As a kid, I sort of felt sorry for Spider Man. After all, the wallcrawler would save New York time after time, spend days fighting bad guys instead of enjoying life, and just plain doing good stuff in general – yet all the ever got was a bad rep from the public. And although I did enjoy his videogame exploits as a spidey fan, sans Web of Fire on the 32X, I wasn’t really interested when I heard about his first title on 32/64-bit systems; A 3D title staring Spider Man could be done right, but the fact sort of stood that superhero titles in this era (*CoughSupermanCough*) hadn’t fared well. And although these concerns weren’t unfounded, Neversoft’s first comic book based title turned out very nicely, maintaining everything I enjoyed about Spidey’s comic and TV adventures while still managing to be an enjoyable title.

The game’s story starts out in typical Spider Man tradition – Parker (Spidey’s "Secret Identity" for those who don’t know – of course, if you weren’t aware of this, stop reading, because you’ll have to be a fan of the comics to enjoy this one) is at a science presentation taking photos when a villain disguised as Spidey attacks the scene. Spider Man, now a public enemy (As usual) sets out to find the guys that framed him. The story progresses through comic book style cutscenes depicting spidey with his friends and foes.

The game’s visuals are more than acceptable for an N64 game. All the game’s environments look great, if occasionally bland, and the game’s character models are some of the better ones to be found on Nintendo’s aging hardware. There’s no slowdown to be had, either, as the game’s framerate is consistently smooth. Audio-wise, the in game music serves it’s purpose, and the voice acting does a good job of portraying the characters in a manner similar to the TV show and comic books.

The title’s core gameplay is a 3D throwback to the 8/16-bit days when action games consisted of punching, kicking, and beating your way through each progressively harder levels until you reached the end. The action isn’t very cerebral, and neither are your opponents: At some points they’ll stand and fire in the same direction, at other’s they’ll fail to take notice of you until you’ve just about pummeled them to death. Bosses also seem to follow specific patterns that most veteran action gamers will pick up on after the first try or two.

Being an action game, though, is what Spider Man does very well – sure the basic mechanics are a bit repetitious, but the levels are so well designed and paced that you won’t really care. Each stage centers on a specific objective, and once you’ve completed it, the events that transpire pull you right to the next point, much like the events that’d transpire in one of Spidey’s comics. As for the levels themselves, they’re pretty much what you’d expect – Banks heisted by supervillans, sewers infested with mutated lizards, and the like. Several stages in the game, such as one in which your only concern is to web swing from building to building to avoid missiles from helicopters, provide a break from the beat-em-up portions of the game, making for a somewhat varied and entertaining title.

The play control in Spider Man is good, if imperfect. Anyone will have little to no problem maneuvering spidey through the combat eccentric sequences, but the aspects of the game involving Spider Man’s web abilities can occasionally become irritating. This is especially evident in the city areas that involve consistent swinging from one area to the next – I sometimes found myself following an enemy and would accidentally latch onto something to the far left/right of where I was going, throwing me off track and resulting in a loss. These problems are minor at best, though, and I doubt that they’ll frustrate most players to a serious extent.

Veteran gamers should be aware that Spider Man is rather short, and most players of intermediate skill (such as myself) will be able to finish the game in a few days; sure the levels mentioned above are a lot of fun to blast through, but for most of us, there aren’t enough of them to warrant more than a weekend rental. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the pace is just right for a good Spider comic book, but everything ends a bit too quickly.

Playing Spider Man’s N64 game is a lot like reading one of the hero’s comics – It’s short and a bit simple, but at the same time, it’s quite entertaining. Players are advised to rent first, mostly due to the length of the game, but while the game’s going, it’s still a blast to play and a worth any Spidey fan’s time.