Spidey Finally Gets Some Respect
Featuring a great selection of Marvel heroes and villains, each second brings a new cameo- comic, TV, and movie fans alike will delight in waiting to see who will show up next. The plot does a good enough job of explaining just why the heck everyone gets to make these appearances.
The graphics in Spider-Man are... well... let's just say that you're not going to play this for the graphics. Even in 2000, the generic enemy models are just plain disturbing, with extremely blocky character designs that look as if the appendages were made from Lego blocks. The hero and villain designs don't fare too much better. The animations, however, are quite good, which save this title from hurting the eyes too much.
The gameplay is pretty varied. The web-head has a host of maneuvers, though his basic 1-2-3 punch and kick attacks get tiresome quickly. Fortunately, his web attacks bring some great flavor to the combat. After all, Spider-Man is known more for his acrobatic prowess than his skill in fisticuffs. Swinging about the city, making projectiles from webbing, and climbing on just about any surface are all handled with skill, although your movement when walking about isn't as precise as you would like.
Stan Lee narrates the story. If this doesn't make for great audio, I don't know what does. The comic book geek in anyone will dance a happy jig when the creator of it all details Spidey's exploits. The music is pretty good, and the sound effects are decent. The voice-overs for the characters are also well-done.
Spider-Man isn't perfect. Anyone going into this game should be prepared for a relatively short experience with no multiplayer (although some training missions help with replay a bit). Remember, this game helped pave the way for some of the great superhero games that we currently (and hopefully continue to) enjoy. It's still hard not to have fun with this game.