Doc Ock has seemingly turned good, but is attacked in a press conference by Spider-man, which Peter Parker, standing in the crowd, finds odd. He’ll need to investigate what’s going on, and figure out if Octavius is actually good. But there’s another obstacle: a mysterious green fog spews and covers the ground of the entire city, handily aiding the developers from having to render more than just a few buildings at once. Oddly, the characters never seem overly concerned or interested in the fog itself, so it seems the story reason was added last minute.

Spider-man (it’s really annoying when a property has multiple games that just use the name of the IP) is an action-based platformer where you go through levels, fighting enemies and figuring out how to navigate. The movement is ambitious for the time, which also means it’s frustrating, especially with the atrocious camera. It’s all too easy to accidentally walk up a wall you want to walk past, and you may end up on the ceiling without intending to. At many points in the game, you’re just guessing as to which direction you’ll move when you push the analogue stick.

Despite these control issues, Spider-man is fun. Combat is enjoyable, with a few kinds of webs to use, and swinging is a lot of fun when it goes smoothly, even if Spider-man is attaching his webs to thin air above him. For the first attempt at getting the character to work in 3D, they’ve done a really good job, and the story itself is charming and full of fun moments.

That said, it’s clear that this was a game designed for CD-based systems and not for the N64. The cutscenes are screenshots of the FMV sequences, rather than using in-game graphics, and voice work is used sparingly (although in-game voices have been kept). Each text box also hangs around for ages until the game lets you move to the next one. The N64 version is also missing a bonus game mode called What If?, which encourages you to play through the game again to find some added moments and easter eggs. While this version plays just fine, it’s still the worst version.

Fine

It’s not the most challenging or deep effort we’ve seen, but it’s a distinctly enjoyable chance to recreate days fantasising about shooting sticky webs from skyscraper to skyscraper across New York. Spider-man is let down a bit by the odd problem, but anyone interested in skin-tight red and blue leotards would do well to consider getting this one in.

Alan Maddrell, N64 Magazine #51. Review Score: 78%

Remake or remaster?

The Dreamcast version is essentially a remaster and the best version. This would be vastly imprived by a better camera, but licensing issues would prevent and re-release or remaster.

Official ways to get the game.

There is not official way to play this version of Spider-man (or any version of this particular game).