The game was released in 1992, two years before I was born, but I remember my cousins and my brother playing this game when we would go visit my relatives back in the late 90s. It wasn't until a few years later that I was finally able to put this game into my grasp and give it a go, and though I enjoyed the game and all it had to offer, I was also quite infuriated by it, for it's difficulty lifted high into the city in the clouds, and it caused me to throw a fit our even rip the game from the SNES and chuck it against the wall with fury. I am stilled shocked over Wolverine's "toyland" themed level and Storm's underwater maze and don't even get me started on Gambit's stage which requires you to run from a giant boulder that could squash Gambit into a human pancake. I don't know about you, but that level makes the boulder level in Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures look like the first level of Super Mario Bros. The game was based upon an X-Men mini-series from the 1970s, a mini-series about the X-Men getting captured by the evil genius Arcade, who imprisons them within his infamous "Murderland". Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is summoned to rescue them which results in a groundbreaking showdown between Spider-Man and the X-Men and Arcade and his evil minions of doom. Unlike the comics however, the game features Gambit, as opposed to the comics which featured Colossus and Nightcrawler. A lot of Spider-Man and X-Men villains have also been added into the game to give it a little more pep, because no game is complete without bosses that take 900,000 hits to defeat. The game features five playable characters, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, the claw slashing Wolverine, the card tossing Gambit, the optic blasting Cyclops, and the Mistress of the Elements, Storm. Some of the characters have better controls than than other characters and some of the characters' attack are more effective than other characters' attacks. This is perhaps the first game where they got Spider-Man's controls down to the teeth. His webs are easy to sling and blast at enemies, his wall crawling ability is so simply, a 2 and a half year old could do it, the game designers even gave him his Spider-Sense, that way, you can tell when enemies are near or when certain objects you need to collect are near. I would go as far to say that Spider-Man's controls in this game are a lot better than the character's controls in Konami's Spider-Man arcade game. They are that simple and easy to manipulate.
Spider-Man's webs are also pretty powerful. It only takes a few hits to knock out an enemy and the ability to dodge blasts or punches is just as easy as Spidey's other attacks. All these good things I have to say about Spidey makes him my favorite character to play as in this game, and when it is time to play Spidey in this game, I know I will be able to beat the level and knock out the opponents that stand in my way. The X-Men characters in my opinion are a little flawed. Wolverine's claws have to be extracted with the push of a button and to be honest, they are a bit slow and effective as a toothpick. It takes quite a few hits to take out an enemy and even when you take them on, you still get hit in the process. I also found Wolverine's jump to be quite jarring at times and it takes Wolverine an ETERNITY to slash through a wall or slash his way through an obstacle. What a pain in the rear! I also think it's quite odd that they chose Wolverine to be in the clown/toy themed level, filled with laughing clowns, buzz saws and jack ad the boxes armed with rifles. Wolverine would be driven to the brick of insanity if he was put up against those bozos in the comics. Just imagine! Cyclops probably has the worst controls out of any other character. He has his optic blasts as you would imagine, but at times, you are required to kneel or hunch down to blast enemies, and that requires you to do a weird button combination which I find very jaw dropping. I also think it's jaw dropping how you have to jump onto mine carts and avoid falling on the electrically charged tracks. If you fall on the tracks, Cyclops gets fried like a spinach omelet and if you are like me, you hate it when characters die, for you either go back to the beginning of the level or back to the very beginning of the game. Storm's stage is underwater, and I'm a BIG, BIG fan of underwater levels in games. Okay, I'm being sarcastic. Storm's stage is also a pain in the backside. At times, you are required to swim through a tiny space or up a drench, and at times, you need to give certain machinery a good dose of lightning blasts. Storm's lightning blasts aren't that bad, but it would be better if you were able to start whirlpools or blizzards, because Storm's powers are so mighty, she can do just about anything she wants with the weather and the elements, hence the aptly name, the Weather Witch or Mistress of the Elements.
Gambit is probably the best out of the X-Men. Although you are required to collect playing cards to chuck at henchmen, he has a pretty swift jump and his card blasting ability takes enemies out quicker than you can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. The music in his stage is also very heart pumping, and every time I hear that hard rock theme, I also feel like getting up and rocking to the beat. But as I states earlier, Gambit's boulder stage can make you pitch a fit or yell at the TV screen. Sometimes, you can not surpass it in time, for Gambit is a little slow and frail at times, but other times, you can find yourself jumping from platform to platform at high altitudes and that can help you get past the boulder faster and more efficiently. At times, a character might be able to launch what I like to call a "super duper attack", which can come in handy when taking out enemies or clearing areas overcrowded with enemies. Getting back to the music, the music of the game is some of the greatest 16-bit rhapsody ever to hit my eardrums. I love the action liked feel to each tune, and each tune is fitter for each character you are required to play as. For example, Spider-Man's theme was city-like, very jingly and exhilarating, further illuminating the wall crawler's glory. Wolverine's funhouse like stage was very "clownish" and circus like, reminiscent to a tune you would hear at a carnival or a fair. And Storm's theme was very aquatic, illustrating the fact that the level takes place under the water and it is a very quiet, peaceful like environment. The music of Gambit's stage is undeniable my favorite, for it's very Gambit like and very punk rockish, very identical to a rock tune you would hear during the 90s time period. And what better to accompany the music than some awesome comic book like graphics. I adore the graphics of this game, they have such a prudent comic book like appeal and feeling to them, they surely jump out at me every time I look at them. And like a lot of the Marvel based games I have previously reviewed, I can't help but bring up the artwork of Jack Kirby and Jim Lee, the designs and look of each character of the game really mirrors that of the artwork and design of the characters done by both these iconic comic book artists. Wolverine looks almost identical to the way he looked in the comics Jim Lee illustrated, and to be honest, Spider-Man has a bit of a Todd MacFarlene kind of design to him, particularly on the screen that says "GET READY SPIDEY", which appears before each Spidey based level.
The enemies of this game are outlandish, but still hair pulling as a lot of video game enemies. As you play the game, you will be put up against classic villains like Apocalypse, Shocker, N'Astirh, Juggernaut, Carnage, Master Mold, the Black Queen, even a giant playing card, remember him from the comics? And as you would expect, the final level puts you up against Arcade himself, well, sort of. You fight off a giant cyborg version of Arcade that gets smaller and smaller as you defeat it more and more and after destroying the cyborg shell, you fight off a few of Arcade's clones, which Spidey can take out in no time with his flawless web shooting ability. But as I said before, the enemies of this game will make you put your head through the wall, particularly Juggernaut and Apocalypse. Apocalypse does this leaping attack, and when he lands near you, he will do this annoying punch attack that can take off a majority of the health bar, and Juggernaut comes charging at you from behind, requiring to cut down the giant weights from above, which will fall on him and take effect. Sometimes, the level can become so overcrowded with enemies, and their attacks can take away so much of your health, and it doesn't help for the fact that some of the characters' attack don't really do all that much. It's like Dr. Jekyll's stick in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the NES. Also, at times, you may end up doing a jump and land right on top of the enemy, draining a huge percentage of your health. Why does it seem like enemies always get the advantage in video games? The final battle with Arcade is okay, once you get the pattern right, otherwise, this big cybernetic buffoon can make Spidey stew out of you! By jumping from platform to platform and doing a slight jump when the time is right, you can surpass the erratic moving Arcade robot, and since Spidey's web blasting attack is spot on, you will have no problem shooting down the Arcade robot like there's no tomorrow. At the very end, the real Arcade shows up and attempts to blow up "Murderworld" with Spidey and the X-Men still imprisoned inside. Luckily, the five heroes are able to escape just in the nick of time, Spider-Man returning to his crime fighting in the city while the X-Men return to Xavier's Mansion. Sort of a bittersweet ending, but a pretty good pay off for all the mouth foaming "beating up" you had to do throughout the game. At some points, you will be able to surpass a level easily, but at other points, you'll wanna pull out your blaster pistol and blow the game cartridge into a billion little pieces. I have a whole list of games I would love to do that too.
Spider-Man and X-Men: Arcade's Revenge is flawed, but flawed to the point where it motivates you to keep on playing. If it weren't for the game difficulty and teeth grinding factor, I wouldn't care about this game in the slightest, but this game is one of those games where the difficulty plays a key role in the characters' progression and gameplay. You can be able to deal with the difficulty overtime and surpass each level every time you play it, just don't expect to get past each level right off the bat, it takes practice, lots and lots of practice, perseverance and believing in yourself, because you need to say to yourself "I CAN DO IT" in order to get to the very end of a video game. You also have to find many shortcuts and methods to beat certain levels of this game, otherwise you might get your gluteus maximus handed to you each time you play a certain level, particularly levels with lots of enemies to come by and bosses that do attacks that can hit you so hard your grandchildren will feel it. But as a hard, hard video game purist, I feel a lot of things in this game could have been done a whole lot better. Like in X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse, players should be able to select what character they would wanna play in each level, rather than being forced to play as a certain character, who's attacks and methods of assault might be a little inferior to the enemies they are put up against. I also think certain characters would work a lot better in other levels, for example, Spider-Man might work a lot better in Wolverine's funhouse stage, for there is a lot of dodging and attacking enemies that needs to be done, and Wolverine might work a lot better in Cyclops' stage, for his attacks are a lot better than Cyclops' and he could easily be able to jump upon the mine cart when the time is right. I also think that a single hit shouldn't take away a majority of your health, and that maybe the characters could get experience points overtime and learn new attacks and powers to use against your opponents, it would surely make things a whole lot easier, imagine what it would be like if Spider-Man could imprison enemies in a web or tie them to the ceiling in a web like harness. Nevertheless, Spider-Man and X-Men: Arcade's Revenge is a pretty good game, it's just that some of the gameplay values and enemies can make playing this game as difficult as trying to solve Scotty's equation for teleportation. But I still like this game, and the way it was set up, it is just remarkable. I have never seen such a video game with such a comic book like look to it, it's almost like I reading a comic book rather than playing a video game, and you can really tell the people who worked on this game tried their hardest and gave us a game a quadrillion times better than some of the Marvel games released before. In my eyes, this is a LJN game anybody can pick up and play, they just need to practice and practice overtime in order to get things exactly the way they want t. But I love this game, and it is still to this day one of my all time favorite super hero video games. I hold it at a high level, and if you are looking for a super hero game with good replay value, kick butt side scrolling beat em up style, and incredible challenge, this might be your game, because even though it's difficult to get past some areas, it's still a lot of fun and no doubt you will find something enjoyable about this game, this game is filled to the brim with factors that will make you say "COOL". One of my favorite factors is the graphics of course, they are candy to my eyes.
Spider man game was really superb for the highs school students. And who ever like this games.
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I like both spider man and x-men movies. They have interesting story and script has lot to offer. I like actors in both the movie. The direction of the movies is amazing. There are lots of games available in the market for the same. I enjoyed watching these movies.
ReplyDeletewatch movies online