It's a 'Mysterio' to me why most people never played this. (Spider-Man - Mysterio's Menace (GBA))

Member Name: BTlover

Product:	Spider-Man - Mysterio's Menace (GBA)
Date:	19/12/07 (30 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Unique gameplay

Disadvantages: A bit short, need more

After playing the first Spiderman game for the PSone, I was really impressed. No, I don't read Spawn comics, and I wasn't even a big fan of the Spiderman television show. But the game had really blown me away, and this one does the same, to a certain point. The one big difference is that this game is a side-scroller, and the Spiderman for PSone was completely 3-D. The fun level certainly drops a little, but not too much. You can still do most of the things from the other game, its just you can't see it in full 3-D glory.

The graphics may not be stunning, but they're worth mentioning. Spiderman looks his usual self, and when web-slinging it looks realistic. When crawling up walls, Spidey will crouch down and make his way around the levels. All the enemies have their own looks, and can throw little things at you. Any fan of the series will recognize bosses in this game, because you'll face Rhino, Shocker, and Mysterio to name a few. Most bad guys will be seen more then just a few times, and you might find this a little repetitive when trying to kill them.

When you're fighting a normal bad guy, he usually just punches you or throws something at you. You're job is to kill them, and after hurting an enemy a little meter on the bottom will display how much injury the enemy has sustained. You will have a variety of methods to inflict pain on the enemy and here they are. Punch, run and jump kick, throw a ball of web, and pin them with a ball of webbing that makes them immobile. As you play the game you will quickly discover that some options are much more valuable than others. Here are a few quick hints: You can run out of webbing, so the two web options should be used sparingly. The kick involves having to run at the enemy first, so that won't be a common option. All your left with is the option to punch, and punch you will. Sometimes when punching, Spiderman will bend down to the ground and start doing low punches by himself, which is really annoying. It gets tough to move when you're crawling like that, which in turn makes it harder to punch the enemy. If you're tempted to just skip by the enemies and go on in the level, feel free to do that. The only problem is that sometimes in levels you are required to go back and search for things, and once you kill an enemy in a level, he will never reappear. It just may help in the long run.

With Spiderman's ability to climb up any wall, even upside down, the levels have to be well designed, not letting you just crawl on the roof and go through the whole level without a fight. Thankfully, you must fight your way through each level to progress; you can't just crawl on the roof through the level to beat it, because that would be too easy. For many levels you will find numerous floors with twists and turns and when you do encounter a roof it is usually covered in spikes or short-circuited wires, forcing you to take a different route.

One of the great things about this game, is the ability to use your webbing to swing anywhere. It's just so innovative that it gives the user a feeling of freedom that defies boundaries. There's also the ability to crawl on any wall, providing it doesn't have any hazardous things on it. You can even punch while crawling on a wall, or shoot your webbing. Two options are available to you for using your webbing; shoot a ball of webbing at your enemy to hurt them, or shoot webbing that wraps around the enemy and immobilizes them. You can then run up to them and get in a few punches. You'll have to be quick because the webbing won't hold them forever. Other then that, all you can do is punches. Most enemies only take about two combos of punches to be eliminated. After a punch, punch, kick combo, the enemy will be knocked to the floor and you will be temporarily unable to hit them. After that you can do the same combo again though. As explained before, after an enemy has taken a hit, a little bar in the bottom-middle of the screen will appear for several seconds. It shows the total number of bars the enemy has, and how many bars are left for their health. This can help you to know if you should shoot them with a webbing, save your webbing, or just finish them off with an easy punch.

If you played the previous Spiderman games, the health system will be familiar. In the top left corner of the screen, a picture of Spidey's face is in a circle, with a blue bar coming out of the right hand side and a red bar below it. The blue bar represents the amount of webbing you have left, and the red bar depicts your health. There are also little boxes in the top left of the screen, displaying how many web cartridges you currently have, and how many possible ones you can hold. If you get to really secret areas in the game, you can pick up an icon that gives Spiderman another possible web cartridge to hold. Sometimes, in secret areas there are also web cartridges for your use, extra lives, and a special kind of armor. Once you get this armor, on top of your normal health bar it will now be yellow, and instead of Spiderman's suit being the normal red and blue, it is now white and blue. This just gives you extra health, and can help when facing bosses. The armor doesn't stay on for a certain amount of time, it stays on until it loses its health. Another possible power-up is invincibility, and just like any other game with invincibility, it stays on for a certain amount of time and allows you to run through the level without getting injured. The last possible power-up to get is one that makes Spiderman immune to fire, and it also stays on temporarily.

What kind of Spiderman game would this be without a storyline? You're basically in a story from a comic book, and your living the comic book. The game starts off with colorful screenshots accompanied with commentary on the bottom. The actual point of the game is to find a fishbowl for Spiderman's girlfriend that she lost. Luckily it isn't as boring as it sounds, because you actually aren't ever really searching for it, your fighting crime. There are always screenshots at the end of the level, to help progress the story. It's understandable that the GBA can't support flashy cinematics, and that's fine as long as games can produce such bright and colorful screenshots as these.

Basically, on every level you are just trying to get to the other side. However, the other side could be on the right of the screen, or left, or sometimes even up or down. The game creators mix it up pretty well, avoiding the repetitiveness. Most levels also have you searching for x amount of something. One level you'll be trying to find special ninjas who give up artifacts once killed. Another level you need to find and rescue five hostages. These basically force you to have an objective before being able to fight the boss. Another level has you destroying power boxes, which in turn turns off a laser beam somewhere inside the level which was previously impassable. The levels can get pretty big. You may seem lost at times, because of the sheer vastness of the level. Granted, most of the objects and bad guys in the level are the same throughout the level, the game maker's still make you feel like it's taking a long time to get through the level because it is so big. The levels also feature great graphics, and add to the gameplay. The game creates a good environment, and the sound does add to the gameplay.

The sound may not be amazing, but it's decent. The usual punching and kicking contact sounds can be found here. The shooting of web is also accompanied by a swooshing sound, I guess the sound web is supposed to make when it is shot in the air. There is no sound during the cinematics, but there is commentary. Faint background music is always playing, but you won't notice it too much.

One problem I had with this game was the length. You start off the game with a choice of checking out three different places, to fight crime. After beating each one, it branches off to another level that you can play. You always have the choice which level that you want to play, and after you beat that level it brings you back to the main screen where you can choose which level you want to play again. This is a great idea, because again it gives you the feeling of freedom. After completing a level, that area turns yellow showing you already completed it. All seems to be going well, and after finishing the sixth mission a new area is presented to you. I figured that after completing this level, you would move on to a new city or something along those lines. Unfortunately, after that level the game finishes! Lately a lot of games have been very short for the GBA, and this is one of them unfortunately.

There is always the replayability though, which lets you try and see if you can find more wrist web cartridges (lets you hold more webbing). There are three different difficulty levels, which also adds to the replayability. I found a huge difference in difficulty from the easy mode to the normal mode, so don't think you can breeze through normal if you did in easy. If you don't want to restart the game after shutting down the system, there is a password system that lets you continue where you are. After finishing a level you are always given a new code.

Overall, this is game comes out short, but with a fair amount of replayability. It has solid graphics, and unique gameplay that can't be found in any other game. If you're a fan of the series, there's no doubt you will like this game. Not a Spiderman fan then? You'll probably still get a kick out of it, but rent it first to be sure. What other game has you web-slinging from rooftop to rooftop (besides every other Spiderman game)?

Summary: Very underrated, really needs to be played.