A History of Spider-Man Games (Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness)

Spider-Man (1982)

I wish I could tell you more about this one, but I honestly don’t know how to identify a single thing I’m seeing.

Spider-Man (2000)

Spider-Man’s well-toned caboose is visible for the first time in full 3D.

Spider-Man 2: The Sinister Six (2001)

One out of the like 20 games and movies called “Spider-Man 2”.

Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro (2001)

See? Here’s another. Did you know that if you disable the 30 minute timer on the demo disc with an Action Replay, the entire game is actually playable?

Spider-Man (2002)

Based on that shiny new movie at the time, but with less of Tobey’s cry face.

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

IT’S PIZZA TIME.

Ultimate Spider-Man (2005)

It’s still pizza time, but the pizza is now black and slimy.

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

We have run out of pizza.

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (2007)

Spidey rehabilitates his greatest enemies by punching them really hard, making them his friends. A great time for children, packed with life lessons.

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows (2008)

It’s actually really good if you ignore all of the stuff in it that is bad.

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (2010)

The dimension-hopping story of this game may have kicked off the trends that led to us getting the Spider-Verse movies. That alone makes it the best video game of all time, even though the game itself is just kind of okay.

Spider-Man: Edge of Time (2011)

Half the Spider-Men = Half the Fun. Did a switcheroo on the voice actors for the Spider-Men and just assumed we wouldn’t notice.

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Marketed as a sequel story to the film. All events in the game are then promptly ignored or actively contradicted by the actual sequel film.
Webs do not attach to buildings. Justified if you just assume that Spider-Man has a team of construction crane operators swinging the crane arms just out of sight above him, like that one scene in the movie.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

Another Spider-Man 2. Marginally better swinging compared to the first. Marginally worse in every other regard. Kind of like the movies themselves.

Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018)

The biggest, fanciest, highest-fidelity pizza you’ve ever had.

Marvel’s Avengers (2020)

Everyone got mad that Spider-Man was exclusive to the PlayStation version, but then they got over it because nothing about this game was all that fun anyway.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Mile Morales (2020)

Yes, leftover pizza is still very, very good.

Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered (2020)

Nice try, but this doesn’t count as a new game just because it added ray tracing. Please disregard this section and strike it from your memory.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (2023)

Gee whiz, how’d you come up with that name? For real, though, this looks really, really good and October cannot come soon enough.

Interested in checking out some of the wall-crawler’s video game back catalog? Check out our selection of retro games and consoles to get started.