/vr/ - Retro Games

Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin (Mega Drive)

Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin was probably the 1st video game to do the character justice, and for that it deserves a lot of credit. Apparently 2/3 of Genesis owners had this at some point, it was a system seller for SOA, following their strategy of acquiring popular IPs to rival what Nintendo had to offer, before Sonic came along at least. I think this was the 1st time where Peter Parker was somewhat incorporated into the mechanics, with the photographs that make you money so you can affort to make your web fluid, it adds depth in both the lore and gameplay, so it's really a quite welcome feature. Another thing that this did, that the previous Spider-Man adaptations didn't, was having an actual story that develops as it goes along, instead of some text in the manual or an opening cutscene to set the plot, you have cutscenes between all levels that show Spider-Man's thought process as to where he should go next to find the keys to disarm Kingpin's bomb and it's great to see, it's immersive and captures the feeling of reading a comic book more than anything that came before it. One more thing I love, that few Spider-Man video games did as well as this one, was the atmosphere, it feels dark, not too dark or edgy, nothing like that, but serious and grim, you feel the stakes through the music and graphics.

>>9105186
I'd say Spider-Man has a surprisingly good track record in video games overall.

I've finally beat The Amazing Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin for Sega Genesis in Nightmare Mode. I did beat it on Normal Mode before, with the default Stamina and Web Cartridges settings, but never more than that, this was always a difficult time for me, even if it was a fun one too. Recently I did manage to get decent at the default settings, getting to the end without too much trouble, so I gave Nightmare Mode a couple of shots, with the lowest Stamina and Web Cartridges settings, to give myself the hardest challenge it could offer. I didn't feel a noticeable difference in most of the levels, of course it seems you take more damage, but if you play it as you normally would it should be just as simple, the one thing that truly makes it tough overall is Venom showing up.

I know most would say that it's easy, you just get him into a pattern and he's done for, but it's easier said than done, on the earlier levels it isn't too bad, but there are times where it does feel tough, especially if you trigger him while you have other enemies or mini-bosses on the screen, trying to take care of both at once is nothing short of miserable. I found a really hard time on the 6th level, when Venom shows up it's tough, especially because you're expected to fight him in such a tight space with other enemies around, I managed to get lucky one time and outrun him, and for some reason he didn't catch up, so I'm assuming the AI got stuck, I still don't know how to get past him here without luck, it's already a hard level usually, this makes it even tougher.

(1/2)

I seriously can't figure out if this is overall well received or not, it's puzzling to me because I've never seen something like this before. Usually when you have something that has both qualities and flaws the reception will be mixed, as in most will agree that it's decent, however with this one specific case I see just as many comments calling it a masterpiece and others saying they hated it.

I've played it recently and I can see where both sides are coming from, naturally there will be many people with opinions about it, either positive or negative, since at one point about 2/3 of all Sega Genesis owners had it for their console. It's probably the 1st time where the character's abilities were well represented, but it can feel frustrating too if you don't know the correct strategies.

One comment I see frequently is from people saying that they owned it as a kid and never got far in it, either due to not knowing what to do or not being able to figure out a strategy for a section they were stuck on, mostly bosses. Now, to be fair, that's not the only complaint, the clunky controls are another one and this is one I felt while playing, but I've played much worse before too.

I feel that it's important to remember that back then there was no easy access to something like guides, or playthrough videos, like nowadays, so it's easy for me to look something up and replicate it, and think that it's not too bad, but I can understand why kids playing this back then might get stuck and hate it, then again many didn't and ended up enjoying it, it's somewhat odd.

I don't know, I guess what I'm saying is that I can't figure out if this is considered a Sega Genesis classic or if it's disliked, because it's the one case where it feels like no people consider this average, the opinions this generates are always strong, either to one side, calling it a classic, or to the other, saying that they never liked playing it, it's a 50/50 split and I've never seen it before.