Welp, it’s been long enough, and I’ve been told I am not allowed to have fun today, so I figured it is about time to check out another one of Marvel’s… INCREDIBLE games that they threw out onto store shelves for a quick buck back in the day, and hey, since I went back to the X-Men lineup of games previously, I figured it would only be appropriate that I go back to another one of Marvel’s heroes that I have covered in the past, Spider-Man, or Web-Bitch as I like to call him. He usually has at least one or two games out there that are of either decent or, in rare cases, incredible quality, but then most of the time, you have games like Return of the Sinister Six, which makes me never want to trust Spider-Man with anything ever again. But hey, that was just one bad game, right? I mean, SURELY he would get things right the second time, right?........... yeah, probably not, but we will see if that is the case with The Amazing Spider-Man on the Game Boy.
Out of all the Spider-Man games that I could’ve chosen from, this one was all the way on the bottom of my list, as I know damn well how bad these licensed Game Boy usually are, and this one was probably gonna be no different. However, it then caught my attention when I learned that this game was actually made by Rare, the same guys who would go onto making games like Battletoads, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, and plenty of others. I don’t know how they ended up being the ones to make this game, but either way, it did make me curious as to how the game would turn out with them behind it. So, I played through the whole thing, and I will give it this… it is LEAGUES better than Return of the Sinister Six, but aside from that, there is not much else going for it. It is still a bad Spider-Man game, one that not only comes with its own serving of licensed game bullshit and cheapness, but also manages to do nothing else to separate itself from many other pieces of media that involve the character.
The story is just another Thursday for any superhero, where a gang of Spider-Man’s most deadly villains have captured Mary Jane and threaten him with her life, so it is up to him to swing on out and stop them before it is too late, which is a story that’s about as compelling as watching a dust ball rolling across the floor. The graphics are Game Boy graphics, and the sprite work is… passable, but to its credit, I can at least tell what most things are, and again, it looks a whole lot better than that other Web-Bitch game that I played at one point, the music is incredibly forgettable, where I can’t recall a single thing I heard throughout my entire playthrough, but I have some faint memory of it not annoying me at all, so it has that going for it at least, and the gameplay/control is just as basic and sloppy as it sounds, with some mechanics that take some getting used to, but all in all, it does the job for playing this slog of a game.
The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Spider-Web-Bitch-Man, go through a set of 6.75 levels, each taking place in a different location throughout New York, punch, kick, and web up many different enemies that you will come across, while making sure that you don’t let the game fight back against you so that you can actually do any of this properly, gather different capsules along the way to not only heal yourself when you need it, but also give you extra juice for your webs so that you can continue swinging and webbing to your heart’s content, and take on plenty of familiar foes in several boss fights, which can range from being as cheap and full of bullshit as you would expect, all the way to… the Rhino boss, where he just runs back and forth a bunch until you punch him to death. Great job with that one, guys. But anyways, you get everything you could ever expect out of a cheap Spider-Man game from back in the 90s here, and instead of being a completely unbearable experience all the way through, it is… a little unbearable all the way through, which is a blessing at this point.
If there was a checklist out there that could mark off every single little thing that a licensed game like this would do to ruin your day, then this game would check off a lot of those boxes, because a lot of these problems do pop up in one shape or form throughout your adventure. These problems include horrible combat, where you basic punches and kicks are delayed and feel really heavy, making it hard to tell whether or not you are hitting an enemy, or even when you should throw a punch or kick, awkward moves, where some moves like the different types of jumps you can do take a lot of time to get used to because of how bad they are, unfair difficulty, which sees countless enemies being thrown your way to create some sense of challenge, when it reality it is just an excuse to turn Spider-Man into a bloody corpse on the floor, and unfair sections, where all of those elements I just mentioned before are paired together with terrible platforming sections that I swear are impossible to get through without some sort of save states. It is all here, folks, and if you are able to stomach this stuff like I can, then chances are that you will have a bad time, but not to the point of wanting to rip your hair out. However, for any average gamer, one that would rather have a Spider-Man game like the ones that Insomniac are being forced to make until the end of time, you give them this for 10 minutes, and they will chuck it in the trash at the 5-minute mark.
However, to be fair, there were actually some parts of the game that I actually did kinda like. In-between some of the main levels, there are some stages where you are climbing up a building to reach your destination, which are a nice change of pace, and are simple enough to get a grasp on, even if some of that nonsense I mentioned earlier does get sprinkled in from time to time. Alongside that are these cutscenes that play in-between each level, which just has Spider-Man talking with one of villains while the two of them throw bad comic-lines back and forth at each other, which are funny to watch just for how low-effort they are. And finally, one thing that I am REALLY grateful for… whenever you die in this game and still have an extra life or two, you don’t get sent back to the beginning of the level, but instead, you respawn right where you died, and THANK GOD FOR THAT. Seriously, I can’t even imagine how you would be able to beat some of these levels without that kind of handicap.
Overall, despite some funny cutscenes, some fine levels here or there, and a very generous handicap, I can’t say this is anything more then just yet another cheap-ass Spider-Man game that was made for a quick buck to cash in on the superhero’s popularity, not only incorporating every single licensed game trick in the licensed game handbook to piss you off, but also not having its own identity when it comes to the gameplay, being as boring and generic as you could possibly imagine. Don’t bother checking it out, whether you are a fan of Spider-Man’s other games or not, because it really serves no purpose other than just to exist, and it doesn’t deserve any of your attention. Hell, let me be the one to play for you instead, just so I can warn you about the dangers of these games… which I am gonna have to do anyway, considering that this game apparently got two sequels, and I can already tell that they are gonna be… sigh, SO MUCH FUN! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, Spider-Man… Spider-Man… gonna go splat like a spider can…
Game #561
Out of all the Spider-Man games that I could’ve chosen from, this one was all the way on the bottom of my list, as I know damn well how bad these licensed Game Boy usually are, and this one was probably gonna be no different. However, it then caught my attention when I learned that this game was actually made by Rare, the same guys who would go onto making games like Battletoads, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, and plenty of others. I don’t know how they ended up being the ones to make this game, but either way, it did make me curious as to how the game would turn out with them behind it. So, I played through the whole thing, and I will give it this… it is LEAGUES better than Return of the Sinister Six, but aside from that, there is not much else going for it. It is still a bad Spider-Man game, one that not only comes with its own serving of licensed game bullshit and cheapness, but also manages to do nothing else to separate itself from many other pieces of media that involve the character.
The story is just another Thursday for any superhero, where a gang of Spider-Man’s most deadly villains have captured Mary Jane and threaten him with her life, so it is up to him to swing on out and stop them before it is too late, which is a story that’s about as compelling as watching a dust ball rolling across the floor. The graphics are Game Boy graphics, and the sprite work is… passable, but to its credit, I can at least tell what most things are, and again, it looks a whole lot better than that other Web-Bitch game that I played at one point, the music is incredibly forgettable, where I can’t recall a single thing I heard throughout my entire playthrough, but I have some faint memory of it not annoying me at all, so it has that going for it at least, and the gameplay/control is just as basic and sloppy as it sounds, with some mechanics that take some getting used to, but all in all, it does the job for playing this slog of a game.
The game is a 2D action platformer, where you take control of Spider-Web-Bitch-Man, go through a set of 6.75 levels, each taking place in a different location throughout New York, punch, kick, and web up many different enemies that you will come across, while making sure that you don’t let the game fight back against you so that you can actually do any of this properly, gather different capsules along the way to not only heal yourself when you need it, but also give you extra juice for your webs so that you can continue swinging and webbing to your heart’s content, and take on plenty of familiar foes in several boss fights, which can range from being as cheap and full of bullshit as you would expect, all the way to… the Rhino boss, where he just runs back and forth a bunch until you punch him to death. Great job with that one, guys. But anyways, you get everything you could ever expect out of a cheap Spider-Man game from back in the 90s here, and instead of being a completely unbearable experience all the way through, it is… a little unbearable all the way through, which is a blessing at this point.
If there was a checklist out there that could mark off every single little thing that a licensed game like this would do to ruin your day, then this game would check off a lot of those boxes, because a lot of these problems do pop up in one shape or form throughout your adventure. These problems include horrible combat, where you basic punches and kicks are delayed and feel really heavy, making it hard to tell whether or not you are hitting an enemy, or even when you should throw a punch or kick, awkward moves, where some moves like the different types of jumps you can do take a lot of time to get used to because of how bad they are, unfair difficulty, which sees countless enemies being thrown your way to create some sense of challenge, when it reality it is just an excuse to turn Spider-Man into a bloody corpse on the floor, and unfair sections, where all of those elements I just mentioned before are paired together with terrible platforming sections that I swear are impossible to get through without some sort of save states. It is all here, folks, and if you are able to stomach this stuff like I can, then chances are that you will have a bad time, but not to the point of wanting to rip your hair out. However, for any average gamer, one that would rather have a Spider-Man game like the ones that Insomniac are being forced to make until the end of time, you give them this for 10 minutes, and they will chuck it in the trash at the 5-minute mark.
However, to be fair, there were actually some parts of the game that I actually did kinda like. In-between some of the main levels, there are some stages where you are climbing up a building to reach your destination, which are a nice change of pace, and are simple enough to get a grasp on, even if some of that nonsense I mentioned earlier does get sprinkled in from time to time. Alongside that are these cutscenes that play in-between each level, which just has Spider-Man talking with one of villains while the two of them throw bad comic-lines back and forth at each other, which are funny to watch just for how low-effort they are. And finally, one thing that I am REALLY grateful for… whenever you die in this game and still have an extra life or two, you don’t get sent back to the beginning of the level, but instead, you respawn right where you died, and THANK GOD FOR THAT. Seriously, I can’t even imagine how you would be able to beat some of these levels without that kind of handicap.
Overall, despite some funny cutscenes, some fine levels here or there, and a very generous handicap, I can’t say this is anything more then just yet another cheap-ass Spider-Man game that was made for a quick buck to cash in on the superhero’s popularity, not only incorporating every single licensed game trick in the licensed game handbook to piss you off, but also not having its own identity when it comes to the gameplay, being as boring and generic as you could possibly imagine. Don’t bother checking it out, whether you are a fan of Spider-Man’s other games or not, because it really serves no purpose other than just to exist, and it doesn’t deserve any of your attention. Hell, let me be the one to play for you instead, just so I can warn you about the dangers of these games… which I am gonna have to do anyway, considering that this game apparently got two sequels, and I can already tell that they are gonna be… sigh, SO MUCH FUN! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, Spider-Man… Spider-Man… gonna go splat like a spider can…
Game #561
SlasherMcGirk
13 days ago