Marvel Comic's beloved wall-crawler, the Amazing Spider-Man celebrates his 50th birthday this week and to celebrate I want to make a list of my five favorite Spider-man videogames. I did not include any of the Marvel vs. Capcom series, because they aren't technically Spider-Man games, even though my favorite team-up is Spidey and his nemesis Venom.
Check out the list and comment on your favorite title featuring the web-head.
5. Maximum Carnage
Maximum Carnage, by Acclaim was one of the first videogames to be based of an actually comic book event. The game was a simple arcade-style two-player side-scrolling beat-em-up that let Mr. Parker team-up with Venom aka Eddie Brock-- no not that annoying kid from the "70s Show." Graphically the game is pretty cool looking for the 16-bit prowess of the Sega Genesis and Super NES. The game featured an awesome amount of super hero/villain cameos, including Captain America, Black Cat, Iron Fist, Cloak and Dagger, Deathlok, Morbius Firestar, Shriek, Doppelganger, Demogoblin and Carrion. The game also featured comic-style cut scenes that were pretty sweet back in 1994. If you ever get a chance check the game out.
4. The Amazing Spider-Man Vs. the Kingpin
Personally this next game was my first Spider-man game, so it holds a place in my gaming-heart. The Amazing Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin was produced by Sega of America and developed by Technopop. It appeared on the Sega Genesis and Sega CD. The game is very challenging, as players controls Spider-Man in a battle against the likes of Doctor Octopus, Sandman, The Lizard, Hobgoblin, Vulture, Mysterio, Electro, Venom and the Kingpin. The games plot revolves around obtaining keys to disarm a nuclear bomb. Spidey gets to take pictures of villains to earn money and purchase webbing.
3. Spider-Man
Spider-Man for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast and PC was released in 2000 and is loosely based on the 1990s "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man Unlimited" cartoon series. The game was developed by Neversoft and published by Activision. This was really the first game that made you feel like a spider. I mean you could crawl on walls and really web swing for the first-time in 3D. But what really makes this game great are the unlockable alternate costumes. These costumes include the Symbiote, Spider-Man Unlimited, street clothes, Quick-Change Spider-Man, Bombastic Bagman, Spider-Man 2099, Scarlet Spider, and Captain Universe versions.
2. Ultimate Spider-Man
Ultimate Spider-Man was stylistic gem. The game is based on Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley fresh take on the comic book legend. Ultimate Spider-Man was released for PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, and Microsoft Windows and was developed by Treyarch. "Comic Inking Animation technology," a form of cel-shading intended to simulate the appearance of a comic book. The game also has a bunch of cameos from the Marvel Ultimate universe. But the games best feature is playing as the Ultimate version of Venom, who is a hulking beast. Venom devours life-force, leaps building and just destroys everything. Too bad the game never got a sequel.
1. Spider-Man 2
Games based on movie suck! It is fact you can look it up. But Activision's Spider-Man 2 for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox was awesome. This was the best web-slinging game ever made. The game featured an assortment of badies, but that isn't why it made the list. It did because it allowed the player to freely roam around Manhattan, Roosevelt, Ellis, and Liberty Islands, by utilizing a then innovative physics-based engine that simulated Spider-Man's web swinging in three dimensions. The free-roam mode in the game made it feel like you were actually a superhero, except that all you did was fight repetitive petty crimes
