I don't know what I expected, but The Amazing Spider-Man for Game Boy was almost just as bad as the Amiga / Commodore 64 game which I had played a month prior.
This one came out in July 1990 for the Game Boy exclusively and was developed by Rare (who developed a different rather below average game in 1990 as well, Captain Skyhawk).
My first immediate complaint about the Commodore 64 game was how it looked like Spider-Man had back issues and how the assets used didn't have much to do with Spider-Man. The moment gameplay started for this Game Boy game, I noticed how Spidey walked like he was having back issues yet again, however the use of multiple Spider-Man villains and the typical Spider-Man quick-wittedness in dialogue at least gave me some Spider-Man vibes here.
That doesn't take away from the fact that this game was a bad one in pretty much any way you can think of, but here is a one-by-one rundown of it all.
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STORYTELLING
Mary Jane has been kidnapped by 6 villains, apparently, and Spider-Man needs to save her. He learns about this when Mysterio calls him by phone. Mysterio then is the boss of the first stage. The second stage begins with Hobgoblin giving him a call, the third stage boss is Scorpion and so it goes 6 times until the game ends.
The plot is not really of importance, but what this game does that I found fun was how every conversation is just filled with a bunch of one-liners and insults that Spider-Man and his enemies throw at each other. Spider-Man called Mysterio a "Fishbowl Face", Hobgoblin a "Pumpkin Brain", Scorpion a "Tail-Twirler" and so on. They are not necessarily clever or big zingers, but I can imagine especially younger players getting a kick out of it, so I see it as a plus.
Still, there isn't much here overall.
GAMEPLAY
There are two types of stages in this game. The first is the most common: Moving Spider-Man to the right in a horizontally scrolling 2D Action game with limited platforming. The other appears twice and involves you moving Spider-Man vertically up the wall of a tall building.
During the side-scrolling sections, platforming is really limited to jumping and web-swinging. Web-swinging has got to be working randomly, because I barely ever got it to work even though I always pressed the button like the manual says. Hold B. And yet, every 10th press or so actually started the animation, which sees you progress through the level up in the air, where you can't be hurt by most enemies and can actually swing over boxes that you would be unable to jump over.
Ugh, this just felt like a drag throughout. Spider-Man walks weird and slow, you can only throw a punch or shoot webs (at least until you run out of web fluids) and graphically this game is so simple that you can't even make out what kind of items the enemies drop when they die. Even the manual calls it "stuff" multiple times, so it literally is a bunch of pixels that they drop.
There is a level like this on a random street, but also on a train, but they play the same apart from the fact that Spider-Man crouches down automatically on the train to not get smashed by a brick wall.
The wall-climbing stages include rocks falling from above which you have to avoid and enemies looking out of windows to try to hit you. Pretty straightforward and easy. Not that fun.
Boss fights have some similarities but differences as well, but all of them have pretty simple patterns that you need to figure out and then counter attack until they die.
Later stages then include a whole bunch of crap coming across the screen that pretty much forces you to stay in place for a few seconds at a time before moving to avoid taking damage. You'll probably take damage anyway.
The game is also so feature-barren that bats that fly above you don't even fly down to attack because there is no ability to defend against it, so you literally move forward for several seconds while they just fly above your head.
It's just not that fun of a game to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Standard sound design for the most part, but really low quality of the sound at some others, like for example the disgusting sound the poison dust of Mysterio makes. Music meanwhile was almost completely bad. I thought the Intro Theme was OK and the Boss Battles theme was definitely the highlight, but everything else - which mainly means the main stage theme which is on repeat almost throughout - is really bad. Not only does it sound low quality, but there are parts which almost got me nauseated. Check out Stage Theme 1 starting at 0:27 on YouTube to know what I mean. I didn't like it. Luckily the game is on the shorter side.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Game Boy games often don't look that good, though there certainly are many better looking one's than this game and some that look pretty good, like Donkey Kong Land III. What makes that game stand out despite the technical limitations of the handheld console to me is the detail in animations. This game game had so few that you could count them with two hands, and it didn't look good or detailed in any way, but also not terrible since it is, after all, a Game Boy game.
ATMOSPHERE
The conversations did most of the carrying as far as hitting that Spider-Man atmosphere goes. Apart from that, there is nothing special here and with this soundtrack, I'd almost recommend playing it on mute, if at all.
CONTENT
It's on the shorter side. I've played for 1.5 hours and got to the final boss, where I died and decided it's not worth it to push on. Play the first two levels and you've pretty much seen what this game has to offer, which isn't much. If you really get a kick out of the conversations between Spidey and the villains, that might be enough motivation to push on, and the game being short is a blessing if you are more hardcore than me and are looking to beat all of these games, but there isn't much here in both quantity and quality.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Two different styles of stages with an increasing amount of different enemies on screen as you go. You don't really become stronger as you go, there aren't any power up items to look for, the pace is slow and it all comes together to provide you with a bad and unrewarding experience overall, at least in my opinion.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Web swinging, if it works, looked cool I guess and I liked how they at least tried to make the game stand out with all those light-insult-battles between Spider-Man and the enemies, but there isn't anything here besides that that stood out and was innovative in any way.
REPLAYABILITY
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any replayability here.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked well at all times. There was one big problem though, and that was that the aforementioned "Web Swinging" literally worked at random. Very weird. And it not working often means you will take damage in the meantime.
OVERALL
The game has one saving grace, and that's the interactions between Spider-Man and the villains. But that's just a tiny portion of this game, and the rest of it is simply filled with slow-paced, poorly-animated, feature-less platforming.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Maurice Molyneaux for VGCE, Issue 19 (Aug 90): "Spidey has a number of weapons and defenses at his disposal." | Now that's just a lie.
- Gideon for GamePro, Issue 11 (June 90): "The gameplay is top-notch, and the funky Spiderman theme is a groove."
This one came out in July 1990 for the Game Boy exclusively and was developed by Rare (who developed a different rather below average game in 1990 as well, Captain Skyhawk).
My first immediate complaint about the Commodore 64 game was how it looked like Spider-Man had back issues and how the assets used didn't have much to do with Spider-Man. The moment gameplay started for this Game Boy game, I noticed how Spidey walked like he was having back issues yet again, however the use of multiple Spider-Man villains and the typical Spider-Man quick-wittedness in dialogue at least gave me some Spider-Man vibes here.
That doesn't take away from the fact that this game was a bad one in pretty much any way you can think of, but here is a one-by-one rundown of it all.
____________
STORYTELLING
Mary Jane has been kidnapped by 6 villains, apparently, and Spider-Man needs to save her. He learns about this when Mysterio calls him by phone. Mysterio then is the boss of the first stage. The second stage begins with Hobgoblin giving him a call, the third stage boss is Scorpion and so it goes 6 times until the game ends.
The plot is not really of importance, but what this game does that I found fun was how every conversation is just filled with a bunch of one-liners and insults that Spider-Man and his enemies throw at each other. Spider-Man called Mysterio a "Fishbowl Face", Hobgoblin a "Pumpkin Brain", Scorpion a "Tail-Twirler" and so on. They are not necessarily clever or big zingers, but I can imagine especially younger players getting a kick out of it, so I see it as a plus.
Still, there isn't much here overall.
GAMEPLAY
There are two types of stages in this game. The first is the most common: Moving Spider-Man to the right in a horizontally scrolling 2D Action game with limited platforming. The other appears twice and involves you moving Spider-Man vertically up the wall of a tall building.
During the side-scrolling sections, platforming is really limited to jumping and web-swinging. Web-swinging has got to be working randomly, because I barely ever got it to work even though I always pressed the button like the manual says. Hold B. And yet, every 10th press or so actually started the animation, which sees you progress through the level up in the air, where you can't be hurt by most enemies and can actually swing over boxes that you would be unable to jump over.
Ugh, this just felt like a drag throughout. Spider-Man walks weird and slow, you can only throw a punch or shoot webs (at least until you run out of web fluids) and graphically this game is so simple that you can't even make out what kind of items the enemies drop when they die. Even the manual calls it "stuff" multiple times, so it literally is a bunch of pixels that they drop.
There is a level like this on a random street, but also on a train, but they play the same apart from the fact that Spider-Man crouches down automatically on the train to not get smashed by a brick wall.
The wall-climbing stages include rocks falling from above which you have to avoid and enemies looking out of windows to try to hit you. Pretty straightforward and easy. Not that fun.
Boss fights have some similarities but differences as well, but all of them have pretty simple patterns that you need to figure out and then counter attack until they die.
Later stages then include a whole bunch of crap coming across the screen that pretty much forces you to stay in place for a few seconds at a time before moving to avoid taking damage. You'll probably take damage anyway.
The game is also so feature-barren that bats that fly above you don't even fly down to attack because there is no ability to defend against it, so you literally move forward for several seconds while they just fly above your head.
It's just not that fun of a game to play.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE
No voice acting. Standard sound design for the most part, but really low quality of the sound at some others, like for example the disgusting sound the poison dust of Mysterio makes. Music meanwhile was almost completely bad. I thought the Intro Theme was OK and the Boss Battles theme was definitely the highlight, but everything else - which mainly means the main stage theme which is on repeat almost throughout - is really bad. Not only does it sound low quality, but there are parts which almost got me nauseated. Check out Stage Theme 1 starting at 0:27 on YouTube to know what I mean. I didn't like it. Luckily the game is on the shorter side.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN
Game Boy games often don't look that good, though there certainly are many better looking one's than this game and some that look pretty good, like Donkey Kong Land III. What makes that game stand out despite the technical limitations of the handheld console to me is the detail in animations. This game game had so few that you could count them with two hands, and it didn't look good or detailed in any way, but also not terrible since it is, after all, a Game Boy game.
ATMOSPHERE
The conversations did most of the carrying as far as hitting that Spider-Man atmosphere goes. Apart from that, there is nothing special here and with this soundtrack, I'd almost recommend playing it on mute, if at all.
CONTENT
It's on the shorter side. I've played for 1.5 hours and got to the final boss, where I died and decided it's not worth it to push on. Play the first two levels and you've pretty much seen what this game has to offer, which isn't much. If you really get a kick out of the conversations between Spidey and the villains, that might be enough motivation to push on, and the game being short is a blessing if you are more hardcore than me and are looking to beat all of these games, but there isn't much here in both quantity and quality.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN
Two different styles of stages with an increasing amount of different enemies on screen as you go. You don't really become stronger as you go, there aren't any power up items to look for, the pace is slow and it all comes together to provide you with a bad and unrewarding experience overall, at least in my opinion.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION
Web swinging, if it works, looked cool I guess and I liked how they at least tried to make the game stand out with all those light-insult-battles between Spider-Man and the enemies, but there isn't anything here besides that that stood out and was innovative in any way.
REPLAYABILITY
Apart from trying to beat your high score, there isn't any replayability here.
PLAYABILITY
The game worked well at all times. There was one big problem though, and that was that the aforementioned "Web Swinging" literally worked at random. Very weird. And it not working often means you will take damage in the meantime.
OVERALL
The game has one saving grace, and that's the interactions between Spider-Man and the villains. But that's just a tiny portion of this game, and the rest of it is simply filled with slow-paced, poorly-animated, feature-less platforming.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Maurice Molyneaux for VGCE, Issue 19 (Aug 90): "Spidey has a number of weapons and defenses at his disposal." | Now that's just a lie.
- Gideon for GamePro, Issue 11 (June 90): "The gameplay is top-notch, and the funky Spiderman theme is a groove."