A playthrough of Sega’s 1991 arcade action game, Spider-Man: The Video Game.
Played as Spider-Man on the game’s default settings.
Spider-Man: The Video Game was the fourth title to be released on Sega’s cutting edge sprite-based System 32 arcade platform, and just like its Genesis cousin (https://youtu.be/jC6cWapQJjQ ), it turned a lot of heads when it was new.
The game plays across four lengthy stages, and in each, the gameplay regularly switches between playing as a belt-scrolling beat ’em up and a platformer.
With up to four players stepping into the roles of Spider-Man, Black Cat, Hawkeye, or Submariner, the aim is to recover a “mystic power stone” from several villains, including Venom, The Lizard, Venom, Dr. Octopus, Electro, Hobgoblin, Green Goblin, Sandman, Kingpin, and Dr. Doom.
The beat ’em up portions feel like a slightly simplified take on Final Fight – you can string punches together into combos, jump kick, and throw your enemies, and each character has their own unique special move. The platforming sections, on the other hand, resemble Shinobi – you attack by shooting at your enemies, and you can scale walls and the underside of platforms. In both sections, the controls are responsive and handle easily, and the difficulty level is quite reasonable for an arcade game. The enemies aren’t damage sponges that can stun lock or corner trap you, and there are plenty of health items to be found. It’s not a super easy game, but it is much fairer than typical arcade fare.
The graphics are the highlight, though. Making use of the horsepower afforded by the 32-bit hardware, Sega manages to bring Spider-Man’s world to life here. The sprites are huge and colorful and the style closely mimics the look of Spidey’s print adventures. Classic comic book onomatopoeia regularly flashes across the screen, and it’s cool to see old favorites like “VOK!” and “THWIP” pop up as you go about taking out the trash. I also liked how the stages were designed to look like extended comic panels. The effect really pays off when the entire screen zooms when switching between the brawler and platformer modes. The sound is alright, but it’s not quite on par with the graphics. I found the unusual music to be a bit off-putting, but the hammy voicework is fun.
As good as the beloved Sega Genesis game was, I much prefer this one. It’s lacking the exploration elements of the home version, but in my opinion, it’s much more exciting to play and it better captures the spirit of the Marvel comic.
Like most System 32 games, this classic never saw any ports to consoles, so it tends to be one of the more obscure games based on the adventures of Peter Parker. It also happens to be one of the best.
Far better than Maximum Carnage, at any rate.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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"Spider sense tingling, signaling danger. Trouble up ahead!"
THWIP!
Amazing arcade game for its time. The animation was so good. Remember playing this at random arcades as a kid.
A good looking surprise.
The mood from the comics was well recreated here.
And the voices sounds nice.
why was there no seinfeld arcade game
Always wanted to play this in real time, but never really saw the cabinet in the wild.
Fun fact, a few tracks from this game are pulled from (and slightly remixed) from Quartet, an earlier Sega game.
And yeah, this game's a good one. I don't think I've ever seen another game that seamlessly combines a beat-em-up with a platformer (Super Ninja Boy KIND of does this but they're very separate sections), and happily, Sega got it dead-on on the first try.
There are just such weird voices and sounds in this game. Also, remember when Marvel ruled the arcades? We had this, Konami's X-Men beat 'em up, Data East's Captain America and the Avengers, and Capcom's The Punisher all come out within a span of a year or two. Then later on, we had Capcom's fighting games based on the Marvel characters. It's kind of too bad that D.C. Comics never got the same kind of love, as they just had a game based on the first Batman movie from Atari, and a Superman arcade game.
I remember being young and wondering why they didn't have More well now characters like the Hulk or Captain America. Later learning it had something to do with the rights. But still it's really a fun and great looking game
Love how the fat guy thinks he can body splash a dude that can haul 10 tons.
I have many fond memories of my father taking me to the arcade…he would play “elevator action” and I would dump all the quarters he gave me into this, “Return of the Jedi”, and “Temple of Doom”.
Super like👍👍👍
Strange, I didn't remember seeing this one in my neck of the woods back them.
Sega made some graphically impressive games back then in the arcades.
man i can't get the game to work this well on emulators.. i'm jealous.. saw this in a movie theater once way back in the day and never saw it again
Ah, the memories. This game was so much fun. Played this on my way home from middle school at a corner store that had it there. Put many quarters in that cabinet.
I get hawkeye(friendly avengers) and black cat(relationship history) being there but why namor is there esp when he is neutral towards everyone in comics except the fantastic four. They should've gave it to captain america, iceman, or the daredevil
Spiderman, go save the day. "Fine, but I'm not gonna like it." /old man hunches into work.
the model they used for spidey’s rotoscoping must have had a dad bod lol
Interesting to see an old character like Namor being used in this.