and the screens in between levels looking pretty ugly, but Spider-Man himself doesn’t look too bad, and there are some decent animations for the system, so I will give it that, the music is pretty bad, with there not being a stand-out track of the bunch, and the ones that I do remember being there all sound basically the same, not holding any kind of quality between them, the control is……… well, we will get to that later, and the gameplay is about as basic as you can get for a Spider-Man game, which may be a blessing in disguise, but that doesn’t help make the game any better.

The game is a 2D platformer, where you take control of the web slinger himself, go through a set of six levels, take out or swing by any weird enemy that you run into on your journey, such as regular goons, rats and birds, or… cavemen (I guess they never went extinct in this universe), pray to RNGesus that you will somehow be able to recover your health as you keep going on, because how the hell else do you get health in this game other than in thin air, and take on each member of the Sinister Six at the end of each level and deliver some Spider-Justice straight to their faces. And that is it. That’s pretty much the whole game. There are some other objectives here or there that you will have to do, like get a key or some TNT, but other then that, it is mostly just about getting to the end of a level and taking out some guys. Again, that may not sound that bad, but then you have to deal with the biggest obstacle the game has to offer: actually playing the game.

Everything about the way Spider-Man controls in this game is on par with actual Spider-Shit, it is so horrible. Your abilities consist of you being able to move around, jump, attack, and shoot web to either attack people or swing around. Seems pretty basic for a Spider-Man game, but doing any of these things is much harder than it seems. Your movement is incredibly stiff, where it is fine most of the time, but sometimes Spider-Man will just run in a specific direction even if you press the opposite direction, the jumping is arced and hard to master in tight spaces, the web is incredibly unreliable, with you not needing to use it throughout the entire game, and even if you try, you can barely get it to work in your favor, and the attacking is THE ABSOLUTE WORST. No matter when or how you attack, Spider-Man does whatever he wants to do, whether it be by actually punching forward, or just launching himself forward with a flying kick, which is what he does most of the time, and this attack sucks, because more than likely, you will just go soaring right above the enemy you are trying to kill. It may not sound that bad, but considering how quickly you can die in this game, it does make things much more stressful than it needs to be.

Aside from that, there are plenty of other factors that make this game pretty bad, such as the health meter that does whatever it feels like whenever you get hit by anything, the shitty-ass level design that is seen throughout most of the game, the fact that enemies can spawn everywhere are take you down really easily, like all bad NES games, how you have no invincibility frames, so enemies can attack you in rapid succession very easily, and the fact that you get TWO LIVES before you get a Game Over and have to start again. I mean, I guess that is better then what Double Dragon III pulled, but even still, that is pretty damn relentless. But, with all that being said, I don’t think this game is completely terrible. Like I mentioned before, it is pretty damn short, and it is harmless enough to where you could beat the entire thing in one session, and never have to think about it afterwards again. Also, you can’t help but laugh at how stupid everyone moves and looks, as well as how every enemy explodes upon death. That is just the sheer power of Spider-Man at work.

Overall though, despite some alright graphics and a short playtime, this is without a doubt one of the worst Spider-Man games ever made, and definitely one of the worst NES games I have ever played, licensed or otherwise. I would recommend you never playing this, even if you are a hardcore fan of either Spider-Man or NES games, because it is just not worth it. But hey, at least now I can say now that I have finally dealt with one of the messes that LJN have put out, and succeeded along the way, so that is good. Now if you excuse me, I am going to go play the GOOD Spider-Man game that just came out, and continue to wonder why the PS5 still has no games. See you all next time!

Game #389

Conman's Last Hunt
Entry 6

More like Sinister Sucks!

There's some masochistic part of me (non-sexual?) which adores playing through garbage like Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six. It's an awkward side-scroller with a tenuous grasp on the power-set of Spider-Man as well as controls and general level design. I still don't hate it, because it's an unintentionally hilarious little game with a squat Spidey obliterating vagrants, tripping over rats, and stumbling through visually illegible battles with the Sinister Six. Even the music is lovably terrible.

I might be certifiably crazy for this, but I actually thought the simplistic 2600 game was better, especially considering the difference in technological limitations.

I have now played 5 Spider-Man games starting in 1990 as part of this challenge I'm doing. The previous 4 are among the worst rated games I've played in my life, 2 of which I'd consider worst and second worst as part of this challenge for sure. Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six is another absolutely horrendous crap taken on everyone's favorite wall-crawler, and I am now one game away from having my own Sinister Six of shit Spider-Man video games of the early 90s. Awesome!

This game is another one by Bits Studios, which is slowly but surely turning into my most disliked development studio (I didn't even consider disliking one before this day) and I'm not at all surprised that they went out of business in 2008. It doesn't help that the publishers behind this are Acclaim Entertainment, who were behind two of the other 4 Spider-Man games I've played. They literally got the licensing rights just to slap his name on a video game cartridge, make no effort whatsoever to have the games even feel like Spider-Man games, and just profit from all those kids who love Spidey from the comics and are blinded by his appearance on both cover and title. These games were literal cash-grabs, and while I give this no thought again until the next, likely terrible, Spider-Man game I'll play (because I'll play them all damnit!), I just want to use this opportunity to say that Acclaim Entertainment can RIP where the P does not stand for peace, as they went bankrupt in 2004.

Now with that rant out of the way, let's get into why Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six, which released in October 1992, is another brutally bad Spider-Man game. First off, let's go over the same points of criticism I can give you for all Bits Studios / LJN / Acclaim Entertainment Spider-Man games. Spidey looks like he is suffering from a disc prolapse in all of these games due to his weird hunched forward posture. His movement is odd at best, he controls like crap and he controls like crap. Oh I mentioned that twice? How did that happen?

The game, at least on the NES (the Game Gear version looks very slightly better), looks terrible. Bright green and bright red dominate the first stage, blinding red was used for one later stage for no good reason, sprites look bad, environments look (1) bland at best and (2) unrealistically designed and half the time, you have no idea if you are jumping on top of a platform that you can actually stand on or if it is supposed to be part of the background.

The soundtrack, which has some OK tracks, is the highlight of this game and that's not supposed to be a compliment. The lowlight on the other hand is the aforementioned controls. You can jump up. You can jump up higher if you hold down the jump button. You can also move while in air, at least that's something, but only in the direction that you're facing. That's somewhat more realistic, but stupid for a video game. You can sommersault forward as well, you can climb up walls and chains and you can shoot webs, if you have enough web fluid. Most of the time, you don't, like in some of the other Spider-Man games, and I ask once again, why make a Spider-Man game where you barely ever have any web fluid?

Spider-Man can do web-swinging here as well, but the controls here are so bad. You have to press B to jump, hold it and then press A to release the web and try to connect it to something. All this does though is let you swing left to right. You won't get up to a higher platform this way, limiting its use significantly. Letting go also doesn't carry you forward thanks to momentum, but instead drops you straight down. There were multiple occasions where I fell to a lower platform, and I literally could not bring myself back up by jumping or using the web. I suspect there are literal game-breaking pits that you can not fall into, if you ever want to get back up, but I suspect I won't find my answer to that officially because I doubt anyone cares enough about this game to share that anywhere on the internet, and I'm not gonna spend more than the 5 minutes I did unsuccessfully trying to get out.

Then there is the combat. You press A and do a punch. You double tap A and the punch animation gets cancelled for a jump-kick. This catapults you forward as well, so when you are near an enemy and frantically press A twice, you do the jump-kick instead of punching, which not only carries you past the enemy, but also happens above most enemies head, so you can't even touch them. Punches don't connect half the time unless you press it from the exact correct angle, and if you do connect, enemies blow up into a thousand pieces. That's right, Spider-Man kills in this game, and he does so non-stop. Try to find another studio that gives as few fucks about Spider-Man as Bits Studios, I dare you.

The story is explained in two sentences. Dr. Octopus wants to rule the world, so he calls on the Sinister Six, Electro, Mysterio, Hobgoblin, the Sandman, Vulture and himself. No one can stand in their way apparently, only Spider-Man. Done. Unlike the Game Boy games, especially the first one that was not developed by Bits Studios but rather by Rare, this game has 0 charm in its presentation. There are no cutscenes, no witty dialogue between Spidey and the villains, nothing. You finish a level, a simple image is showing the next boss with a sentence like "Sandman appears with a fist of fury" and off you go to the next level. It's just bad and shows how little Bits Studios cared when making this.

Finally, I want to touch upon the boss fights. My god. I didn't beat the game because the controls were doing my head in, but the first boss fight itself should tell you all you need to know about how much thought went into them. You fight Electro, but you actually don't. What I mean by that is that you stand there while Electro is simply chilling at the bottom of the screen and out of reach. Sometimes he decides to pay you a visit and come up, at which point you need to fight both him and the controls to somehow successfully jump-kick him, and while I did eventually just beat him on my first attempt, I can't say I have experienced boss fights that were much worse before. I suppose what the devs wanted to accomplish was for Electro to be out of range and shoot his lightning bolts at you, but it ends up looking like the game is bugged and he is flying around somewhere where he shouldn't. It doesn't help that he is literally under the platforms in a 2D game, which just would make no sense, but it doesn't matter because this all just sucked from start to finish.

To conclude, if you like to torture yourself with terrible Spider-Man games that aren't even bad in a funny sense, give these 1990 to 1992 Spider-Man games a try, but something tells me 1993 won't deliver different quality here. Oh wait, there is another game in 1992 already, Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge... Why am I doing this to myself again?

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 1/10

- Story is explained briefly in the manual and opening in-game screen
- Stages start with the boss introducing himself in one short, uninspired sentence
- Spider-Man kills dozens of enemies in this game and has no dialogue, rendering him a soulless guy in a red suit

GAMEPLAY | 4/20

- Controls are horrendous
- You rarely find web fluid and its uses are very limited
- Boss fights are just sad
- Spider-Man just feels like a name given to a random protagonist

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 4/10

- No voice acting
- Sound design ranges from OK to terrible. The sound of rats is haunting, especially when you are stuck next to them trying to get a handle of these darn controls
- Soundtrack is OK, with at least some tracks that don't make me want to turn the sound off completely

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 2/10

- Graphics are straight up ugly
- Spider-Man looks like an old guy with back problems and all sprites look bad
- Why did they choose to go with super-bright green and red colors? And did their little children draw the backgrounds?

ATMOSPHERE | 2/10

- Locations just feel like random places that have no realistic properties
- The Spider-Man license is also noticeable thanks to the enemies names, the ugly portrayal of Spider-Man and his web-swinging ability

CONTENT | 1/10

- 6 bosses with their own levels with multiple stages
- The game's biggest offense is that it exists in the first place
- None of the content is fun to engage with

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 2/10

- I guess there is some visual variety at places, even if it is hideous
- There are walls placed that you can crawl, crates in mid-air that you can web-swing off of I suppose
- I can literally not come up with another quarter-compliment

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 1/10

- This is the worst kind of your typical NES platformer
- I imagine this is what gaming would look like if Nintendo didn't save the industry
- This game is so conceptually bad that they didn't even bother to make use of the Spider-Man licence

REPLAYABILITY | 1/5

- Zero replay value

PLAYABILITY | 3/5

- The controls make this nearly unplayable at times
- I literally could not get out of certain holes because I couldn't jump far enough and the web-swinging ability just did not allow me to reach a higher platform

OVERALL | 21/100

Congratulations to Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six, which just became the worst-rated game of this challenge, beating out a Spider-Man game, which had previously beaten a different Spider-Man game. Man, the video game industry did a number on this guy. Actually, it mainly was LJN / Acclaim Entertainment published games that did the deed.

(This is the 75th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)