In 1962, Peter Parker and his
story of how he became Spider-Man appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15
from Marvel Comics. After his arrival, he soon became one of the
most beloved super-heroes in the world of comics. Now he has come
to be Mac by way of Aspyr's Spider-Man, which is destined to become
one of the most beloved games to arrive on the Mac.
In the game, Spidey has been framed
for taking a piece of technology from former arch-villain Dr. Otto
Octavius. Spidey has to find out why he has been framed while fighting
some of his classic super-villains, including my favorite two, Venom
and Carnage.

Spider-Man is a ported from
the original PlayStation game from Activision. It's built on the
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 engine, and the third-person 3D action becomes
quite addictive. The graphics are fantastic, crisp and clear, and
the camera moves smoothly. It worked great on my iMac DV SE 500MHz
with 1G of RAM.
The Story
Peter Parker, your friendly neighborhood
Spider-Man, is at a speech where the criminally reformed Dr. Otto
Octavius is demonstrating a piece of wondrous technology that will
benefit humankind. But wait! Someone dressed as Spider-Man steals
this technology, and Peter Parker has to solve who actually did
it and why.
Now, the police, J. Jonah Jameson,
and all the villains are all after our fave superhero - what's a
Spider-Man to do? Well, start an adventure of thirty-four tough
levels, culminating with an all-out battle with major Spidey villains.
Spider-Man first has to go to the Bank. To go there, Spidey has
to slings webs across the rooftops of Manhattan skyscrapers. While
at the bank, you have to solve some not-so-challenging puzzles,
all the while fighting bad guys and rescuing hostages.

Next, The Scorpion is taking out
revenge on the man who made the Scorpion who he is, J. Jonah Jameson,
the Editor of The Daily Bugle. Scorpion wants to kill JJ, but Spidey
has other plans. Once again, you have to web across the skyscrapers
of Manhattan. At the Bugle, Spidey has to beat Scorpion and save
J. Jonah to win the level.
The next few levels in Spider-Man
are perhaps the most challenging and rewarding. Once again, Spidey
finds himself at the top of skyscrapers, this time avoiding the
NYPD as they send men and air support to catch him. You have to
fight the police on top of the buildings, as well as avoid machine-gun
fire and missiles fired at you. These levels take some practice
and are very challenging.
After completing the challenging
rooftop police chase, Spidey finds himself in a fight with Rhino.
Rhino wants to buck Spider-Man, but this level is easy to complete.
Once you finish off Rhino, Spidey finds out that Venom has kidnapped
Mrs. Spider-Man, Mary Jane Parker. Spider-Man has to follow Venom
through a series of rooftop challenges and underground tunnels and
then battle to save Mary Jane from imminent death.
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After this level,
Spidey teams up with Venom. You has to back to the Bugle and
look up some info on Dr. Octopus. Once there, you will run into
the squishy, slimy parasitic lifeforms known as Symbiotes. Spider-Man
battles his way throughout the Daily Bugle and finds that Symbiotes
are all over New York. Then, in the climatic battle... well,
you have to find that one out yourself.
Spidey has the all
the super powers he needs to fight his arch-villains. He can
jump like a spider, he can use his webbing to swing from building
to building, zip-line from side to side of a hallway or floor-to-ceiling,
and he can spray his enemies with webbing to snare them with
stickiness. He also can use his webbing to create a sharp paw
to hit his enemies with a more powerful punch, or he can make
a dome of webbing to protect him from his enemies for a short
time. Spider-Man has a powerful punch and kick and can jump
far distances. He can use his "Spidey-Sense" to find
out when danger is coming and where enemies are. The screen
lights up when Spider-Man's Spidey-Sense is alerted.

Game play is simplistic
straight-ahead fighting with puzzles along the way for Spidey
to figure out. Its takes awhile to figure out how to sling around
using the web and to use the 3D for fighting, so there are training
games for each of Spidey's super powers.
Once you get to
the story, the three-dimensional world is fun and authentic
to the comic book. It's fun to explore, and fun to fight and
pretend you are a super-hero. One great thing is that you can
have four different skill levels. This will help those young
game players who can't play with the older players. The different
skill levels are Kid, Easy, Normal, and Hard.
Spider-Man
himself is greatly detailed, as are all the arch villains, Dr.
Octopus, Scorpion, Mysterio, Venom, and Carnage. You can find
hidden power-ups that let you get different costumes for Spidey.
You also can find a cheat that lets you play in ten different
Spider-Man costumes, including Symbiote Spider-Man and Spider-Man
2099.
The backgrounds
in Spider-Man are simple compared with games like Giants: Citizen
Kabuto, but they seem to fit in with the game. The buildings
around Manhattan are simplistic in design, but they are in the
comics as well. The movies in between levels are too plain,
and they have no mouth movement to match the speech. Some movies
can be skipped, but not all, which was irritating.
Of course, this
was a game that was original for the PlayStation, so this game
is made for a game pad. I recommend getting one, because using
the keyboard can get quite tiring. Once you get the hang of
kicking, punching and spinning webs, the game controlling is
fun.
In conclusion, Spider-Man
is a fun, addictive game for both young and old. It makes you
feel like a super-hero yourself.

http://www.aspyr.com/mini-sites/spider/
Aspyr, $39.99
Mac OS 8.6 or later-OSX
compatible, G3 266 or faster, 64 MB memory, OpenGL 1.1.2, CarbonLib
1.0.4 or greater, ATI Rage Pro with 6 MB video memory, Quicktime
4.1.2 or later
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