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Review Information |
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Reviewer Name: |
kungfukid |
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Game Difficulty: |
Medium |
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Difficulty Options: |
False |
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Game Information |
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Full Title: |
Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six |
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Year Released: |
1992 |
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Game Type: |
Platform |
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Max Players: |
1 |
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| Introduction |
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| Spider-man, Return of the sinister six is the less common of the two games for the Master System that star the Marvel Comics hero. I'm sure most of you will have heard of him, especially so since the big budget films of the past few years were a big success across the globe. As you can imagine, the game is a standard platform game with the end of level baddies being the horrible bunch below Spider-Man on the intro screen. The first Spider-Man game is widely regarded as a fine game, so how does the second instalment stand up? |
| Gameplay |
| Frustration is the name of the game here. I could liken the experience to Leeds United fans watching their team playing the first five games of this season (2007/2008 in case anybody should happen to come and read this review in years to come!), five wins and still bottom of the table. How enraged that would make me - I'm sure our own forum member Psychofox will know what I mean as he is in the unfortunate situation of supporting the poor wretches week in week out! So why is it so frustrating? Well right from the first level, Spider-man can climb up some walls, but not others. You'll be going through the levels and just stop since some objects you can walk straight past and others you just walk into even though the depth looks identical, so you have no idea what is going to stop you. The web you can fire to swing with is incredible short and if you don't have the 'web-balls' or whatever the hell they are then heaven help you because you have the kick that is just luck if you can do it, and the punch that is slow and you have to be virtually on top of your enemy before it does anything! You'll be hit by bullets and lasers just coming into the screen from nowhere as you can't yet see the enemy giving you almost no chance to dodge them. Can you sense that I'm getting frustrated and slightly enraged just thinking about it already??? |
| Graphics |
| The graphics in Sinister Six are actually quite good. They're cartoony as opposed realistic with some nice touches such as mini explosions when you punch through doors, and enemies dying in a little pool of human remains much like in Robocop vs the Terminator. I think the best way to describe the graphics is as though they've been lifted directly from a Marvel Comic. The sprites are not that big, but they're animated fairly well with no major glitches apparent. The only real problem is the already mentioned problem with a lack of obvious depth between items you're walking past in the background and those that you're walking into. |
| Sound & Music |
| The sound is ok, not great but not horrible. Standard Flying Edge platform/shoot-em-up fast tunes that are appropriate to the action. They do help add to the atmosphere in the game and don't have you instead reaching to put on 'Kenny Rogers greatest hits' or whatever music you may be into.... er.... I meant Coldplay or Radiohead, forget I mentioned Kenny Rogers... |
| Controls |
| The major source of frustration. The controls are painfully slow and awkward in this game. Luckily the earlier levels are fairly easy so it's not so bad, but later on you'll feel cheated as you scream at the screen with your nose about 3mm away from it that you 'pressed the God-damn button!!!!!!!', and you'll be right! You did press that God-damn button! The kick is impossible to judge, the punch has a delayed reaction, the jump is weird because sometimes it's ultra responsive and other times you'll just jump vertically even though you're pressing left or right at the same time. These flaws are especially annoying and costly when you're facing the bosses as you may end up losing valuable lives unnecessarily. If the controls were better this game would be so much better and more fun |
| Replay Value |
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| Replay value is a tough one. On one hand, the game IS quite fun, and evidently well made. But on the other hand, the frustration factor is so high that you'll often be left feeling disgusted that you were beaten when you KNOW that you didn't deserve to be. It's this that stops you coming back to it because you know that it's pointless since it will inevitably just happen to you again many, many times!. |
| Conclusion |
| Overall, Spider-man and the Sinister Six is a game that should have been very good. It's well designed and presented, but the minor flaws with never knowing when to jump over objects, and the major problems with the unresponsive controls spoil the game beyond redemption. If you're looking for a fun Spider-man game, stick to the first one. |
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