“Friday Old Games” is a series of articles in which we review a game from the older generations of consoles, share why we picked it, and whether or not it holds up with time.

After being framed for a crime he didn’t commit, Spider-Man has to fight to clear his name and save the city. To do this he’ll have to take on super villains that any Spidey fan will immediately recognize and appreciate, like Venom, the Rhino, Scorpion, and Carnage.

This is the premise of the original Playstation Spider-Man. No movie tie-in, just a super hero game for the sake of having a super hero game.

There are a number of secrets to find, costumes to unlock (some of which upgrade his abilities) and comics littered throughout the game.

The voice acting is surprisingly good with most of the actors from Spider-Man The Animated Series reprising their roles. However, like many games on the original Playstation, the graphics look terrible now. I can’t think of anything scarier than the Black Cat’s character model in this game.

The combat is very simple. Square is your punch and circle is your kick. Spider-Man also has several special moves he can pull off with his webbing. You can create web gloves which do double punching damage, trap enemies in a web, or even create a web dome which protects you for a brief time. I found that webbing up my fists and mashing on the square button got me through 99% of the fights.

Fans of old Spider-Man cartoons will recognize the web swinging. Instead of attaching his webs to buildings like in the recent movies, Spidey seems to have the ability to attach his webs to thin air. There were a couple of times where I plummeted to my death because the game decided that the air I was trying to swing on didn’t work for some reason.

Why did I pick this game?

It might seem strange these days, but there was a time when super heroes like Spider-Man weren’t starring in blockbuster movies every summer. There were super hero games, but they mostly involved walking to the right and punching people in the head or jumping on platforms and then punching people in the head.

Spider-Man was really the first video game that actually made you feel like a super hero, like you were Spider-Man. All of his spider powers were there; swinging on webs, climbing up walls… it is even narrated by the one and only Stan Lee.

How does it hold up with time?

When it was released, Spider-Man was a revelation. It proved that video games could actually capture the feel of being a super hero. Unfortunately, the game has not aged well at all. Even if you can get past the laughable PS1 graphics and the simplistic combat, there are two glaring problems that will have you yanking out your hair in frustration. First off, the game’s camera feels as though it is actively trying to cause your death. The other problem was annoying 10 years ago when the game first came out and time has only exacerbated it. Spider-Man can go wherever a spider can right? So if you walk up to a wall Spidey will attempt to climb it even if you were just trying to get out of the way of a charging Rhino and you didn’t mean to try to walk up the wall.

There are some games that I play for Friday Old Games just to make fun of. But there are others that I genuinely remember as being awesome. Playing through Spider-Man left me a little sad. As much as I enjoyed it 10 years ago, Spider-Man is one of those games that just feels painful to play now. There isn’t much to it that isn’t done better by a shinier, prettier newer game.

Tags: activision, FOG, Friday Old Games, marvel, Playstation, PS1, Spider-Man

This entry was posted on Friday, February 11th, 2011 at 2:26 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.