Spider-Man first made his way into our hearts in 1962 and since then his popularity has spread like a web to all facets of our media consumption channels. Believe it or not, the first Spider-Man game was made in 1978 called Questprobe which was a text based adventure.

1970′s – 1990

It’s a debatable subject but many would argue that console games were born during this period. Spider-Man games existed in a very early form of games known as texted based adventure games where commands are entered into a text box to direct characters on the screen. Questprobe and Questprobe 2 ran on most of the very first personal computers like the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and the Apple II.

In 1982 Parker Brothers released Spider-Man for the Atari 2600. An action game that involved climbing skyscrapers and rescuing hostages.

1990 – 2000

The nineties saw the introduction of the portable game console, most notably of which was the Nintendo Game Boy. It saw three different Spider-Man games making it onto it’s screens, namely; “The Amazing Spider-Man”, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ and ” Spider-Man 3: Invasion of the Spider-Slayers”.

The former being the most notable in that it was released in conjunction with the comic book series at the time. It also featured a variety of gameplay from fighting villains to web-swinging in a platformer type mechanic.

In the console realm the game was spread across the Nintendo and Sega offerings, like the Super NES, Sega MegaDrive and Sega Genesis. The new 16-bit systems allowed for better game graphics and when the comic book story lines where adapted into games it’s popularity rose among gamers.

During this time period the game saw up to 21 villains, including the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus and introduced other Marvel heroes to games like Wolverine, Gambit and Storm from the X-MEN. Other heroes also showed face like the Fantastic Four.

2000 – 2010

There was a four year gap from 1996 to 2000 where no Spider-Man games were released. After Marvels near brush with bankruptcy in the late 1990′s. As a symbolic gesture of Marvels return, two separate Spider-Man titles where announced for both the Playstation and Game Boy Color. The Playstation version was highly successful, gaining a rating of 9.0 by IGN calling it – “arguably, the best Spider-Man game”. It was later ported to the Nintendo 64, PC and Sega Dreamcast.

Activation’s foray into the franchise began in in 2001 when they developed “Spider-Man: Mysterio’s Menace” for the newly launched Game Boy Advance. The game had 7 stages and featured villains the likes of Rhino, Hammerhead and Mysterio.

In 2002 “Spider-Man: The Movie” was launched alongside the Spider-Man movie. Almost the entire cast of the movie made voice appearances in the game and both went on to reach critical success, prompting Marvel to order a wider selection of games to connected with the movie Spider-Man 2.

Between 2000 and 2005 Spider-Man games appeared on at leased 5 different consoles, including the PSP, Nintendo DS, Playstation 2 and JakksTVGames all inclusive controller that plugged strait into the TV.

The “Ultimate Spider-Man” was released in 2005, developed by Treyarch and written by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley who also wrote the comic that was released at the same time. The game was stylistically different from all previous ones as it introduced a new cell shaded look to emulate the appearance of comic books.

This is the point where innovation in Spider-Man games seem to come to a halt. Spider-Man 3 was launched along side the Spider-Man 3 movie and received average ratings at best. In 2008 Spider-Man: Web of Shadows was released and had generally good reviews but many said that it was measured against the new mediocre quality that had now become the standard in the genre.

2010 – Current

In 2010 Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions made its debut to an overall warm reception. The game blended together four dimensions from the Marvel Comics multiverse, allowing the player to play as four different Spider-Men. Each with their own voice actors and strengths and weaknesses, the game managed to deliver something unique to the franchise.

Spidy has made two other appearances since; in Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds he appears as a playable character and gets another game to himself in Spider-Man: Edge of Time which once again plays on Marvel Comics multiverse.

The Amazing Spider-Man set to release in 2012 alongside the movie with the same name. It’s being developed by Beenox and Activision, the same developers as the previous two titles. Based on a simple extrapolation we can assume that The Amazing Spider-Man is going to get an average rating and neither Wow or Shock current fans of the franchise.

A last word

To date there have been over 34 Spider-Man games released on over 20 different gaming platforms which is impressive for even the greatest of franchises. Has this constant guarantee of sales to fans bread mediocrity in the developers of the franchise? or will we see Spider-Man games rise again to the ranks of our favorite games. Whether the franchise will ever appeal to more than the fans of the hero remains to be seen.