25 Years Later, If You Can Only Play One Spider-Man Game, Let It Be Neversoft’s Spider-Man

Over a dozen Spider-Man games had been released before it, but 25 years later, Neversoft and Activision’s Spider-Man is perhaps historically one of the most formative and enduring in terms of its boundless charm and lasting impact. Indeed, this Spider-Man, one of many games to stick solely with the character’s name, was the birth of a new age for Marvel video games and enjoyed its momentous heyday with immediate sequels, as well as a playable cameo for this iteration of the wall-crawler in X-Men: Mutant Academy 2.

Spider-Man and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater were both developed by Neversoft using the latter series’ engine, and a playable Spider-Man was featured in a secret Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 Easter egg.

Colloquially referred to as ‘Spider-Man PS1,’ Neversoft’s PlayStation game was subsequently ported to Game Boy Color (from Vicarious Visions), Nintendo 64 (from Edge of Reality), Treyarch (Dreamcast), and Windows (LTI Gray Matter). 25 years later, Spider-Man persists as a classic for all the right reasons: endless heart and humor; charming character performances and quips; creative set-piece level designs; vibrant polygonal visuals; and an irresistibly catchy soundtrack. As Stan Lee himself says in Spider-Man’s opening narration, the game is:

“…a true superhero action thriller, packed to the brim with thrills and chills, twists and turns, more villains than you can shake a web at, and, of course, non-stop web-slinging, wall-crawling action!”

Neversoft’s Spider-Man is Etched into the Upper Echelon of Superhero Video Game History

With Great Gameplay Comes Great Replayability

Gameplay is remarkably diverse, with pinpoint web-swinging and web-zipping, wall-crawling through ventilation ducts, across transparent ceilings, or along the sides of enormous buildings, and combat with unique combinations and special web attacks. Spider-Man’s Doctor Octopus floods New York City with toxic gas, applying narrative weight to why players are unable to fall below a certain height in exterior environments and adding substance to their web-slinging skills.

The camera is a bit antagonistic 25 years later, as may be expected of the prototypical 3D Spider-Man game, but gameplay in general is no less inspired and satisfying. For example, Spider-Man’s commitment to web fluid as a resource is faithful to the comics, as players meticulously balance normal attacks and web attacks.

Between web domes, web gloves, web pulls (directional), web balls, and web fluid draining ever so slightly while zipping or swinging, spare web cartridges lying around are always worthwhile pickups. Moreover, dynamic camera angles make for highly cinematic and anxiety-inducing chase sequences. This is never truer than when players scale the sides of buildings and evade spotlights and gunfire, nor when players pursue Venom or flee from Spider-Man’s Monster-Ock.

Monster-Ock remains one of the boldest and scariest debut villains in any Spider-Man media, perhaps only dethroned by Spider-Man: Edge of Time’s Atrocity, which was seemingly unavoidably inspired by Monster-Ock. A horrific bond between Carnage/Cletus Kasady’s red symbiote and Doctor Octopus, Monster-Ock is a brutish, howling creature who relentlessly pursues Spider-Man in a final chase sequence that is, to this day, more harrowing than many modern horror games as players traverse a claustrophobic obstacle course of narrow corridors with him hot on their tail.

Alternate Spider-Man Costumes

• A Spider-Man 2099 skin that enables double damage.
• A Symbiote Spider-Man skin that enables unlimited webbing.
• An overpowered Captain Universe skin that enables invulnerability, enhanced strength, and unlimited webbing.
• A Spidey Unlimited skin that enables a stealth mode, allowing for invisibility to be toggled on or off in-game, though it doesn’t work on bosses.
• An Amazing Bag Man skin that has no ‘Spidey belt’ and thus only allows players to hold a maximum of two web cartridges.
• A Quick Change Spidey skin that has no ‘Spidey belt’ and thus only allows players to hold a maximum of two web cartridges.
• A Peter Parker skin that has no ‘Spidey belt’ and thus only allows players to hold a maximum of two web cartridges.

Another ‘costume,’ though not a permanent skin, is the white Spider-Armor MK 1 suit that players can adorn as a shield pickup, granting them an extra health bar.

Spider-Man Games Have Yet to Dwarf Neversoft’s Venom

While Batman: Arkham Asylum debatably features the most iconic and irrefutable depictions of Batman’s rogues’ gallery, the same can be said for Spider-Man’s rogues’ gallery in Neversoft’s titular game. Only fleeting boss fight encounters are spent with Scorpion, Rhino, Mysterio, Carnage, and Doctor Octopus (as well as a Lizard Easter egg in the maze-like sewer tunnels), but they’re brilliant distillations of these villains.

In particular, Spider-Man boasts what is arguably the best depiction of Venom/Eddie Brock in any medium to date beyond the comics, and that’s massively due to a phenomenal performance by Daran Norris—who, with countless roles, such as Fairly OddParents’ Cosmo and Mr. Turner and Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide’s Gordy, played a handful of other characters in Spider-Man (Scorpion, Mysterio, Captain America, Human Torch, and Punisher). Part of what makes Spider-Man’s PS1 Venom so striking is that he possesses the sinister tone needed to make him a haunting villain, but it’s greatly accentuated by a playful sassiness and goofiness that truly define this iteration of the character, especially when he becomes an ally whom Spider-Man must begrudgingly tolerate.

Neversoft and Activision’s Spider-Man is perhaps historically one of the most formative and enduring in terms of its boundless charm and lasting impact.

Contributing tenfold to its charm and whimsy, Spider-Man spares no expense with character cameos that are naturally and nonchalantly embedded yet startling and inexplicable nonetheless. For example, Spider-Man’s bizarre final cutscenes, which are surely seared into players’ memories, see Spider-Man playing cards with Captain America, Daredevil, and Punisher; meanwhile, Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, Rhino, and Scorpion share a jail cell.

Neversoft’s Spider-Man Paved the Road for Nearly Every Spider-Man Game After It

Today, Spider-Man’s legacy is preserved in speedrunning and prevailing memes. That said, its genetic essence is also ingrained in almost every Spider-Man game that has followed it. Neversoft would never go on to develop another Spider-Man game, yet Spider-Man marked the beginning of Activision’s fruitful and lucrative 14-year-long rights to the license, with many games shaped from its humble foundations:

• Spider-Man, developed by Neversoft and published by Activision (2000)
• Spider-Man 2: The Sinister Six, developed by Torus Games and published by Activision (2001)
• Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro, developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision (2001)
• Spider-Man: Mysterio’s Menace, developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision (2001)
• Spider-Man, developed by Treyarch and published by Activision (2002)
• Spider-Man 2, developed by Treyarch and published by Activision (2004)
• Ultimate Spider-Man, developed by Treyarch and published by Activision (2005)
• Spider-Man: Battle for New York, developed by Torus Games and published by Activision (2006)
• Spider-Man 3, developed by Vicarious Visions and published by Activision (2007)
• Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, developed by Next Level Games and published by Activision (2007)
• Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, developed by Shaba Games and Treyarch and published by Activision (2008)
• Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, developed by Beenox and published by Activision (2010)
• Spider-Man: Edge of Time, developed by Beenox and published by Activision (2011)
• The Amazing Spider-Man, developed by Beenox and published by Activision (2012)
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2, developed by Beenox and published by Activision (2014)