The 10 Best Spiderman Games for PC. How Many of These Spiderman Games Have You Played?
With Spider-Man: Far From Home released, it’s a great time to look back at the best of the web-crawler’s forays into the world of gaming.
There are few heroes to have as many videogame adaptations as your friendly neighbourhood Spider-man, and the sheer volume of this catalogue makes it difficult to choose just 11 favourites.
We managed it however, so strap in true believers and let’s start.
10. Ultimate Spider-Man
Ultimate Spider-Man Gameplay
I have often felt this one didn’t receive as much love as it deserved. I played this on the Xbox when it came out back in 2005, and to this day it remains one of my all-time favourite Spider-man games.
The first thing that sets it apart from most other Spider-man games, is it’s deliberately comic-book feel, with its cell shaded characters and environments. It makes no attempt at all to look realistic, and the finished product is all the better for it. This aesthetic does come off as a little silly at times (the ridiculous size of the spider that bites Peter to give him his powers comes to mind), but overall it’s very well done.
The thing that is most likely to sell a Spider-man fan on this game however, is the fact that you aren’t just playing Peter Parker and fighting villains. In Ultimate Spider-man your time is split between Peter/Spider-Man, and Eddie Brock/Venom. That’s right, you get to play Venom, and that includes open free-roam after you beat the game.
The Ultimate incarnation of the fan-favourite symbiote has a different backstory (being an experiment rather than an alien) but that aside the story is interesting, and the game plays very differently depending on which of the two characters you are playing. Spider-man is faster and does less damager per shot, whereas Venom is a lot more powerful but is also slower. In addition, Venom gets around via jumping and climbing rather than the use of web-shooters, and his health constantly depletes slowly due to the suit feeding upon its host. Don’t worry though, because Venom can feed on just about anyone and drain health out of them.
It’s a quirky little Spider-man game, but it has a great deal of character. If you are a fan of Spidey at all, this one is a must play.
Like, there is no way whatsoever that he wouldn’t either feel that, or see it!
The size difference between Spidey and Venom is almost comical when you fight each other
9. The Amazing Spider-Man
The Amazing Spider-Man Gameplay
Basically every Spider-man film had a tie-in videogame. Toby McGuire’s ones did, and Andrew Garfield’s (arguably superior) ones also did. The first of the Garfield-Era games takes place after the conclusion of the first film.
The plot revolves around Oscorp’s continued research into cross-species hybrids, and introduces many more such creatures to the world than we had previously seen. As one would tend to expect, all goes horribly wrong and the cross-species hybrids break out and begin spreading the infection they all carry. This leaves Spidey to save the city, as well as Gwen who was infected by one of the escaped monsters.
It isn’t that different from previous Spider-man games, though it takes some queues from the Batman Arkham series by Rocksteady in its combat and stealth portions.
In addition to this, the web-swinging in this game is by far one of the best mechanics yet used not only making you feel like the titular wall-crawler, but also being borderline scary as you careen towards the ground.
If you liked Garfield’s Spider-man, or just want another wall-crawling, web-swinging adventure to sing your teeth into this is well worth a look.
It seems there’s a different take on Rhino in every Spider-man game, this time he’s a cross-species hybrid
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think if they should.”
8. The Amazing Spider-Man 2
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Gameplay
With the second Amazing Spider-Man game, developer Beenox really expanded and refined on everything they did right with the previous installment.
It has an open world, as you would likely expect and it’s larger and more detailed than its predecessor as you would also likely expect. Unlike the previous game, however, that took place after the events of its corresponding film, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 takes place before and leading into the events of its film. Though much like in most Spider-Man movie games, its approach to those events is different than that of the film in many varying ways.
Where the film focuses on Electro and Harry Osborne’s Green Goblin, the game brings in Kingpin and Carnage in addition as antagonists.
The gameplay is similar to part 1, though it’s more refined and missions favour a less linear approach. They also added a sort of morality system called the Hero or Menace system where the player is rewarded for consistently stopping crimes, and penalized for not responding to alerts.
Both this game and its predecessor are usually fairly cheap to pick up now, so if you see them for sale I’d definitely recommend grabbing them up.
I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for any game that has Carnage in it
You also have a lot of costumes to unlock in this one, and an actual closet to put them in
7. Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions Gameplay
Shattered Dimensions is probably the most interesting idea for a Spider-man game yet, and conceptually is my favourite of all time.
In the game, Spider-man accidentally breaks an artifact known as “The Tablet of Order and Chaos” in a fight with Mysterio. The fragments of this tablet are knocked into three alternate realities, forcing Spidey to team up with three alternate universe versions of himself. There’s the futuristic Spider-man 2099, the younger Amazing Spider-man that is currently paired with his black symbiot suit, and my favourite; the 1940’s Spider-man, Spider-man Noir.
Together the four Spidey’s have to retrieve all the fragments of the tablet, most of which have fallen into the hands of villains and to make matters worse; the fragments make them considerably more powerful than they would usually be.
Each of the Spider-man incarnations have entirely different worlds they inhabit and play differently, with the Amazing incarnation using spikes and tendrils, and the Noire version preferring stealth and attacking from the shadows. For a game that lets you essentially play the same character four times, it manages to make them all feel like very different characters.
As a Spider-man fan I can honestly say that you will not easily find a more interesting premise for a Spider-man game out there. Any fan of the character has to try this one.
Spider-man’s Journal, October 12th 1933. Tonight, a comedian died in New York
A lover’s quarrel, I’m sure Deadpool would say
6.Spider-Man: Web of Shadows
Spider-Man: Web of Shadows Gameplay
Alright so how I said just a few lines ago that you would have trouble finding a Spider-Man game with a concept as interesting as Shattered Dimensions? Well that’s still a true statement, but Web of Shadows is a really strong second in the interesting story category.
Basically to sum up Web of Shadows, it’s about a Symbiote apocalypse descending upon New York. Venom has infected the city, and a quarantine is in effect. Around every corner are symbiotic monsters and it’s up to you to save the city.
This time around you get to choose how you go about that though.
When Venom unleashed his infection up on the city, he hit Spidey as well, who has as a result regained his dark Spider-man suit. Will you give into the symbiote and take the darker path through the story? Or will you stay true to Spider-man’s virtues and ideals and be the hero the city knows you can be. It’s up to you, (though given the option I always choose evil).
This would be a good example of “not the heroic” thing to do
Symbiotes really need to learn to clean up after themselves.
5. Spider-Man: Friend or Foe
Spider-Man: Friend or Foe Gameplay
Friend or Foe is a different take on the classic Spider-man movie game formula. The storyline doesn’t tie into the films, but the characters do take visual cues from Toby McGuire’s Spider-man trilogy, most notably Green Goblin and the new Goblin.
The plot centers around a villain getting a hold of shards of a meteor that was carrying a symbiot. Using these shards they are creating an army of hard-light holographic monsters to take over the world.
Friend or Foe is a linear beat ‘em up game, as opposed to the more common free roaming adventure games one tends to expect from the franchise. In it you will pair up with a second character who will play as your partner and help you through your adventures. This partner can be any one from a list of characters that include heroes like Iron Fist and Blade, to villains like Venom and Doc Ock.
The game features a local co-op mode here a friend can take control of the second character making this one of the only multiplayer Spider-man games out there.
I actually quite liked the movie Goblin so I can’t complain about this aesthetic choice
In case anyone was worried though, they didn’t go with film Venom really. So we can all continue pretending that didn’t actually happen
4. Spider-man: Edge of Time
Spider-man: Edge of Time Gameplay
Edge of Time is generally considered to be the sequel to 2010’s Shattered Dimensions. This time we only get to play around with two Spider-mans though, namely his classic form and 2099 incarnation.
This time we are trying to fix a major change to time done by scientist Walker Sloan, who goes back in time from 2099 to establish the Alchemex Corporation in Peter Parker’s time so that he can rebuild it how he’d like it to be and defeat all its competition before they even exist.
His actions result in the future becoming a twisted and dark dystopia.
The two must work together using a link through time and a quantum causality field caused by the time portal, to undo Sloan’s plan both in the past and in the future.
Gameplay is quite similar to Shattered Dimensions and whilst this is a more linear and less diverse experience than its predecessor, if you really enjoyed it this is definitely worth picking up.
To their credit, I think this is one of the only times Anti-Venom appears in a game
If you enjoyed playing as Spider-man 2099, you’ll get a lot more of him in this game
3. LEGO Marvel Superheroes
LEGO Marvel Superheroes Spider-man Gameplay
Once again, I’m definitely aware that this isn’t specifically a Spider-man game, but it’s hard to make any Marvel game list and not include it somewhere because it really is pretty great. With a massive character roster, and an open sandbox New York it’s hard to say enough good things about this game.
As with any LEGO game, you can play through most of the game with whoever you’d like, though some challenges require specific characters. The point being you can get a lot of Spider-man action in with this game.
The storyline is fairly long, and involves a huge amount of Marvel Villains like Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants, Loki, and Doctor Doom. It’s a fairly well written plot line and it manages to stay interesting all the way through. This is likely one of the best LEGO games out there, and one of the better Marvel games in general.
They even have a few different versions of Spidey to choose from in this one
And I mean, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen LEGO Ghostrider
2. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Spider-man Gameplay
There are two very good reasons to try this game out. Firstly, there’s another one coming out in September, and it’s one of the most fun fighting games I have ever played.
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s a fighting game, but the roster of characters are all pulled either from Capcom games or from Marvel comics. Only in this series can you have Spider-man fight Nemesis from Resident Evil or have Ghostrider duke it out with Dante from Devil May Cry.
It’s an interesting twist on the classic fighting game as well, as you fight with three person teams rather than your typical 1v1 fight.
This game is sure to suck up hours of your time as you beat it with each character and explore the different modes and collectibles. For whatever reason it never seems to get old, and I’m not sure if that’s because of the fun gameplay or the beautiful cell-shaded characters.
Just make sure you get the Ultimate edition of it if possible, because it has more characters that you can’t get in the base game.
Just look at that cell-shading. I know I already brought this up but it’s beautifully done
What other game would let you fight superhuman with an attorney?
1. Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite Gameplay Trailer
As this one isn’t out yet, it’s hard to say exactly how it will play. That being said though, we can reasonably assume that it will play similarly to its predecessor above.
The major difference is the addition of Infinity Stones to the gameplay.
Anyone that has been following the Marvel cinematic universe will know that Infinity Stones are stones of incredibly power imbued with an element of the universe. There are six stones, representing Space, Reality, Power, The Mind, The Soul, and Time. These stones are in this game, allowing characters to call upon an individual stone’s power to augment their own of a time.
This game looks beautiful, and it looks like the story is more depthy than you would tend to expect from a fighting game. I know I’m going to be grabbing this one when it comes out, and if you liked the previous game in the series this one ought to be a no-brainer for you.
They’ve gone for a more realistic art style and I have to say it’s really working for them
Ultron-Sigma … well he should be a fun villain
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