I loved Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films and yet I never got the chance to play the video game tie-ins. I stopped playing video games when they were released and did not get the chance to track down copies when I got back into gaming. Now that I’m revisiting Playstation 2 era games, I made sure to play all three of them.

 

 

Let’s talk about the first Spider-Man game based on the Raimi films!

 

Game Basics

Spider-Man for the Playstation 2 is a 3D action game developed by Treyarch and published by Activision. This game closely follows the events of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man film where you get to take on the role of the titular character. The main game mode is a single player campaign that is split into several levels. Despite not being connected to the Spider-Man games released on the first Playstation, this game plays very similar.

 

 

While the mechanics are the same, levels are generally one of two types: indoor and swinging. Indoor levels are standard stages where you can walk around. Swinging levels are outdoor levels where you can swing in-between buildings and structures. The distinct difference is that in swinging levels, you can’t go to ground level (doing so would mean instant death).

 

 

Similar to the Playstation Spider-Man games, this game doesn’t give you a number of lives or continues. You have a health meter in the game and when it is depleted, you lose the level. There are no checkpoints in the middle of the levels. When you lose, you have to start that level from the beginning. You can restart the level any number of times. The game has a Save system allowing for as many saves as your memory card has space for. Once you have a saved game, you can continue from where you previously left off or start a new game from any of the other levels that you’ve already beaten.

 

Moves and Abilities

In Spider-Man, our titular hero can jump and run around. What really made me feel that this game was built from the Playstation Spider-Man games is how Spidey’s moveset is very similar. He can punch and kick and stick to walls and ceilings. He can web enemies up, shoot impact webs, don web gloves, do a web yank, or create a web dome. The game will let you choose between Classic and Enhanced controls; if you choose Classic, these moves can be executed in the same way that they were done in the Playstation games.

 

 

Spidey has several three-hit combos but most of them are locked at the start of the game. You’ll need to find these Golden Spiders which are scattered across the game’s levels. Some are quite hard to find, but thankfully you can replay levels in case you miss one. If you choose Enhanced Controls, you can also upgrade your Web Gloves and Web Dome moves to make them stronger.

 

 

Web swinging is very different in this game compared to the previous games. When you press the web swing button, Spider-Man will continue to swing forward. You can steer his direction and even press a button to make him swing faster. He can also do a kick in mid-swing, as well as fire webbing against enemies. I didn’t like this mechanic at first but it actually resulted in really good aerial battle sequences.

 

 

Expanding The Movie

As you can expect, Spider-Man follows the events of the film closely. The game starts with you hunting for the burglar who killed Uncle Ben. This is expanded for the game, with Spidey facing an entire gang before he’s able to confront the burglar. And the latter part of the game is all about the Green Goblin. In the middle though, are subplots and characters that weren’t in the film. The first one involves Shocker and Vulture, who were in the middle of robbing a subway station when you encounter them.

 

 

After dealing with Shocker’s gang in the subway station, you’ll find yourself going through the sewers in pursuit. You’ll then go after the Vulture, climbing up his tower of traps and going through a web swinging chase sequence. While it doesn’t tie into the Goblin storyline directly, it fits well with Spidey as a crime fighter.

 

 

There’s a subplot revolving around Oscorp trying to hunt Spider-Man down with different kinds of robot sentries and this eventually forces our hero to cross paths with the Scorpion. At first, you’re working to protect him but he’ll turn against you after, resulting in an intense boss battle.

 

 

Finally, the conflict between Spidey and Norman Osborn is also expanded upon. After his first encounter with the Green Goblin, our hero gets his hands on clues that point him towards Oscorp. You’ll need to infiltrate Oscorp under the cover of stealth. These Oscorp levels are the hardest in the game – one wrong step will guarantee that you’ll have to start over.

 

Supervillain Boss Battles

I already mentioned who you’ll face as bosses in Spider-Man, so let’s talk about them briefly. The Burglar packs flashbangs and a shotgun and is surprisingly tough for a normal human. Shocker is a decent early boss who fights from long range but also has a close range area of effect attack that you’ll need to watch out for.

 

 

But I really started to have fun with the Vulture fight. His battle happens around the top of a tall building, and you’ll need to damage him with your webbing to bring him down. It’s fun transitioning from web swinging to landing on the rooftop and back as you trade hits with this winged boss. Scorpion is no slouch too. He’s as agile as Spidey and can also climb up walls.

 

 

The only underwhelming battle for me was the confrontation with Magneto. I think my characters were overlevelled so we beat him pretty easily. But the final battle (I won’t spoil who the final boss is) more than made up for this. All the villains featured in this game made sense based on the game’s setting and storyline, and were represented well in how they were designed.

 

Visuals, Sound, and Presentation

In terms of graphics, I was very pleased with Spider-Man, especially considering when this was released. Spider-Man looks great, and so the super villains that he faces in the game. Levels also look great, with a lot of lighting effects like lens flares implemented all throughout the game. My only complaint when it comes to this game’s graphics involves Mary Jane’s character model, which looks nothing like Kirsten Dunst. The developers did a great job at making the rest of the characters look like their actor counterparts. Peter Parker looks like Tobey Maguire, Norman Osborn looks like Willem Dafoe, and even Harry Osborn looks like James Franco.

 

 

I really liked this game’s sound design too. The game uses themes from the film and also has great original tracks. I especially like the theme that plays in the game’s menu selection. But the real highlight for me involves Tobey Maguire and Bruce Campbell. Maguire, Campbell, and Dafoe all lent their voices for this game. Maguire of course voices Spider-Man and he’s very quippy in this game, which is a criticism of his depiction in the movies. Campbell does the tutorial voice over and his lines are really funny.

 

 

Finally, the game’s presentation is good. There are plenty of cutscenes to help move the story along. The menus are easy to navigate. And the HUD is clean and easy to understand. All this made playing the game a fun experience.

 

Bonus Modes

Spider-Man also has bonus game modes to add to its replayability. There are several Training mini-games that you can play that revolve around each of Spider-Man’s abilities, such as web swinging challenges and target shooting drills. But what I really liked the most is the ability to play as the Green Goblin. Instead of just a simple skin change, the Green Goblin comes with his own moveset and abilities.

 

 

As the Green Goblin, you’ve got several weapons at your disposal. You can use pumpkin bombs, homing missiles, automatic machine guns, and even razor bats. But what really makes playing as the Goblin fun is the ability to use the Goblin Glider. Flying around using the Glider is a lot of fun.

 

 

The developers could have simply added the Green Goblin mode and call it a day, but they actually put an alternate storyline for this mode. You will still go through the same levels in the same sequence, but through Harry Osborn’s perspective. In this alternate story, Harry discovers the Goblin suit and starts investigating what happened to his father. Harry has his own voice lines, and there’s even a different actor voicing the Green Goblin in this mode. I rarely play a game two times in a row but because of this mode, I couldn’t wait to jump into the game again right away.

 

Final Thoughts

People nowadays dismiss the first Spider-Man game because the sequel was really good and changed how Spider-Man games were designed. But when this game was released, reviews were generally positive. Criticism was mainly centered around the game’s length and the problematic in-game camera. I guess this game really is hard to go back to once you’ve played Spider-Man 2.

But assessed on its own merit, this game is very good and still holds up in my opinion. People still love the Playstation Spider-Man game, and this is a better implementation of that game’s mechanics. Being able to play as the Green Goblin makes this game worth trying out today, in my opinion. I’m going to keep my save file for this game so I can replay this game as the Green Goblin in the future!

 

For more video games based on Spider-Man, click here. If you want video games based on Marvel characters in general, click here. And click here to check out every Playstation 2 video game that I’ve played.