Oh, no. This is one is gonna hurt.
First off, the box and cartridge only say "Spider-Man", but the title in-game says "The Amazing Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin." Why the different title? The plot involves the Kingpin framing Webby for stealing a nuclear bomb, where in reality Kingpin himself stole it and plans on detonating it in 24 hours. Spider-Man must get the keys needed to disarm it from all the classic villains such as Doc Ock, Venom, and Sandman. The story is decent, but uninspiring. It does feel like an old episode of the Spider-Man animated series, I'll admit, but that's this game has for it.
Okay, wow, this game has some of the worst gameplay mechanics I've ever played. First, the combat. You can never hit an enemy before they manage to hit you. Thankfully, you get to web them from a distance, but you have a limited supply, which is stupid. The level design is just plain stupid, enemies are placed randomly and fire infinite amounts of bullets in your path, making it impossible to get through without dying. You can also climb on walls and ceilings, which sounds cool, but it never works the way you want it to. There are certain crevices where it would help to climb under, but the game disallows it. The moment I lost all hope for this game was when you first encountered Spider-Man's mortal enemy. No, not the Vulture, not Mysterio, but the elusive, the cunning...MOUSE! Yes! You heard right, Spider-Man can literally be destroyed by a mouse! A tiny, harmless mouse, walking into his foot that is three times bigger than it. What good is his Spider-Sense when he can massacred by Jerry the Mouse?! Whew, after that mind-boggling catastrophe of a design choice, you encounter Doctor Octopus, and he's the cheapest thing in the world. His arms just flail about, hitting you each time. I quit at this point, I have no desire to ever get back to this abomination of a game.
The graphics are decent, but I've seen better on the Genesis. The music and sound effects are pure garbage. The music sounds like a creepy ice cream man jingle or a scary circus song. It's so unsettling. There's not much to it other than that, but I've seen better looking games on NES.
Well, you may disagree, but I like to think of this as one of the worst games of all time. I looked it up, most people like it. I want to know why, and how. I found absolutely nothing salvageable about it.
The Bad:
- Brainless A.I.
- Spider-Man at his weakest
- Terrible level design
- Atrocious music
- Awful conveyance