Review of Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six (NES)

Spider-Man is one of Marvel's marquee heroes and here he stars in his own game, Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six. Intriguing title, but the game unfortunately doesn't have much to offer. Let's go over why.

Story : The Sinister Six is hatching some lamebrain plot that doesn't really matter and it's you to you, as Spider-Man, to stop him. That's the gist of it. Still, you have to give a lot of credit to the developers here. Having a lot of villains around makes the game very interesting and fun.

Graphics : The graphics are a very mixed bag. Spider-Man himself doesn't look too great. His sprite looks silly and his animations are bad. On top of that, he doesn't move like he does in the comics. The villains look alright, mediocre but satisfying. The backgrounds are fairly decent. They aren't annoying and look fairly good. The cut scenes in the game have very nice graphics and are worth checking out.

Sound : If you like hearing a variety of music when you play a game, this Spider-Man game is not for you. The sound effects are minimal and the theme, while decent, loops throughout most of the game. Still, it's not too bad of a song so if you really like it you may enjoy the fact that it plays so much.

Game play : And here's where the game takes a nosedive. Spider-Man's controls aren't fluid or responsive at all and you'll clench your controller when he doesn't do exactly what you want, which is the entire game. Anything you do is a pain and there's reason it should be. Spider-Man moves as slow as Juggernaut. Hit detection is random at best, it seems the developers didn't bother to test it at all. There's far too many instant kill traps and enemies in this game. Yes, there are instant kill enemies as early as level 3.

Things don't get any less brutal from there. Your life appears to drain at random, even when you're not taking hits. I haven't figured out why and I doubt anyone ever has or will. The levels are short at least, and you get to see the boss at the end. Most of the time, however, the boss isn't engaging and doesn't even look cool.

Re playability : Well, the game actually might have some replay value. If you really love Spider-Man and the theme song, I think this game is good enough for you to replay once you get good at it.

Overall : 2/10. Overall, not a great experience unless you force it to be.