The Amazing Spider-Man retrospective: Bitten by a radioactive kusoge | Game Boy Works

Game Boy World 1990 Vol. I comes to a close with the first game of the year's second half... and, alas, the first game published by LJN. I know they can't all be winners, but this one takes losing a little far...
Game Boy World is taking a hiatus for a few months. It'll return later this year, though! In the meantime, look forward to videos about games on other systems.

[@mediaminutedaily]

"The Amazing Spider-Man plays the way apathy feels" - I nearly lost it, this looks terrible. Thanks Jeremy for saving me from this one.

[@soggyhydrox]

that kid beating it through sheer determination that was me in 1990

[@PacisJusticia]

Same, why would they do this to kids.

[@Triknor]

I did as well. I think I got this game from a friend, I don’t remember if it was a trade or if he was simply sick of it. I remember being super frustrated by it but after I beat it I convinced myself that it wasn’t that bad. I was actually surprised by the negativity of this review. But, once completed I never bothered to play it again.

[@Cardianist]

I kept failing at beating Venom. Just couldn't do it. But I kept trying as this was the only game (aside from Tetris, of course) that I got with my Gameboy.

[@jonathanforeman2156]

Yes I beat this on the school bus. If game wasn't hard enough add sun glare

[@thechrononaut1]

"It's here that we discover the true meaning of Cancer-Hitler." I honestly don't think that statement could have been funnier in anyone else's voice.

[@bralenmurphy1991]

He has great quotes. He feels like a teacher, so it's similar to hearing a teacher make a dark joke.

[@jasonblalock4429]

"Spider-Man plays the way that apathy feels" is a brilliant line and I'll probably steal it.

[@claytonbeeney]

This particular episode make me happy when I am having a sad day

[@steviewhite450]

Yes, yes - LET THE HATRED FLOW THROUGH YOU.

[@mikedl1105]

When you said "cancer hitler" I subconsciously started bracing myself for an AVGN rant

[@ZhengIsRight]

O my, I played that game a lot back in the day. There's actually a trick to the vertical climbing stages, pause the game when the music gets to a certain point (the one where it turns into an atonal, chaotic crescendo). That will reset the music and for some reason, also stop the boulder deluge from increasing.

[@JeremyParish]

Now THAT is knowledge you can take to the bank.

[@djnekroman]

I remember renting this when I was a kid, and being just so bummed out by how bad it was. Probably the first time I'd ever felt real buyer's(/renter's) remorse.

[@GameBoyGuru]

"The Amazing Arthritis Man." Brilliant! I'm infinitely glad that my first superhero game on the Game Boy was Sunsoft's rather excellent Batman. Even before I knew that the LJN rainbow was synonymous with crap games, I had read horrid reviews of this game during the months following its release, so I never bothered to grab a copy. Probably a good thing, though I'll eventually have to grab a copy to complete my US licensed GB library, and experience this horror for myself, for my own Game Boy review project. Kudos to you for at least giving it a valiant attempt.

[@TrevRockOne]

That jab at The Scorpions was uncalled for.

[@JeremyParish]

Sorry for rocking your world like a hurricane

[@GurdevSeepersaud]

My heart sank when I heard you say this game was terrible. I loved it as a kid...and then I remembered that I played it on a flash-cart full of many other games and stopped every time I got bored. Context is important. I think what kind of helped me enjoy it was how many abilities they managed to reference. Web-shooting, web-swinging, wall-climbing, spidey senses, it actually felt like an extension of what I'd learned about Spider-Man as a kid. Too bad about the overall quality of the game, though.

[@youngloudandscotty]

Thank you so much. That was a laugh. Great way to end the night before I crash off to bed. I would also like to say I'm truly inspired by what you do: the time, care, and attention to detail you put into these videos is, well, as I said, inspiring. Thanks again for walking through the fires for us.

[@pinkgorilla-2921]

"plays the way apathy feels" should be a card in an experimental game designer-targeted oblique strategies deck

[@ericspratling9252]

Count me down as another unlucky kid who was saddled with this game (don't remember if it was a gift or something I purchased with my own scrimped dollars) and went at it through "sheer, desperate, tearful determination." I never did beat it, but I played it fairly often for a while and even had a couple runs deep into the game. Once you build up enough web fluid you can make serious headway, but the problem is, of course, getting through enough of the terrible controls and shoddy game design so you can even get to that point. It really was one of those early cases of my kid-brain not accepting that what I was playing was terrible, instead thinking it was just a challenge I had to overcome. Such innocence. I hadn't even touched this game in decades yet the clips in this video are triggering all sorts of sense-memories (Spider-Sense memories?). The trippy opening, the stressful stage music, kneeling to kick the subway bats, that low-health alarm. Gah!

[@RogersBase]

I never even knew this Spider-Man game existed!

[@JeremyParish]

+RogersBase It's better that way.

[@gabrieleriva651]

And it has TWO sequels...!

[@Craplatte]

I remember loving this game as a kid and playing through it regularly. Even now I do so from time to time, just for the nostalgia XD Btw., regarding what you said from 5:20 onward: you can trigger that thing in the tree once you get close enough by jumping and then turning around in time. It requires some practice but it's definitely not impossible to get through there without taking damage ;-)

[@GetBant]

It was nice that you didn't get all hyperbolic. I've never been tempted by the other terrible Game Boy games you've covered in the past. Most of the time I think "I'm glad he played this so i don't have too" but this is the first I've felt like playing the game too, just to see how bad it is! Thank you! I think..Also it was nice to see my transparent Game Boy at the end!

[@franzschnabel1602]

That was my first Game-Boy game beside Tetris, and I loved this Game. I think as a kid you look at something like this with other eyes, nevertheless i still play this game once in a while.

[@70smebbin]

as a kid i had a friend who loved buying all the marvel games on nes and gameboy i was stuck playing all of these cuz wed trade games when our moms hung out at boring places like church but it was fun times

[@Anusideral]

One of the first time ever i felt totally ripped off buying a video game.

[@QuillShott]

i recently found this series via Gonintendo. this has to be my favorite episode so far.

[@andyvhb]

I'm really shocked you hated this game that much. I had this when I was a kid and I loved it. game was not that difficult even when I was younger. I know ljn has its crap but this is one of the better games they did.

[@Jayce_Alexander]

I also had it as a kid, and loved it back then. But having played through it again recently...no, it really is quite bad. Not as bad as Return of the Sinister Six on the NES and Master System, but still pretty thoroughly bad.

[@childofcascadia]

@Jayce LOL, yeah. I borrowed it from a friend in trade. At the time being 10, I didnt think it was *that* bad (but I think its telling my friend didnt want to trade back), more frustrating than garbage, but if you think about the general console games available in the late 80s early 90s, there was a lot of absolute flaming poop bag covered in pig guts on your doorstep level of garbage. Quality of life wasnt a concept that existed in most games yet, cheapshots, massive grind, horrible knockback, artificially inflated difficulty to pad a game, shitty hitboxes and controls ect were very common. I recently played a bunch of old games I had played back then, and yeah its bad. Not the absolute worst, but any "its not bad" feelings we had when young probably had more to do with the fact that we were kids and the general quality of games available at the time than anything to do with the game itself.

[@alinayossimouse]

My friend hat this and I can assure you after both him and I played a couple of levels we both deemed it stupid and he traded it with some poor chap in school, hopefully for a much better game

[@pantra]

Yeah, that's a pretty accurate description of the game: It's bad! Even though back then I didn't think it was thaaat bad and I even beat it once, some of it through figuring out patterns, but overall it was more by luck. :)

[@MissAshley42]

Hey, that's "The Amazing Dumpster Fire" to you!

[@aamiralavi78]

As a kid who didn’t know any better, I pushed through this and other bad / mediocre games - and don’t remember feeling bad or frustrated. In my hazy memory, the sheer memorisation required to complete the wall climbing levels here wasn’t any worse than the shmup levels of Batman or the speeder bikes levels of Battletoads (which the internet insists I should remember fondly as much as it tells me to not like this game). See also The Castlevania Adventure, Dick Tracy etc

[@NORMALLYRETRO]

This was one of those games I owned that I really wanted to like...but REALLY hated. Still, I had no choice because my library wasn't that huge. Well, I guess LJN's "kidz iz suckers!!" business strategy worked pretty well.

[@chevy-is-a-good-boy]

In retrospect (3 decades later), it ain't that great a game; but totally loved it back in the day.

[@dcashley303]

Never knew it was by LJN! Makes sense.

[@lloydparker]

I still own this game. It was the first GB game I played on my Retron5. At the time I just thought most GB games were bad so Spiderman didn't really jump out as much worse than the rest. I had Golf which wasn't bad, but besides that and Pokemon, all the other games I had on GB kinda sucked.

[@Viewer-ld5rc]

Hi! Found your videos yesterday and I love them! I want to start a channel like yours to review mostly gameboy and ds games! Keep up the good work!!

[@killervacuum]

I spent god knows how many hours playing this game as a child, hopelessly assuming it was a good game (i'm 10 and it's spider man, how could it not be!), before finally giving up on beating that damn green goblin.

[@joshzumstien6289]

I owned this one as a kid. Thanks to the facts that I was a huge Spider Man fan and I had no disposable income to buy more games, I did my best to squeeze every drop of fun out of it that I could. Even through those nostalgia goggles, I can still admit today that this game sucks the big meat missile. I had The Castlevania Adventure too, and also played it way too much. Ah, innocent youth...

[@DSMTheEditor]

Funny enough, this scored really well in EGM, nearly an 8 average. The reviewers were REALLY impressed by the graphical prowess of it.

[@thekusaja]

I never got too far into this game, but I did play it numerous times and cannot get some of the music out of my head.

[@sewart]

I agree that this game was terrible. But boy did I love it. A great example of being a kid and having to wring every bit of fun out of the rare new game you got.

[@MisstyMagik]

Am I the only one in the world who actually likes this game? It's not a masterpiece but I played it a lot as a kid and learned to master the weird controls. Same thing with Wizard & Warriors X.

[@arjuken8]

No you're not. Played and finished both games as a kid. Still have them boxed in my collection and enjoy playing the from time to time. This guy just sucked at playing it. It wasn't great but it certainly wasn't worst ever like presented here

[@baloneypony966]

The Scorpions joke killed me.

[@duhdeedee]

Eh, you may not care, but in the climbing stages it's possible to leap continuously up the side of the building and clear the boulders that way. It makes the stage a lot more playable (if not fun) than just side stepping the boulders.

[@getter7seven]

Ouch, first game so bad in awhile at least that it even managed to bump the always nifty musical outro clip~

[@andipajeroking]

I am receiving one next weeks. It comes together with TMNT, Tetris and Kirby. So Yea, it s not the end of the world.

[@Levitz9]

I played this game in middle school. Yes, it's so bad. T_T It's a shame that there are so few decent Spider-Man games.

[@2yoyoyo1Unplugged]

Levitz9 Thankfully, PS4 Spider-Man hit it out of the park!

[@FreedomDaveX]

There were some good DS ones.

[@susanfit47]

The game begins with a 8-bit rendition of the old Spider-Man cartoon theme music from 1967. This game looked like NES.

[@JetstreamGW]

"I said game boy could only go up... I lied." Dammit, Jeremy, it's too late! Acclaim already said "Hold my beer" earlier in the episode!

[@ButteredToast32]

I can't agree more that Rare's work in the NES/Gameboy era was very hit-or-miss. Half the time I find a crappy game, it was developed by Rare :/

[@cdrevival]

I had this on GB. I definitely didn't hate it, my standards were way lower then tho haha. I certainly never came close to finishing it, such was it's vicious difficulty

[@Poever]

My favorite Game Boy World intro is still "...and this is hot garbage!" Runner-up is "...and this is a game no one loves..."

[@massivepileup]

Match Mania? Is that the one where you connect tiles via a line with at most two bends in it?

[@JeremyParish]

+massivepileup I haven't played it yet! Maybe? Screenshots make it look like Shanghai.

[@JetstreamGW]

"... but I do find it surprising that his rogues gallery seems to know his identity like it ain't no thing..." But they didn't! Look! He says "Parker Residence..." and Mysterio's all like "Don't try to fool me, Spider-man!" He's admitting and they refuse to believe him!

[@tcbvgames]

3:48 "For trash publishers," text shows Nintendo published Pictionary!

[@KeinNiemand]

This game needs a AVGN episode

[@GhostofDBCooper]

He played it; 6:20 into the "AVGN: Spider-Man" video

[@theologamer]

Sadness! don't leave~

[@DijaVlogsGames]

This is one of the games my girlfriend still has for her Gameboy. You have to play the levels pretty much perfectly to stand any chance against the bosses. It's really, really bad...

[@kyleolson8977]

Anticipation is not a trash game, it's quite good. I don't even think this is a diamond in the rough or a hidden gem, but simply game where reviewers lack any context. I feel like modern reviewers sit down and play it by themselves and don't get it, almost like reviewing an old calculator and bashing it for not having 100k of memory and 3D graphics. Ot maybe it's like playing a 1 player game of Monopoly and wondering what the point is. It's a party game, and needs to be played with a full group of players. The visual and audio design are excellent, with a number of wonderful touches. The music, the motion of the pieces, the way the tension ramped up as the timer ran down. The little sounds on success or failure.

[@mangler103]

I had totally, completely forgotten about this game. Why did you remind me?

[@petrospapadimitriou4287]

I liked this game a lot,I beat it once...

[@2yoyoyo1Unplugged]

1:06 What is that song?

[@donaldsmith5667]

Hahah you’re brilliant, man!

[@darsparx]

> wall climbing I swear I played something similar to that sequence in a TT web game on CN's website. Or at least something that felt similar, and it was annoying

[@kinapuffen]

It was a horrible game. And yet, 8 year old me didn’t know any better and loved it. It was so cool. I was Spider Man. But no one should have to play it now. I’m sorry you had to.

[@MrBossyful]

Never played this version, but it somehow looks even worse than SM: Return of the Sinister Six on NES. In all fairness LJN only published this game, so... Rare is perhaps to blame for most of its shortcomings. >.>

[@araceliacebedo3916]

I bought this along with 2 other original Game Boy games + a Game Boy Color game at a flea market a few years back, $5 each. Even though I payed a cheap price I still regretted buying it, I can't imagine how the poor kids that bought this while it was still new felt. The controls suck and it's way too hard. I think it's the worst Game Boy game I own so far.

[@natethefighter]

"The Amazing Spider-Man plays the way apathy feels." Damn.

[@icebergthegamer]

I could never finish this game lol.

[@FoxGhost7]

My big hatreds where webbing (would sometimes work and sometimes not but oh god deathpit) and the 2nd climbing stage. Pure bs.

[@RetroPowerUp]

5:25 ouch, you have to take damage to go forward, that's terrible game design. 6:00 and then it gets worse lol. I never knew it existed before so.... I'll just keep pretending that it doesn't!

[@arjuken8]

You don't have to take damage in both situations. First you can fake a high jump (fall back mid air to trick that thing falling from the tree) and you can jump up and grab on building climbing levels,that way finishing said level much faster and avoiding boulders if you're fast enough. This game certainly wasn't great but it's not half as bad as presented here. You can tell this guy spent 20 minutes with it for this review solely and never actually learned to play it. I finished it multiple times as a kid and still play it once in a while and I certainly don't do it through tearful determination lol. It was a decent GB title when it came out, once you get the hang of it - it can be fun actually

[@bluedistortions]

This game was what made me realize AVGN was a fraud when it comes to pretending games are hard. My friend loaned this to me, and I beat it on my second try, it really doesnt have much of a challenge even to a kid. I was 9.

[@CarozQH]

I think I can already guess what you mean with incompetent western developers... Radical Entertainment, Equilibrium Software and THQ in general?

[@999apeman]

I guess you can say he does NOTHING a spider can!!! ...kill me.

[@jonnyd9132]

Am I the only one who actually liked this game as a kid? Then again this was the first Spider Man game I ever played sooo…

[@ERMediaOfficial]

I am the sucker who owned this, Spider-Man 2 AND Spider-Man 3. And you know what, Spider-Man 2 was actually not that bad - bad but not that bad. 3 sucked incrediballs though!

[@QXZ_Productions]

Um... If memory serves, 'Anticipation'--a game I always felt had a good presentation, if a bit minimalist--was actually released by Nintendo.

[@ChrisGuanche]

I had the second and third games, which were marginally less terrible than the original.

[@Moshugaani]

"the first game published by LJN" 'Nuff said! :D

[@todesziege]

This is bad by LJN standards.

[@LagBlowz]

So... in short, Spider-Man for game boy is cancer hitler? Am I reading this right?

[@robertybob]

A short term hiatus? :(

[@JeremyParish]

+robertybob Non-Game Boy videos will still be running on the same weekly schedule. I just need a GB breather and time to get the next book put together.

[@robertybob]

+Jeremy Parish That's understandable :) When you come back, how much money would you need to raise from your Patreon in order to release a video more than once a week? Is that a possibility?

[@FelipeBudinich]

You really need to create a blueray version of your videos once you are done with the GB library!

[@JeremyParish]

Unfortunately I capture and render at 720p, so a BD version would not turn out so well.

[@gabrieleriva651]

720p is fine for a BD ;)

[@VictorHernandez-nj2lo]

I had this game when i was little,i actually liked it

[@michaelschaeffer6936]

WHAAAAAT? Rare and LJN made a game together? Wtf?

[@JeremyParish]

Rare made games for, like, everyone.

[@michaelschaeffer6936]

@@JeremyParish I never knew that before this video. I used to think Rare (at least in the 80s and 90s) could do no wrong lol

[@JeremyParish]

They weren't as prolific as TOSE, but I do believe Rare was the most prolific NES developer that was actually credited in-game. They made dozens of NES games for a bunch of different publishers.

[@sailorvenusfan6527]

I haven't played the game but looking at this footage, the game looks unfair. I heard the sequel was even worse.

[@Marcin-ex9xb]

Nice! :)

[@raymondhall8691]

So you are saying that Rare and LJN are the same company?

[@JeremyParish]

That's… exactly the opposite of what I said. Developers and publishers are frequently separate entities, the former hired by the latter.

[@jcawthon99]

LJN noooooooo!

[@happyhourX]

2:26 gotham city?? haha ok

[@esmooth919]

5:26 Simple "scrums"? What, are they not worthy of the title scrubs? LMAO

[@raymondlaney8508]

I actually liked it a lot when I got it. Game is super hard but once you figure out the bad controls it wasn't that horrible. At least for me LOL

[@Belgand]

Huh. I had this as a kid and I remember it as being simply OK. Not great, but not terrible. Just kind of forgettable.

[@markqueen4098]

HEY YOU! THATS NOT DUMPER FIRE! YOU GOT TO SAY SPIDER MAN!

[@JeremyParish]

Sorry, didn't mean to give away his secret identity!

[@adamsargent4935]

I had this game, such trash, I would load it up, play for 10 minutes and go back to mario land

[@augustusvonwatts555]

I had this terrible game. I could never beat that park level

[@YTDeepshock]

Loud zelda beeps in a gameboy platformer. Poor form. The GB Zeldas themselves used less invasive ones in the same situation.

[@BrickNGamesTwitch]

Disagree with you on a few parts, mostly about things being "unavoidable" when it comes to taking damage. Both examples you showed aren't unavoidable by any means. Esp the climbing part. Not a good game IMO, but your claims aren't exactly true.

[@darealness818]

oh stop it , it wasn't even that bad

[@TanookiSuit]

Could you expect any more from LJN? Lazy, Junk, Nonsense.

[@CaptainDoomsday]

Man, you talkin' shit, but this game wasn't the WORST. You had to learn to kick and only kick and many hits were unavoidable, but there were webbing mechanics, there were two types of level, and you could scumbag swing over most of a level.