LJN has a reputation among retro game enthusiasts for being horrible. The AVGN has certainly fanned those flames, but not unjustifiably so. A lot of their work was shoddy and would not hold up compared to any of their competition. However, I do feel that some of their games are quite unique and worth talking about. The Amazing Spider-Man, developed by Rareware, seemed like a great opportunity to start doing so... Except it wasn't.
The game is your standard side-scrolling beat 'em up. Mary Jane has been kidnapped, so Spider-Man has to go through his rogue's gallery of nemeses to rescue her. You move through levels, beat up crooks, and then fight the actual boss at the end. Simple, classic stuff.
Two issues undermine the game's appeal. First and foremost being its controls. Spider-Man moves at a leisurely stroll and his main attack is a wimpy punch with a reach just barely outside your own hitbox. You can jump, large jump, and web-sling, but you're a smarter man than I if you can figure out how to do so consistently. I looked it up in the manual and the inputs shouldn't be that hard. Yet I regularly got stuck for minutes at a time, trying desperately to make Spidey do a higher jump. Or I'd have to websling until I ran out of web because, no matter how often I press down on the control pad, my character would not stop slinging.
Sometimes everything plays smoothly and it feels like a normal game. At other times it just won't work no matter what.
My second issue is that the levels get obnoxiously busy towards the end. You have dozens of thugs to deal with while also dodging traps and avoiding flying enemies that spawn in non-stop. More foes pop out of windows to ambush you or come out of the ground to swipe at your feet. It's an exhausting amount of crap to deal with, even if the game had controls that were responsive enough to do so.
The game is somewhat generous with its lives, but not to the same extent as prior Rareware games. You have 3 lives and 3 continues before it's Game Over. Spider-Man can tank about 3-4 hits on each life, so it is possible to rush through a section if you can't be bothered to take it carefully. There is howeger a delay to your health going down, almost as if Spidey hasn't realized yet that he is dead. In one boss fight I landed the final hit while my health was headed towards 0. Spider-Man then died as the victory music played, which continued playing as his lifeless body just kinda lay there.
That was the highlight the game for me, unfortunately.
The Amazing Spider-Man is, sadly, in line with the negative image of LJN as a publisher. As well as that of licensed games in general. It's a mediocre game with rough controls and badly-designed levels. Not without its merits, but you could be playing far better games with similar gameplay styles instead. Even if the biggest Spider-Fans needn't bother.
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