Of course, once the license expired, subsequent printings and re-releases had to alter the character model to avoid any copyright infringement lawsuits. In earlier versions of the game, however, the boss was, in fact, Spider-Man himself, as Sega had licensed the character for use in another game and was able to slip him in here, as well. One of the bosses of the sixth stage is a pink character vaguely reminiscent of the friendly-neighborhood wall-crawler. Spider-Man isn't actually playable in this game, and if one plays its modern digital re-releases, they may not even realize he was ever present at all.
Revenge of Shinobi was the first title in the Shinobi series to be developed for the Sega Genesis, and is a fondly remembered action/platforming classic. Sure, it's not a classic on par with River Raid, Kaboom!, or Pitfall, but there were worse ways to kill fifteen minutes before school in the early '80s. Do we really need to bring up ET? There wasn't much variety though, since after the first stage, subsequent levels were practically identical to each other.
It was 1982, so the graphics make it pretty tough to discern what's happening, though a little imagination was enough to make up for the decidedly minimalist graphical capabilities of the Atari.Īctually, in all fairness to Spider-Man 2600, it's better than a lot of the other games of its era, especially those based on existing licenses. Using the Atari 2600's iconic (and now archaic) controller, the player, as Spider-Man, has to climb a building and capture crooks, disarm bombs, and defeat the Green Goblin. Let's take a look, in chronological order, at the 15 Best Appearances of Spider-Man in Video Games! 15 Spider-Man (1982)Īs far as we can tell, this was not only Spidey's first videogame, it was also the first game based on a Marvel Comics hero. Sometimes the ol' webhead is the star of the show, and sometimes he's just dropping by to make a cameo. Like any long-running pop culture staple, he's seen his ups and downs. His iconic wardrobe and powers have withstood the test of time, and the character has graced every form of entertainment imaginable, including movies, novels, broadway musicals, and, of course, videogames Spider-Man is easily one of the most popular figures in comic books.