Not the best Spider-man game out there, but it'll do.
It plays in third person mode with much of your time swinging around sections of the city; only sections mind you. The swinging is a little too automated for my liking. You can swing, swing a little faster or be falling. There's little of what comes in subsequent games with cool acrobatics, an improved zip line, the ability to run on the walls, and the ability to string together in flight moves which really make you feel like the web-head himself.
During your time outdoors you'll be given a few city blocks for each stage that you're in, to do whatever it is you need to do. Usually this will be tracking down and beating up thugs, or robots, or squaring off against a boss. All your time is spent either swinging between the buildings, or running on the rooftops. I don't think I touched the street level once. I don't think you can get to street level in this game, but that's not a bad thing. There's lots of aerial combat which does help to make you feel like a tried and true web-slinger, although I found the number of mid-air attacks you have in your arsenal is somewhat limited.
When you find yourself indoors there's a variety of locations presented, from office spaces to sewers. Since swinging around in these areas can be cumbersome, you'll resort to a lot of wall crawling. At times you'll be doing so in the shadows as you attempt to creep past guards during the more stealthy missions. There is an option where you can aim a web zip-line (working like a super-fast motorized grappling hook) from where you are to a nearby wall, ceiling or whatever, which will get you around pretty quickly. This is made even easier by allowing you be in this mode even while you're moving.
Combat is decent, with a variety of combos and a few classic web attacks to pull off. These include web-ball projectiles, web gloves to strengthen your punches, and an explosive web-sheild for an area attack. You can unlock new moves by finding tokens spread throughout the levels. The button combinations are fairly easy to remember and execute, allowing you to quickly make short work of most bad guys that cross your path. It's just too bad that the controls can take some time to catch up with the camera. That is to say, if you spin the camera 180 then push right immediately, Spider-man will keep moving left. It's needs a second to realize the camera has moved, and to compensate accordingly. The camera itself can be tricky and uncooperative at times as well. Luckily things are balanced a little bit by providing a lock on system for your targets, as long as it stays locked to the target you want.
There are of course boss battles, and there's a decent number of them considering how short the game is. You'll come across Shocker, Vulture, Scorpion, a giant robot, and of course a couple of rounds with the Goblin. It's just unfortunate that all of the boss fights outshine the final duel with the Goblin, which was dull and un-inventive.
When you have completed the game you can go back and reply previous levels so you can get a higher score. The high-scores will allow you to unlock features and bonus stages, like the mini-game where you swing down a bowling lane and try to knock down giant pins.
It would have been a great Spider-man game at the time of it's release, but better titles that followed has made this one lose it's appeal over time. It's still worth a play if you're a Spider-man fan since it's not likely to take you very long to get through anyway.