In an era where Spider-Man is a video game mainstay, one of the very first titles that brought the wall-crawler to 3D gaming may be due a remaster.
Spider-Man has always been a pop culture icon, transitioning from comic pages to films, television, and video games for decades. In 2000, developer Neversoft achieved a milestone by fully realizing the friendly neighborhood superhero in a 3D adventure for the then cutting-edge PlayStation, N64, and Dreamcast.
In the two decades that have followed, there have been a number of celebrated Spider-Man video games released that have surpassed this early effort in many ways, but this seminal adventure is still fondly remembered by fans. Former Neversoft developer and lead designer on the 2000 Spider-Man game Chad Findley is certainly someone who holds this title close to his heart. In an interview, Findley expressed his enthusiasm to work on a remaster or remake of the game for current-generation platforms, should the situation ever arise where he was able to do so.
Findley seems to have nothing but good memories of his time developing the game, and is a self-professed "comic nerd." It certainly seems Spider-Man was a passion project for the Neversoft team, and there is clearly a lot of love for the source material here. Licensing considerations for the web-head may be the only real obstacle to realizing a remaster of the game, as the team who would helm such a project clearly seem ready for the challenge.
The 2000 Spider-Man game is well regarded, and rightfully so. Not only was it one of the first games to successfully bring the character into an immersive 3D city environment, the story and writing perfectly capture the tone and humor of the character. With an array of popular Spider-Man villains to do battle against, this game was a pretty faithful adaptation of the beloved comic book character.
However, compared to modern titles, the game has not aged well from a technical standpoint. The limitations of first-generation consoles restricted gameplay somewhat, as shown by the plot point in the game that the ground level of the city is covered with an impenetrable fog, and swinging mechanics may seem pretty rudimental when compared to modern Spider-Man entries. Nevertheless, this early Spidey adventure holds a lot of good memories for gamers, so there may well still be a place for a remaster in the modern-day web of Spider-Man content.
Spider-Man is available now on Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, PC, and PS1.
Source: GAMINGbible