I covered some of Activision’s Spider-man games last summer, the company that seems to have been with the wall crawler since he went 3D. But before then, the game company that dealt with him the most was probably LJN. Now, if you guys watch the Angry Video Game Nerd, you’ll know their games are rarely good. But hey, this one actually managed to get pass the AVGN when he did his Spider-man games review, plus it’s based directly on the 90’s TV show, so who knows how bad this really is? Here’s Spider-man the Animated Series for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
The plot for this game is that some of Spider-man’s enemies have escaped from captivity, and that is it. As far as super hero games go, you can’t really have a less inspired story than that. However, it does mean there are a lot of villains in this game, all recognizable due to the show. And actually, this is the only Spider-man game I know of to include my favorite Spidey-villain : Hydro man! Other than allowing for the awesome amount of bad guys, the story is lame, so let’s move on.
The game play is typical side-scrolling, “punch the bad guys in the FACE(starting with a red Master Chief here)” action game. Simple enough, right? Well, there are two things to keep in mind: 1. This is LJN, and 2. This is Spider-man, so that means there will be wall crawling and web swinging. And both are a little messed up here. For wall crawling, it’s due to the control: you have to press the button while in the air, you can’t be holding it beforehand. However, web-swinning is just poorly polished; if you manage swing, you’ll just go back and forth until you jump, but there’s a delay in the jump. It’s possible to get the hang of it (I mean, it DOE work), but it’s near impossible to perfect and will likely bug up on you.
There are also parts where you can jump into the background and this game does it relatively well. It has the common problem that sometimes you don’t know where exactly you can do this, and also that you’ll jump for other reasons and land in the background accidentally. However, these are common problems for any game doing this. I think it’s done well, but far from perfectly.
Finally, the camera is poorly framed. Spidey will be about one quarter off the end of screen from where he’s facing, making it difficult to react in time to what’s coming. This is all just a bit much…
So, as I already mentioned, this game is based on the Spider-man 90’s Animated Series. Know how I can prove that (other than the name on the copyright screen)? The theme song has been perfectly recreated: *plays a few seconds of it*. Other than that, you won’t notice the music; it’s there, but barely. The sound effects are pretty standard, but nothing note worthy either.
I am surprised to say that the graphics are well done though, for the most part. Spider-man does look a little more buffed out than usual, but it works once you start swinging and climbing around. Also, all the bad guys from the show look exactly like they did, with a few exceptions. The main problem with the sprites that don’t work is that there is a lack of detail, making their faces look like something I made in paint when I was 6. But, I find those are few and far between.
So, that is the Spider-man game based on the Animated series that was developed by Western Technologies, Inc. and published by LJN Ltd. It’s honestly probably little known now a day for a good reason. But is it a bad game? Well, not by my definition of a bad game. Don’t get me wrong, this is still the worst Spider-man game I’ve reviewed so far, but despite the many tiny flaws, this game is not bad as a whole. It has frustrating moments, but it never feels unfair. It’s still very possible to want and be able to see this game to the end. If they could of fixed a few of the controls and spend a bit more time on the music and sprites, this would be a good game. However, as is, it’s only recommended for the huge Spider-man fans (especially ones of the 90’s cartoon); everyone else can skip it. I give Spider-man the Animated Series for the Super Nintendo 5.5 levels out of 10.
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