The 10 HARDEST Spider-Man Video Games
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VOICE OVER: Ty Richardson
WRITTEN BY: Ty Richardson
Life as Spider-Man can be pretty tough as these video games prove. For this list, we'll be looking at the most challenging games to star the beloved Marvel hero. Our list of the hardest Spider-Man games includes “Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety” (1995), “The Amazing Spider-Man” (1990), “Spider-Man: Battle for New York” (2006), “Spider-Man” (2002), and more!
Welcome to MojoPlays, and today, we’re giving you our list of the 10 Hardest Spider-Man Games. For as much as we love some of the webhead’s games like “Shattered Dimensions” or the 2018 game from Insomniac, there have been a handful of games where we wished that train had taken him out. Which Spider-Man game had you frustrated the most? Did it make our list? Let us know down in the comments.
Let’s get one thing straight - there isn’t much reason to play this already, what with the console version being a more fun romp. But the GBA version? Well, if you, for some reason, need a game that is unreasonably hard, then go for it, we suppose. Critics and players have shared similar sentiments in how the game’s difficulty seems to be all over the place, with some segments being aggravating and others being downright unfair. Hopefully you had other Spidey games to play and weren’t stuck playing just this. If you were one of those kids, well, we feel sorry for you.
Yeah, don’t be surprised when you see more old Spidey games pop up throughout the rest of the video. For some reason, many developers were making Spider-Man games like they were trying to make “Ninja Gaiden”...or in this case, the next “E.T.”. Hey, this Spidey game was made by Atari - why wouldn’t it have awkward controls and unbalanced gameplay? At this point, it was basically the company’s calling card, and not in a flattering way. But what’s worse is how the game is built entirely on puzzles and does not utilize any of the webhead’s powers in any capacity. Just webswinging? Seriously?.
Why look for arguments to enrage yourself when you can just play “Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin”? Honestly, there is nothing but total nonsense happening in this game. “Vs. The Kingpin” has gone down as one of Spidey’s most infamous outings on account of the ridiculous difficulty, which is ever so present even when on the Easy. One reviewer at the time even noted how they couldn’t figure out a way to get past the guard dogs, dying with every different attempt and getting nowhere. Why did it have to be like this?
There are very few superheroes who wouldn’t need a complex combat system let alone a working one. Spidey is not one of those. “Battle for New York” is a blight in how the game itself feels like it’s fighting the player every step of the way. Regardless of how fast or slow you’re pushing buttons in whatever order, it feels next to impossible to pull off any of Spider-Man’s moves. Just what was the point in making combat like this when it doesn’t even work?
What else would you expect from a game based on a horrid movie? We can rail on this game for the mundane combat and lack of focus, but the real reason why it’s hard is because of the abysmal framerate! We aren’t saying that like it hurts our eyes or whatever. The technical performance really does screw up gameplay even when you aren’t doing much. Button prompts may not register because a few frames skipped, or you’ll screw up a jump because the game froze at the wrong time. We highly doubt many players kept the game let alone beat it.
Man, a game with the title “Return of the Sinister Six” should have been incredibly fun to play! Not in this timeline, though. “Return of the Sinister Six” has some of the most awkwardly awful controls you would expect a Spidey game to have. For a frame of reference, you might need quite a bit of time just to get some bearing on the shooting webs, one of the most basic mechanics of the game. The NES had better games…it was also dead in 1992, so why was anyone picking this up?
We will always love the games based on the Sam Raimi movies, but we gotta be honest about the first game. It’s pretty damn hard. First of all, the controls aren’t as smooth as they could have been. But what has our thyroids pulsating is the combat. The Ozbots can rot, and just to make the game somewhat manageable, you will have to go out of your way to do the side missions just to unlock the better, more damaging combos. We’re just glad these problems were somewhat avoided in “Spider-Man 2”.
What sort of magical concoction of awfulness did “Arcade’s Revenge” cook up to forever live in infamy? Well, folks, it was a bad combination of imprecise shooting, awful controls, and the fact that the very first level of the game is an overly long, irritating labyrinth! And if, for whatever reason, you still wanna give this game a go (and do so without some kind of guide), sixty-six GameFAQs users reported the game lies somewhere between “tough” and “unforgiving”. To think that some folks praised this level of asinine design back in the day.
“Enter Electro” had the unfortunate circumstance in sort of inheriting the first game’s problems. Crawling was still pretty cumbersome and could result in some unfair deaths or combat we really didn’t want to deal with just yet. But the biggest problem was some of the boss fights, most notably the fights against Shocker and Lizard. If any of you played “Enter Electro” in Kid Mode, we promise you there is no shame in that. Playing the game on a difficulty higher than that is just ramming your head into a wall.
“Separation Anxiety” is one of the most unfair games to ever exist on this damn planet. If you played the predecessor, “Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage”, you’d expect the sequel to have a similar level of difficulty, if not slightly higher. Ha! Not at all, sport! “Separation Anxiety” went way overboard in outdoing its older brother. Enemies have ridiculous hitboxes that would infuriate a wannabe competitive “Smash” player, and Spidey and Venom are given almost no tools to counter. You will die in some of the dumbest ways imaginable.
“Ultimate Spider-Man” (GBA version) (2005)
Let’s get one thing straight - there isn’t much reason to play this already, what with the console version being a more fun romp. But the GBA version? Well, if you, for some reason, need a game that is unreasonably hard, then go for it, we suppose. Critics and players have shared similar sentiments in how the game’s difficulty seems to be all over the place, with some segments being aggravating and others being downright unfair. Hopefully you had other Spidey games to play and weren’t stuck playing just this. If you were one of those kids, well, we feel sorry for you.
“The Amazing Spider-Man” (1990)
Yeah, don’t be surprised when you see more old Spidey games pop up throughout the rest of the video. For some reason, many developers were making Spider-Man games like they were trying to make “Ninja Gaiden”...or in this case, the next “E.T.”. Hey, this Spidey game was made by Atari - why wouldn’t it have awkward controls and unbalanced gameplay? At this point, it was basically the company’s calling card, and not in a flattering way. But what’s worse is how the game is built entirely on puzzles and does not utilize any of the webhead’s powers in any capacity. Just webswinging? Seriously?.
“Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin” (1990)
Why look for arguments to enrage yourself when you can just play “Spider-Man vs. The Kingpin”? Honestly, there is nothing but total nonsense happening in this game. “Vs. The Kingpin” has gone down as one of Spidey’s most infamous outings on account of the ridiculous difficulty, which is ever so present even when on the Easy. One reviewer at the time even noted how they couldn’t figure out a way to get past the guard dogs, dying with every different attempt and getting nowhere. Why did it have to be like this?
“Spider-Man: Battle for New York” (2006)
There are very few superheroes who wouldn’t need a complex combat system let alone a working one. Spidey is not one of those. “Battle for New York” is a blight in how the game itself feels like it’s fighting the player every step of the way. Regardless of how fast or slow you’re pushing buttons in whatever order, it feels next to impossible to pull off any of Spider-Man’s moves. Just what was the point in making combat like this when it doesn’t even work?
“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” (2014)
What else would you expect from a game based on a horrid movie? We can rail on this game for the mundane combat and lack of focus, but the real reason why it’s hard is because of the abysmal framerate! We aren’t saying that like it hurts our eyes or whatever. The technical performance really does screw up gameplay even when you aren’t doing much. Button prompts may not register because a few frames skipped, or you’ll screw up a jump because the game froze at the wrong time. We highly doubt many players kept the game let alone beat it.
“Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six” (1992)
Man, a game with the title “Return of the Sinister Six” should have been incredibly fun to play! Not in this timeline, though. “Return of the Sinister Six” has some of the most awkwardly awful controls you would expect a Spidey game to have. For a frame of reference, you might need quite a bit of time just to get some bearing on the shooting webs, one of the most basic mechanics of the game. The NES had better games…it was also dead in 1992, so why was anyone picking this up?
“Spider-Man” (2002)
We will always love the games based on the Sam Raimi movies, but we gotta be honest about the first game. It’s pretty damn hard. First of all, the controls aren’t as smooth as they could have been. But what has our thyroids pulsating is the combat. The Ozbots can rot, and just to make the game somewhat manageable, you will have to go out of your way to do the side missions just to unlock the better, more damaging combos. We’re just glad these problems were somewhat avoided in “Spider-Man 2”.
“Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge” (1992)
What sort of magical concoction of awfulness did “Arcade’s Revenge” cook up to forever live in infamy? Well, folks, it was a bad combination of imprecise shooting, awful controls, and the fact that the very first level of the game is an overly long, irritating labyrinth! And if, for whatever reason, you still wanna give this game a go (and do so without some kind of guide), sixty-six GameFAQs users reported the game lies somewhere between “tough” and “unforgiving”. To think that some folks praised this level of asinine design back in the day.
“Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro” (2001)
“Enter Electro” had the unfortunate circumstance in sort of inheriting the first game’s problems. Crawling was still pretty cumbersome and could result in some unfair deaths or combat we really didn’t want to deal with just yet. But the biggest problem was some of the boss fights, most notably the fights against Shocker and Lizard. If any of you played “Enter Electro” in Kid Mode, we promise you there is no shame in that. Playing the game on a difficulty higher than that is just ramming your head into a wall.
“Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety” (1995)
“Separation Anxiety” is one of the most unfair games to ever exist on this damn planet. If you played the predecessor, “Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage”, you’d expect the sequel to have a similar level of difficulty, if not slightly higher. Ha! Not at all, sport! “Separation Anxiety” went way overboard in outdoing its older brother. Enemies have ridiculous hitboxes that would infuriate a wannabe competitive “Smash” player, and Spidey and Venom are given almost no tools to counter. You will die in some of the dumbest ways imaginable.
