I finally posted the very rare trailer for Spider-Man 2: The Game that I wrote about over a year ago on this site. The very same trailer that featured the Lizard at the end of it, and we all know he wasn't in the final game. For more on this see my other post on this below, or just follow a link to it directly. I posted it on a spare YouTube account a month ago, so you can also view it there. The quality isn't the best since I took the webcam on my laptop and literally stuck it in front of the TV. Low tech, but it got the job done!

Here is a direct link to the trailer I just posted on GameSpot as well. Hope you all enjoy.

First off, I'd like to wish all a slightly belated Happy New Year; and hope to all that it is a better, healthier year than the last in more ways than one.

At the time of the game's release, there was much confusion over the Lizard's inclusion in the game. Rumors now proved false once said that if you went to the pizzaria where Peter Parker works at 4:00 AM, one of the manhole covers would open allowing you to go underground and fight the Lizard in the sewers. There was a trailer that was shown at the E3 2003 video game convention that completely featured CGI work done by Blur (the same company who did the three cinematics in the final game) that featured the Lizard at the end of it. Which in turn, inspired much confusion over his inclusion in the game. I will run through the trailer on memory as it has been quite some time since I've seen the trailer.

First, scene we see some lady getting mugged and the guy started running away, a web comes down and pulls him up off of the screen and the purse falls into the womans hands. Next we get some fancy scenes of Spidey swinging dangerously close to traffic and flipping high into the sky again where we cut to another camera angle caught in a thunderstorm of Spidey jumping in front of the Chrysler building and lands in an alleyway. We then see a closeup of the Lizards face as the camera starts panning out he starts walking faster and faster till' he is running towards Spidey and he tackles him.

I may have forgotten a few parts of it by now; but it was quite an awesome teaser. I've looked all over the web for years and I never have found the trailer online but it can be found on the complete MTV Spider-Man animated series DVD, so I've heard.

The Lizard was eventually taken out of the game due to the possibility of him appearing in Spider-Man 3 at the time. There is even still something in the final version of the game that the Lizard left behind. In the fight arena there are giant lizards that you fight; who are presumably who we would have fought before we fought Lizard in the sewers had he stayed in the game. There are maybe even a few more in the game. There is a piece of Lizard concept art hanging on the wall in some of the Spidey Shops. On the very end of Roosevelt island on the side the abandoned Oscorp testing site is; there is a curiously large drainage hole hanging off the side of the dropoff next to the water. I know I may be looking too far into it, but it is still a possibility, especially seeing how far in there the hole goes. Perhaps it was where we entered the sewers with our battle with Lizard in the earlier build. Maybe; maybe not.

And interestingly enough, the same exact animation that was used in the part in Spider-Man 3: The Game where Lizard jumps out at you from under the water in slo-mo was the same exact animation that was used in the trailer I have just told you about.

Lastly, I have a few very rare pics of the Lizard from the trailer. The only ones on the internet.

Lizard closeup

Lizard walking faster

Lizard charging

Spider-Man vs the Lizard

I am presenting you the very rare Marvel Comics Spider-Man: The Sinister Six PC game for DOS and Windows that was released on November 16, 1996 and published by Byron Preiss Multimedia.

Spider-Man: The Sinister Six boxart

This game is very rare and isn't even documented on most gaming websites. A typical copy will go for 30-100 dollars on eBay.

It was one of those 'choose your own adventure' type games with little prompt choices that would pop up and ask you to make a decision on what to do along with pretty awesome looking animated scenes that differ depending on what you choose throughout the entire game that would effect the outcome of the game; six different outcomes. One where the Sinister Six would win. Next to most of the game being cutscenes with prompts, there was also some cool puzzle solving parts in the game and mini boss fights with each member of the Sinister Six.

One other little interesting tidbit is that the cover art is by comic book artist extraordinaire Mike Zeck and that the same exact art was used for the cover of the second novel in the Sinister Six trilogy written by Adam-Troy Castro about 6 years later; Revenge of The Sinister Six. And that also had illustrations by Zeck on the interiors. One other thing, pick up that whole trilogy: It rocks.

There are only few pictures of it online, on only these two websites to my knowledge: Moby Games and Spiderfan.org. There also only one piece of footage online which you can see here. And just one last special treat; thanks to a little ingenuity I've found the game's archived website! Feel free to look around!

That's it on this one. Check back in January for a new piece with some more highly unheard of stuff in Spidey's gaming world.

1. Spider-Man 2: The Game

No other game has mastered the Spidey experience such as this game has for me. Set in a free roaming enviornment, it let you feel like you were living a day in the life as Spider-Man and still does better than any that have preceded and succeeded it. If you could master web swinging you would get the best representation of that aspect in a game. You would take pictures for the Bugle, meet MJ on dates, deliver pizzas to try and earn some money, fight crime throughout the city and all revolved around a pretty cool story too, which was loosely adapted from the great movie.

2. Spider-Man (PSX)

This one got comic Spidey right in a story that revolved around the 616 (mainstream comic) version of the character with a great story filled with tons of Spidey's enemies and his allies and lots of easter eggs, cheats and special costumes to keep you happy. Rino Romano's Spidey is pitch perfect here and he is my favorite voice actor for the web-slinger. And it is hands down the best game on the original Playstation and that is an opinion that is greatly agreed on.

3. Spider-Man Vs. The Kingpin (SEGA CD)

This classic Spidey game had a cool story in which the Kingpin frames Spider-Man for planting a bomb somewhere in NYC that will soon go off in 24 hours and the whole city is then turned upside down and on a Spider-hunt and your job is to clear your name before it's too late; and the timer's really ticking, too. You face Doc Ock, Lizard, Electro, Vulture, Mysterio, Sandman, Venom, Hobgoblin and eventually Kingpin himself. Very fun and hectic gameplay since just about everyone out there is out to get you and some of it is very creative; such as when you are fighting Sandman and Venom: For Sandman the only way to defeat him is by luring him right in front of a fire hydrant then soak him. And during the Venom fight the only way to defeat him is by luring him all over the city to a belltower where you use the loud noises against him. That's Spidey how he should be; using his brain over brawn. The cutscenes at the time were impressive but may now seem chessy, that's only minor though and it all spins off 4 different endings. All in all, one of the best, if not the best Spidey game of the 16 Bit era.

4. Maximum Carnage

Based on the 14 part early 90's comic story of the same name which was to 90's comics as Michael Jackson was to music in the 80's. It had a toy line, watches and eventually this awesome game. It is a brawler that lets you play as both Spider-Man and Venom; and this game's Venom is my personal favorite playable Venom in gaming. The story is directly based on the story even going as far as taking panels from the comics the story took place in to tell it which enhanced the experience for me and made it feel very true to the comic's gritty look. Green Jelly did most of the soundtrack along with a song from Black Sabbath in there as well, which bumps it up for me some more for me, too as this game had a kick-ass soundtrack for the time. And this game is HARD. I'm generally a pretty good gamer but I have never lost as much in a game since this one. And it keeps making you come back, too. Challenging, but totally fun.

5. Spider-Man: The Movie

Don't have much to say about this one other than that it is just some straightforward fun that has many varied levels, some being stealth orientated, some puzzles, timed levels, chase levels and some of just roaming around and beating things up. My only problem with this game is the camera, which is hard to keep where you want at times. This game was essentially an upgrade to the first PSX game, 'Spider-Man', which I have listed in my number 2 spot. But I think it doesn't capture the magic as well as that one did but it still does it much better than other games.

I'm doing this pretty quick and summing it up without resorting to that 10 or so paragraphs I had last time analyzing it.

I was loving it up until the end and it all fell apart for me there and I realized how mediocre it really was.

I thought all 4 of the endings were pretty bad. No free roaming after you beat the game was dissapointing. Game hampering glitches unlike some of the previous games where the glitches were more silly fun than annoyances. Most repetitve Spider-Man game ever. Bar none. All there is to this game is fighting and a lackluster story.

 What pisses me off the most though is this specific bug, see. And chances are it'll never be fixed-the devs promised us that we can start up a new game with all our stats a while ago. So you'd think you just click 'New Game' and it'll happen, right? Nah, course not. It has been uncovered that the only way you can have your stats is to watch the credits one full time, watch the credits another time, cut out of the credits halfway through and THEN you click New Game and it should have all your stats starting out with the same cutscene the game started with. Just unnaceptable. Seriously, the bug testers for this game should be fired if they couldn't see that and the bunch of other glitches spamming up the game.

:/

This is an anaylisis of previous Spider-Man games to see how the quickly approaching Spider-Man: Web of Shadows stacks against them and to see what material from the past has been included in the game.

Lets make it clear that I've been sorely disappointed with the last two Spider-Man games; Spider-Man 3 (PS3, X-Box 360, PC) and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. The new Spidey game; Spider-Man: Web of Shadows looks promising enough though. Boasting highly revamped and what seems to be better than any combat I've seen in any other Spider-Man game; which all have stiff, boring combat. Hopefully that aspect won't be repetitive. And repetitiveness was the bane for many other Spider-Man games like Spider-Man 2: The Game, Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man 3 (which was promised to be exactly the opposite turned into the most repetitive of them all), and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (where you did the same thing every single level). My hope is that the combat will be every bit as fun as it looks.

The game is also probably the best LOOKING Spider-Man game I've seen to date. Spider-Man's character model is as detailed as it's ever been as you can see the seams in Spidey's costume and everything while looking slightly John Romita esq with a little bit of Gabrielle Dell Otto (which makes sense seeing as he's the guy responsible for translating all the character's designs to what we see in the game). Originally the game's graphical build was exactly that of Spider-Man 3 (PS3, X-Box 360, PC) which means Spider-Man's character model was originally the same it was in Spider-Man 3 (PS3, X-Box 360, PC) but with black webs. The changes are noticible when comparing earlier pictures of the game to more recently released ones. The sky above the city also looks very nice, very real. Again, comparing to any of the previous builds to the New York's Spidey had his adventures in, in the past games; this looks like the best by far. The city has respectable draw distances which Spider-Man 2: The Game had and what were absent from all the following games as the city looked like a bunch of tall boxes in the distance.

The basic concept of the game's plot has been seen before many times; in Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety, Spider-Man (PSX, N64, Dreamcast, PC), Spider-Man: Friend or Foe, and several times in the comics. Most recently in both of the Avengers books, New Avengers and Mighty Avengers. But this is the first time Symbiotes have actually succeeded in taking over New York; so that's a plus on Spider-Man: Web of Shadows part.

The web shield is also back. Which originated in the Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage game in the 90's; and slightly retooled versions of that would appear in the Marvel Vs. Capcom series, Spider-Man (PSX, N64, Dreamcast, PC), Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro, and Spider-Man: The Movie. The web shield that is featured in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows is almost identical to that of Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage and the Marvel Vs. Capcom series.

The character roster is promised to include characters from the Spider-Man mythos that haven't been in any previous Spider-Man games; and from who has been announced so far none of those characters have been confirmed. The character roster as of right now is Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Black Cat, Mary Jane Watson, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Moon Knight, Nick Fury, Kingpin, Vulture, Electro, Rhino, and Venom. Now, IMDB lists the Tinkerer as a character in the game. Lets be clear that IMDB cannot be trusted as a reliable source( remember Aunt Carnage?) The Tinkerer has not once made any appearances outside of the comics since the recent "The Spectacular Spider-Man" cartoon. If he's to appear here, he would certainly be welcome.

The game's web swinging system is supposedly to be a blend of both Spider-Man 2: The Game's speed; which is very good as the speeds able to be reached in that game were over 250 MPH. One of the developers commented on swinging saying they made Spidey go as fast as they could make him without breaking the game. And blending with that; the tricks of Spider-Man 3 and the web climbing action of Ultimate Spider-Man. Spider-Man has been seen doing some very stylish stuff concerning swinging acrobatics from what we've seen so far from the San Diego Comic Con 2008 trailer and the 4 gameplay videos from the recent Leipzig gaming convention gameplay videos. It seems to be taking a cue from Todd McFarlane's quirky poses he put Spidey in while swinging. The developers have said there will be many web swinging animations. Webs have also been confirmed to stick to buildings contrary to what seems to be sticking to the air as in Spider-Man (PSX, N64, Dreamcast, PC), Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro, and Spider-Man: The Movie. Webs will only stick in more ample spots like on any point on a building instead of only latching onto corners of buildings such as in Spider-Man 2: The Game, Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3.

Wrapping it all up, from all Hands On previews other sites have had with Spider-Man: Web of Shadows they've all loved the game, one of the people saying they weren't excited at all for the game beforehand changing their view saying it's one of the top games they're looking forward to this fall. Which is relieving to hear. But, many Hands On's for previous super hero games have also been overly positive about the games; then bashing them to no end upon release. Still, one changing from having no interest whatsoever in the game then converting to it being one of their most hyped games is something to think about.

As of now we aren't getting any info on the game and haven't since at least early August. But that is all part of Activision's marketing strategy: Hold out on nearly all info until the home stretch near till release. We've been told by one of the moderator's on the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows forums that we will start to see that big media push start this week. Which is exciting to hear as I've been practically forgetting about Spider-Man: Web of Shadows by now.

Now, I'm not hoping for the best Spider-Man game ever with Spider-Man: Web of Shadows; just an enjoyable action game with a great combat system and a fun stylised engine for Spider-Man that should be a welcome addition to the stack of good Spider-Man games out there. It's available October 21st on the X-Box 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, Nintendo DS, and PC.