Top 10 Spider-Man video games ranked from worst to best
9. Spider-Man (2002)
Remember when video games based on films were a thing? Well, back in 2002 Treyarch and Activision developed a project that let players experience first-hand the events of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 1. The result was a fun experience that, while it took its liberties such as adding new villains and scenes, it was also extremely faithful to its source material.
Spider-Man (2002) might have been a pretty short game, but it was packed with awesome content. Players had to navigate through different levels that ranged from the semi-open skyline of New York to numerous indoor places such as the subway station. Every level was a recreation of a scene from Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man movie, and some even featured a completely original narrative that expanded on the film’s events. A perfect example of that comes in the form of the wall-crawler having to battle Scorpion even when the poisonous supervillain was nowhere to be found on the big screen.
As if it wasn’t enough, Spider-Man (2002) also has minigames such as bowling, many collectibles on every level, and some amazing alternate suits. The game even lets you play the entirety of its campaign as Harry Osborn wearing the Green Goblin costume. That feature isn’t just a simple cosmetic change, since it allows players to use pumpkin bombs and fly on the Goblin’s glider changing the gameplay altogether. Besides, it also presented an alternate story that saw Harry try to uncover more about his father’s secrets.
To say the game was ambitious for its time would be an understatement.
However, Spider-Man (2002) was far from being perfect. It had outdated swinging mechanics that saw Peter constantly throw webs to… the sky? And the camera was also a nightmare to control. Worse of all is its terrible voice acting. Treyarch got Tobey Maguire himself to record the voice for Peter Parker, but it was more than evident that the Hollywood star didn’t want to be there. All of his lines had a flat delivery, leaving players to wonder how better the game would’ve turned out if Activision just hired a proper voice actor.
Overall Spider-Man (2002) is a fun time worthy of being among the top 10 video games featuring the wall-crawler. Its many problems may prevent it from getting a higher spot, but that’s okay. It still delivered a memorable experience for Spider-Man fans all around the world who watched Sam Raimi’s first arachnid movie.