The Amazing Spider-Man
Game Boy
Before playing:
I am not sure if anyone has noticed, but in recent weeks I have been trying to make each of my game reviews unique to a specific console. I've reviewed an Atari 2600 game, an NES game, a Genesis game, a Super NES game, a PC game, a Sega CD game, a 32X game, etc. I was not sure what I was going to pick for my Game Boy game, though. I never had a Game Boy growing up, and to be honest with you, I am not too familiar with the system's library.
I finally decided to settle on The Amazing Spider-Man. I figured this would be a relatively quick and easy playthrough. Plus, I like Spider-Man. How could this go wrong?
I'll tell you how it could go wrong: I played the game. I hate to say it, but this one was rough. I suppose it's time to dive in.
Story:
This game has an unintentionally hilarious storyline. Mary Jane has been taken by the Sinister 6. You have to play through a series of stages, each one capped by a boss battle against one of the 6. At the start of each stage, the villain and Spider-Man exchange insults over walkie talkie. These conversations are so corny. I couldn't help but just shake my head.
"Don't worry about me, dome brain! I'll be in your face so fast, it'll pop your plexi!"
Gameplay:
It was bound to happen eventually: I played a bad Game Boy game. I've gotten pretty lucky so far. I never grew up with a Game Boy, and I generally look down on it like it is some primitive thing. I normally come into a Game Boy game expecting it to be terrible, and then it ends up being a pleasant surprise. I run into a few stinkers from time to time, like Blaster Master Boy and Mulan, but like I said: mostly have been pretty lucky with my selections. No such luck here. This is a bad game, and there is no way around it.
I wanted to like it. I like Spider-Man. I like platformers. I'm open to Game Boy games, despite their limitations. This just isn't any good. The controls are jank. The hit detection is jank. It's unfairly difficult. It doesn't look good. It's just not any fun to play.
The game consists of six platforming stages, each one ending in a boss fight. The stages themselves are very basic. Walk left to right, punching enemies, jumping over obstacles, and trying to avoid getting killed. You can use webs as a projectile weapon, and you can also use them to swing overhead. When your web meter runs out, you can't use webs anymore. Luckily, the game is filled with power ups you can use to fill this meter.
Spider-Man moves very slowly. He's in no rush to take out the bad guys. It's hard to avoid getting hit sometimes. The game is very conservative with its health items. You have to play defensively because if you run out of lives (3) and continues (5), you have to go all the way back to the beginning of the game. And like I said, this is a very tough game. Enemies come at you with little to no warning. The hit detection is so bad, I often took damage just trying to get close enough to punch him. This is especially bad with some of the boss battles.
The controls are clunky as all hell. I'm still not exactly sure what it is that makes my character high jump. I think it is holding the d-pad up and to a diagonal direction, but sometimes it would work and sometimes it would not. There was seemingly no rhyme or reason to things. Same with the web slinger. I don't know how many times I would jump up and fail to get Spider-Man to swing from the roof. It just randomly decided when it would work and when it would not. This led to a TON of frustrating moments, especially when you have to swing over bottomless pits. I lost so many lives this way. I barely scraped my way through the game using save states, and I needed every life and every continue I could get.
Every once in a while you'll encounter a vertical scrolling stage. Spider-Man climbs up a building and must punch enemies that are hanging out in the windows. You must also avoid falling pieces of furniture and birds. The hit detection again is a major pain here, especially when trying to punch the guys in the window. It's almost like you have to get right on top of them to hit them, and then you take damage. It's not even worth it. I just avoided everyone and everything - which is still extremely hard to do.
At the end of the game, I was just fucking glad it was over. This is one of the worst and most frustrating gaming experiences I've had in a long time - and this is coming off the heels of my Virtua Fighter for 32X review. As much as I didn't like that game, I didn't actively hate it and have a terrible time with it to the extent I did with this one. It just wasn't for me. This game is just inexcusably frustrating and bad. To me, that makes it worse.
Graphics:
This is one of the worst looking games I've played. I know the Game Boy can do much, much better. I've played Contra and the Mario Land games. This is terrible in comparison. The characters look nothing like the characters in the comic. If you squint you can see Spider-Man sometimes. Otherwise he mainly looks like one of those terrible wrestler costumes you see in the movie when Peter Parker is still learning to be Spider-Man.
The stages are repetitive and boring looking. Lots of sewers and city streets. Lots of rooftops. Zzz... Maybe it would be more tolerable if the enemies and items looked better. But they don't.
Sound:
Nothing special, but nothing offensive either. This is probably the only category where the game is not a complete and total failure.
Overall:
This is one of those cases where my curiosity got the better of me. I was better off not playing this game. I didn't like it. It added nothing to my day. It was a complete waste of time. I can't even wax nostalgic over this game, as it is not something I played as a kid. I think if I had played this as a kid, I still wouldn't have liked it. It's just not a good game.
Feels weird to give back to back games an F, but it must be done. I've been going too easy on crappy games over the last ten years since I started this blog. I need to let these games, myself, and my readers know that this is not a game you need to play. I repeat: this is not a game you need to play. Even if you are curious. Even if you review games and were just looking for a quick Game Boy game to play through and review. This is not a game you need to play. Stay away.
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