(This is the 62nd game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)
This is the first game I'm reviewing that released in 1992. Boy, what an introduction to the year. Well, the good thing is, it can only go up from here. The Amazing Spider-Man 2, developed by Bits Studios (Rare made the original), is part of the early 90's Game Boy Trilogy that might just be the worst trilogy in gaming.
I have now played 4 Spider-Man games from the early 90s as part of the challenge, and all 4 probably find themselves in my Top 7 Worst Games I've played so far. It's like they're all in a competition for that #1 spot. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a darn good contender, so let's see how it scores in my review.
First, an extremely important note: This game received a 98% score by French magazine Consoles +. I'm not kidding, 98%! I cannot explain how significantly ridiculous this is. Picture this: Sonic received a 95% score. Mario Kart received 94%. Sonic 2 got 92%. Super Mario Bros 3 got the same 98%. So you got it there folks. This game is one of the best games of all time according to this French magazine. Wow.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
Peter Parker wakes up with an odd feeling that something is wrong. He is proven correct when he reads that day's newspaper: 'Spider-Man turns bad', it says. "I've been framed", Spider-Man thinks. As he still is in thought, Hobgoblin attacks. And the game starts.
From here, defeating bosses furthers the story with comic-book style storytelling. Turns out, someone IS framing Peter with some sort of "robot spideys". The story is incredibly basic and as per usual for this time period, not notable at all.
With this, the game unfortunately lost the tiny bit of charm that the original had, which was witty trash-talk between Spidey and the bad guys. That's present once or twice here, but not on that level.
This game has phoned it in so much that, even with those few pictures that are used to tell the story, the devs still literally re-used the same pictures for different 'cutscenes'.
GAMEPLAY | 5/20
Are you looking for a game that makes you laugh out loud over how terribly it controls? Well, look no further than this mess. This is called an "action-adventure" game instead of the Action / Platformer that was the original Game Boy game. Why? I have no idea. The only thing that has this game qualify is the fact that it isn't a traditional platformer. There isn't anything to qualify the adventure part though. I'm assuming it's the fact that you can enter a few buildings which have some items hidden, like a crowbar (which opens crates, because Spider-Man is too weak otherwise, as we all know).
This game controls worse than all other Spider-Man games I've played, which were the benchmark for terrible controls up until now, and I'd go as far as to say that this game's controls is a contender for the worst ever in a video game. It's definitely, without a doubt, the worst for any game that received a 98% rating (still can't get over that). This is a side-scrolling game with a lot of items that just don't work together. You climb up stairs akin to a Castlevania game, but it's not "up" that gets you up. No, because simply moving up will have you drop down because each step is actually not connected on the stairs in this game. So you need to jump up stairs. Amazing.
You do have a webswinging feature in this game, but it's hilariously terrible. The web only extends about a meter above your head and it doesn't matter whether you attach it to something or have it literally be suspended in mid-air, it works. Well, not really. You try to get momentum by swinging side to side, but Spidey lets go off the web at random and doesn't even properly elevate with it. In theory, if it works well, you can use it to quickly climb up buildings. There is no other use for it and even this use is questionable. Why? Because you simply can jump from window to window to climb a building, or use one of many invisible platforms to do so.
You can also climb the side of the buildings in this game. But since this is a 2D game, that idea does not work at all. Whenever you try to avoid bombs thrown from the heavens or enemies by jumping over them - you have to - you often will be doing so near the side of the wall. Spider-Man will automatically get attached to the wall, even if you don't want to. And whenever you do actively want to climb a wall, you need multiple tries every time to get attached. While climbing the wall, the Hobgoblin will regularly throw bombs at you and knock you off, and the game has no feature of attaching to walls mid-air, so you fall all the way down every time.
When the game starts you off, you have no clear goal. You run around in Peter's neighborhood and have Hobgoblin flying over your head, throwing bombs at you. These bombs not only can hit you on the head, but will then drop to the floor, explode and can damage you one more time from the after-effect of the explosion. Your goal, apparently, is to catch Hobgoblin with your web and ride him down, which will destroy his glider and let you actually attack him. Why can't you throw punches at him while he is right next to you? No idea, it just doesn't work. It doesn't help that your web fluids are limited, so I found myself not even being able to do what I'm supposed to on my first attempt. I can't say I would have figured it out, ever, without checking a longplay of this game though.
Regarding Spider-Man's weapons: You can punch. You can do a terrible jump-kick. You can shoot webs, but only if you crouch down (?) and only if you have enough web fluid, which is drained rather quickly.
You could argue I haven't gone over the worst part yet. The only enemies in this game are the things that are thrown at you from the bosses, the bosses themselves and out of screen snipers. There are no other enemies in this game! This game is just empty as shit. AGAIN, IT GOT A 98% REVIEW! 98%! The review (translated) says that "the whole city is against Spider-Man from the get-go". THERE ARE LITERALLY JUST THE BOSSES WHO SHOWED UP! I literally can't...
Overall, this is the worst game I have played in terms of pure gameplay as part of this challenge, or in general, so give credit to this game for that. But this truly is terrible. I was disappointed with a name like Rare being attached to a game like the original from this Game Boy trilogy, but in hindsight, that game had some charm, actual cohesive game design behind it, and managed to at least have some fans at the time. If Rare had been behind this as well, there is no chance that this would be nearly as horrible as it ended up being.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 4/10
No voice acting. Sound design is not great, not bad. The soundtrack consists of three tracks. I find it hard to find a retro soundtrack that sounds aggressively bad, and I can't say this soundtrack is bad either. It's just very short and sounds very uninspired.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 2/10
Can a game have no art design? On the Game Boy, there of course is no color, so attention to detail is even more important. This game is what you get when you go with the opposite of "attention to detail". The environments are incredibly bland. You run from side to side with same looking buildings scrolling through non-stop, and with a few skyscraping buildings visible in the background that is otherwise simply white. No clouds, nothing, just white. Spider-Man looks weird as hell and walks like he has no control over his limbs (every Spider-Man game in this challenge has had odd-looking Spidey animations), animations overall are poor, the devs were so lazy that they didn't even create enemies, cutscene pictures are repeated and there just is 0 passion that went into this game.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 2/10
How can you expect any atmosphere when the entire game looks empty? You simply are fighting one enemy that keeps you occupied, sometimes, while trying to get near him and figure out what the hell the game wants from you. Apart from the somewhat recognizable characters from the Spider-Man universe, there is nothing about this game that emanates a whiff of what you'd expect a Spider-Man game to look and feel like.
CONTENT | 2/10
I'm giving it an additional point for the fact that there is some actual content here, but it is of the worst kind. The levels are mostly empty, they look like crap, and there are just a few them in this game, which is of course good for people who don't enjoy it, but a shame for the kids who would play everything and anything you put in front of them, if they have no alternatives. That's a good description for this game. If you could play literally anything else, you probably would.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 2/10
One additional point for the fact that levels can actually be completed I guess? The first level immediately sets the tone. You exit the introductory cutscene to find yourself in this empty city with the Hobgoblin chucking bombs at you. You aren't told anything on what to do, and how to do it. The features in this game are counterintuitive to the control scheme and it makes for an awful time trying to make your way through the levels, which in addition to all this, offer no depth and complexity.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 1/10
This has no concept. You are put into a small area and have only one enemy to fight, who just annoying flings stuff at you while you are outside. You can simply enter buildings and have 0 threats while you look for boring, quasi-useless items. Remove the Spider-Man name and this has literally no selling proposition. None.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
No motivation given to replay this game after having beaten it the first time.
PLAYABILITY | 4/5
The game works, but I'm taking a point off for the fact that the controls are so terrible and certain actions appear to be working randomly from time to time.
OVERALL | 25/100
And there we have it. The worst game I've played so far in this challenge is a Spider-Man game replacing the previous holder of that title, a different Spider-Man game. I love Spider-Man and it saddens me to see what had been done to him in the video game industry 30+ years ago. Thank god that new Spider-Man 2 showcase was awesome and I can rest easy in the comfort of the franchise's handling in this day and age.
This is the first game I'm reviewing that released in 1992. Boy, what an introduction to the year. Well, the good thing is, it can only go up from here. The Amazing Spider-Man 2, developed by Bits Studios (Rare made the original), is part of the early 90's Game Boy Trilogy that might just be the worst trilogy in gaming.
I have now played 4 Spider-Man games from the early 90s as part of the challenge, and all 4 probably find themselves in my Top 7 Worst Games I've played so far. It's like they're all in a competition for that #1 spot. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a darn good contender, so let's see how it scores in my review.
First, an extremely important note: This game received a 98% score by French magazine Consoles +. I'm not kidding, 98%! I cannot explain how significantly ridiculous this is. Picture this: Sonic received a 95% score. Mario Kart received 94%. Sonic 2 got 92%. Super Mario Bros 3 got the same 98%. So you got it there folks. This game is one of the best games of all time according to this French magazine. Wow.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 2/10
Peter Parker wakes up with an odd feeling that something is wrong. He is proven correct when he reads that day's newspaper: 'Spider-Man turns bad', it says. "I've been framed", Spider-Man thinks. As he still is in thought, Hobgoblin attacks. And the game starts.
From here, defeating bosses furthers the story with comic-book style storytelling. Turns out, someone IS framing Peter with some sort of "robot spideys". The story is incredibly basic and as per usual for this time period, not notable at all.
With this, the game unfortunately lost the tiny bit of charm that the original had, which was witty trash-talk between Spidey and the bad guys. That's present once or twice here, but not on that level.
This game has phoned it in so much that, even with those few pictures that are used to tell the story, the devs still literally re-used the same pictures for different 'cutscenes'.
GAMEPLAY | 5/20
Are you looking for a game that makes you laugh out loud over how terribly it controls? Well, look no further than this mess. This is called an "action-adventure" game instead of the Action / Platformer that was the original Game Boy game. Why? I have no idea. The only thing that has this game qualify is the fact that it isn't a traditional platformer. There isn't anything to qualify the adventure part though. I'm assuming it's the fact that you can enter a few buildings which have some items hidden, like a crowbar (which opens crates, because Spider-Man is too weak otherwise, as we all know).
This game controls worse than all other Spider-Man games I've played, which were the benchmark for terrible controls up until now, and I'd go as far as to say that this game's controls is a contender for the worst ever in a video game. It's definitely, without a doubt, the worst for any game that received a 98% rating (still can't get over that). This is a side-scrolling game with a lot of items that just don't work together. You climb up stairs akin to a Castlevania game, but it's not "up" that gets you up. No, because simply moving up will have you drop down because each step is actually not connected on the stairs in this game. So you need to jump up stairs. Amazing.
You do have a webswinging feature in this game, but it's hilariously terrible. The web only extends about a meter above your head and it doesn't matter whether you attach it to something or have it literally be suspended in mid-air, it works. Well, not really. You try to get momentum by swinging side to side, but Spidey lets go off the web at random and doesn't even properly elevate with it. In theory, if it works well, you can use it to quickly climb up buildings. There is no other use for it and even this use is questionable. Why? Because you simply can jump from window to window to climb a building, or use one of many invisible platforms to do so.
You can also climb the side of the buildings in this game. But since this is a 2D game, that idea does not work at all. Whenever you try to avoid bombs thrown from the heavens or enemies by jumping over them - you have to - you often will be doing so near the side of the wall. Spider-Man will automatically get attached to the wall, even if you don't want to. And whenever you do actively want to climb a wall, you need multiple tries every time to get attached. While climbing the wall, the Hobgoblin will regularly throw bombs at you and knock you off, and the game has no feature of attaching to walls mid-air, so you fall all the way down every time.
When the game starts you off, you have no clear goal. You run around in Peter's neighborhood and have Hobgoblin flying over your head, throwing bombs at you. These bombs not only can hit you on the head, but will then drop to the floor, explode and can damage you one more time from the after-effect of the explosion. Your goal, apparently, is to catch Hobgoblin with your web and ride him down, which will destroy his glider and let you actually attack him. Why can't you throw punches at him while he is right next to you? No idea, it just doesn't work. It doesn't help that your web fluids are limited, so I found myself not even being able to do what I'm supposed to on my first attempt. I can't say I would have figured it out, ever, without checking a longplay of this game though.
Regarding Spider-Man's weapons: You can punch. You can do a terrible jump-kick. You can shoot webs, but only if you crouch down (?) and only if you have enough web fluid, which is drained rather quickly.
You could argue I haven't gone over the worst part yet. The only enemies in this game are the things that are thrown at you from the bosses, the bosses themselves and out of screen snipers. There are no other enemies in this game! This game is just empty as shit. AGAIN, IT GOT A 98% REVIEW! 98%! The review (translated) says that "the whole city is against Spider-Man from the get-go". THERE ARE LITERALLY JUST THE BOSSES WHO SHOWED UP! I literally can't...
Overall, this is the worst game I have played in terms of pure gameplay as part of this challenge, or in general, so give credit to this game for that. But this truly is terrible. I was disappointed with a name like Rare being attached to a game like the original from this Game Boy trilogy, but in hindsight, that game had some charm, actual cohesive game design behind it, and managed to at least have some fans at the time. If Rare had been behind this as well, there is no chance that this would be nearly as horrible as it ended up being.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 4/10
No voice acting. Sound design is not great, not bad. The soundtrack consists of three tracks. I find it hard to find a retro soundtrack that sounds aggressively bad, and I can't say this soundtrack is bad either. It's just very short and sounds very uninspired.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 2/10
Can a game have no art design? On the Game Boy, there of course is no color, so attention to detail is even more important. This game is what you get when you go with the opposite of "attention to detail". The environments are incredibly bland. You run from side to side with same looking buildings scrolling through non-stop, and with a few skyscraping buildings visible in the background that is otherwise simply white. No clouds, nothing, just white. Spider-Man looks weird as hell and walks like he has no control over his limbs (every Spider-Man game in this challenge has had odd-looking Spidey animations), animations overall are poor, the devs were so lazy that they didn't even create enemies, cutscene pictures are repeated and there just is 0 passion that went into this game.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 2/10
How can you expect any atmosphere when the entire game looks empty? You simply are fighting one enemy that keeps you occupied, sometimes, while trying to get near him and figure out what the hell the game wants from you. Apart from the somewhat recognizable characters from the Spider-Man universe, there is nothing about this game that emanates a whiff of what you'd expect a Spider-Man game to look and feel like.
CONTENT | 2/10
I'm giving it an additional point for the fact that there is some actual content here, but it is of the worst kind. The levels are mostly empty, they look like crap, and there are just a few them in this game, which is of course good for people who don't enjoy it, but a shame for the kids who would play everything and anything you put in front of them, if they have no alternatives. That's a good description for this game. If you could play literally anything else, you probably would.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 2/10
One additional point for the fact that levels can actually be completed I guess? The first level immediately sets the tone. You exit the introductory cutscene to find yourself in this empty city with the Hobgoblin chucking bombs at you. You aren't told anything on what to do, and how to do it. The features in this game are counterintuitive to the control scheme and it makes for an awful time trying to make your way through the levels, which in addition to all this, offer no depth and complexity.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 1/10
This has no concept. You are put into a small area and have only one enemy to fight, who just annoying flings stuff at you while you are outside. You can simply enter buildings and have 0 threats while you look for boring, quasi-useless items. Remove the Spider-Man name and this has literally no selling proposition. None.
REPLAYABILITY | 1/5
No motivation given to replay this game after having beaten it the first time.
PLAYABILITY | 4/5
The game works, but I'm taking a point off for the fact that the controls are so terrible and certain actions appear to be working randomly from time to time.
OVERALL | 25/100
And there we have it. The worst game I've played so far in this challenge is a Spider-Man game replacing the previous holder of that title, a different Spider-Man game. I love Spider-Man and it saddens me to see what had been done to him in the video game industry 30+ years ago. Thank god that new Spider-Man 2 showcase was awesome and I can rest easy in the comfort of the franchise's handling in this day and age.
Reviewed on May 26, 2023