Video Game / Spider-Man (2000)

You don't just play it...you live it.

Him da man, him da man, him da - Spider-Man
Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man
Him da man, him da man, him da - Spider-Man
Him-a do whatever a spider can - look out!

—Apollo 440's remix of the Spider-Man Theme Song

Spider-Man is a fifth-generation video game starring the ol' webhead, which came out in 2000 and uses the same game engine as Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. The game was developed by Neversoft for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 and ported to the Dreamcast, Microsoft Windows, and Apple Macintosh. A version of the game for Game Boy Color was developed by Vicarious Visions.

The game begins with the allegedly-reformed Dr. Otto Octavius showing off a brand-new project of his at a science expo, when all of a sudden, a familiar hero clad in red-and-blue tights bursts in and steals his invention... except that Peter Parker is in the audience, watching the heist unfold. Spider-Man then finds not just the police on his tail, but every villain in the city is on a simultaneous crime spree, including Venom, after the imposter-Spidey destroyed Eddie Brock's camera and ruined his chances of getting a good shot of Spider-Man red-handed. In addition, all of New York City is blanketed by a mysterious fog, and it's up to Spider-Man to sort it all out.

A sequel, titled Enter: Electro, was released soon after, by Vicarious Visions.

Of course, this is just one of several video games about Spider-Man. For the game that was released as a tie-in to the Sam Raimi film, go to Spider-Man: The Movie. For the Insomniac Games-produced PlayStation 4 title of the same name, see Spider-Man (PS4). For the others, see the list here.

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Spider-Man provides examples of the following tropes:

• Abandoned Warehouse: The level right after Mysterio takes place in one. Stan Lee lampshades it.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewer levels range from huge to outright cavernous. Seriously, Spider-Man can web-swing inside the sewers. As in "building-to-building" swing on the surface.
• Adaptational Heroism: Dr. Otto Octavius has reformed as seen in the game's opening, having stopped being Doc Ock and returning to proper science. It was just a ruse.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: Monster Ock. He can't be damaged and the base is exploding, so all Spider-Man can do is run.
• Alien Invasion: Played With. Ock's plan is to invade New York with Earth-born alien symbiotes.
• Air-Vent Passageway: A few show up in the bank and the Daily Bugle. The latter has hostages inside that must be freed.
• All There in the Manual: The tie-in comic reveals that Carnage, Rhino, and Mysterio were all locked up in The Vault prior to the game, but were released as part of the master plan of Doctor Octopus.
  • Peter is in his early to mid 20's according to the game's manual.
• Amazonian Beauty: Black Cat. She has a noticeable six-pack and toned thighs. Likely as a result of using the recently finished cartoon as a basis.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: Unlockable costumes include the symbiotic black suit, the costume from Spider-Man Unlimited, the Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly's Spider-Man costume, Spider-Man 2099, Captain Universe, Peter in civvies, the Bombastic Bag Man, and Quick Change Spidey (Peter in civvies, only with a mask and gloves on). Although some of these costumes (like the Scarlet Spider outfit) are purely cosmetic, others of them gave you slight handicaps or advantages:
  • Quick Change Spidey, The Amazing Bag Man, and Peter Parker only let you use two web cartridges.
  • The symbiote suit has infinite webbing.
  • Spider-Man 2099 deals double damage.
  • Spider-Man Unlimited allows Spidey to cloak, rendering him invisible to mooks (but not bosses).
  • Captain Universe deals double damage, is invincible, and has infinite webbing.
• Animal Motifs: Rhino lampshades the recurring animal motifs of Spider-Man Rogues Gallery at the end.
  Rhino: So... I'm a Rhino, you're a Scorpion, and he's an Octopus... What's a Mysterio?
• Anti-Villain: Venom's vendetta and villainous actions against Spider-Man, while largely rooted in the fact he destroyed Eddie's camera, is at its core based entirely on the genuine belief Spidey committed a serious crime and needs to pay. Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, Venom and Spidey agree to work together for the time being.
• Badass in Distress: Black Cat is kidnapped by Doc Ock and his men after Spidey defeated Rhino.
• Banana in the Tailpipe: Spidey shuts off the bad guys' fog and compares it to this. In the What If? mode, the tailpipes actually have giant bananas on them.
• Bank Robbery: The first few levels concern the Jade Syndicate trying to rob a bank and Spidey having to stop them.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Dr. Octopus and Carnage.
• Big "NO!": Mysterio gives a particularly long one after being defeated.
• Bizarrchitecture: While it looks realistic enough, Mysterio's boss arena makes no real sense. It's a round, 4-story building(?) that looks like it's been there since the Roman empire. It's implied to be near (or even below) the Daily Bugle since its entrance is hidden there.
• Bizarro Episode: The What If? mode is this In-Universe. There are countless changes, from cameos of the Watcher and the Human Torch to a yellow submarine racing you through the entrance to the underground base (and giving you a cheat code if you win) to Doc Ock inexplicably being tiny and declaring "I am Mini Ock!" Among many others.
• Bland-Name Product: A Pork'n'Donuts billboard.
• Blatant Burglar: The Jade Syndicate all wear black full body suits like stereotypical robbers.
• Bloodless Carnage: If the Jade Syndicate shoot and kill any hostages, they just dematerialize as the mission failure screen appears.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: For the final two bosses. Dr. Octopus is protected by Deflector Shields that Spidey has to turn off by hitting switches around him. Carnage is immune to most of Spider-Man's attacks and would likely be impossible if not for the sonic bubble in the arena. The latter case is justified since Dr. Octopus set it up in case Carnage turned on him.
• Boss-Only Level: "Rhino's Rampage" is just the boss fight with the titular villain.
• Bragging Rights Reward:
  • The Captain Universe costume. You've beaten Hard Mode, so you probably never even needed a costume with invulnerability, unlimited webbing, and double damage (the only thing it can't do is turn invisible).
  • The Quick-change costume is surprisingly difficult to unlock ^note Obtain 10 000 or 8000 points in the web zip training mission - the exact amount is determined by the version of the game, because the higher requirement was so incredibly difficult to reach it was lowered in subsequent releases and comes with a limitation instead of a power. Wearing it caps Spidey's web canisters to a maximum of 2, which naturally makes a lot of the game harder.
• Bullfight Boss: Rhino again. Spidey even shouts "Toro, Toro!"
• The Cameo: A number of other heroes show up in the course of the game, including Dare Devil, The Punisher, Captain America, and The Human Torch.
• Canon Character All Along: Monster Ock is the Carnage symbiote bonded to Doctor Octopus, though the game's packaging promotes this as a new character.
• Canon Foreigner: The Jade Syndicate, the criminal group behind the bank heist that Spider-Man busts in the early levels of the game.
  • Also, to an extent, Monster Ock.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Venom. He doesn't realize that it can't have been the real Spider-Man who raided the expo since he bumped into Peter whilst the heist was going on until Spidey points this out to him (although Eddie didn't even properly recognize Peter at first and needed to seriously think back to that day to realize his error), and when asked for suggestions on who might have wanted the stolen technology, he suggests Namor, Thor, and Galactus, in an attempt to piss off Spidey. Oh, and after the Daily Bugle, Venom is entirely concerned with surfing the Web rather than doing anything useful. After you defeat him in the sewers, he almost immediately becomes comedic relief for most of the rest of the game — and even then, the chase scene is one giant screwball sequence.
• Continuity Nod: All over the place:
  • You can get to the Baxter Building in the first level. The Human Torch even shows up in What If...? mode and says that they're busy fighting Mole Man.
  • There is a billboard advertising a Captain America interview in the police chase level.
  • In another police chase level there's a crane can be entered and is filled with pumpkin bombs, a nod to the Green Goblin.
  • In the Venom chase scene level, you pass by the Stark Enterprises building.
  • And then he saves you using The Avengers' Quinjet at the end.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: The invisibility granted by the Spider-Man Unlimited costume works on every Mook in the game, but not so much on bosses or police attack choppers, who can still see and attack Spidey just fine.
• Convenient Enemy Base: Mysterio enters the plot in Daily Bugle's basement, which has a hidden entrance to what appears to be Mysterio's lair.
• Cop Killer: The Jade Syndicate shoot down two police choppers.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Stopping to fight Monster Ock will result in him beating Spider-Man's face in.
  • Spider-Man himself can be this towards only the mooks, police officers, lizard minions and symbiotes if the player chooses the costume of "Spidey Unlimited" which allows him to be invisible and inputting RUSTCRST and STRUDL in the cheat codes section which grants Invincibility and Infinite Webbing respectively.
• Damsel in Distress: Mary Jane Watson is held captive by Venom and acts as a damsel-in-distress for Spider-Man. Also, Black Cat, as mentioned above.
• Deadpan Snarker: Naturally, Spider-Man, and how.
• Death by Adaptation: This seems to happen to Cletus Kasady, who is abandoned by Carnage and shown to still be knocked out from his Boss Fight when things start blowing up. While Carnage is shown retreating to the shadows after abandoning Otto, Cletus was left inside an unstable Underwater Lair that's collapsing and probably flooding by the time Spidey reaches the surface - even if we assume Carnage decided to go back for Cletus, the sheer distance between the two doesn't fare well for him.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Venom wants to kill Spider-Man for roughly half the game. Once you beat him, however, he joins you in your mission and even helps you escape the exploding lab and into the Quinjet.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • If you actually manage to get out of Venom's line of sight in your first fight with him (usually via exploiting a glitch that puts you under the arena), he starts yelling, wondering where you are.
  • If you fall in the paper machine in the Daily Bugle, you actually die.
  • Inputting swear words in the codes screen has Spidey punch it to death. You know it's telling you not to swear because it's different from the "wrong code" effect.
• Driven to Suicide: In What If? mode, in the race to get to the Daily Bugle, if the time expires, instead of being thrown out the window to his death by Scorpion, J. Jonah Jameson will throw himself out the window and get it over with.
• Easier Than Easy: The difficulty level Kid Mode. It doesn't just adjust the game's numeric values in your favor; some areas are now automatically completed for the player. A good example is in the one of the sewer levels. The player normally has a path of pipes to navigate, but in Kid Mode, a cutscene is shown where Spider-Man swings towards the pipes, then the camera shows him arriving at the end of the path. Also, instead of X then R2 to swing, the player now just has to press X twice.
• Easily Forgiven: Averted, Spider-Man does not forgive Venom for kidnapping Mary Jane after defeating him and swears they'll continue the fight when they are done.
• Easter Egg: Some of the comic locations are located in special areas that aren't necessary to progress. One such example involves the police chase; a detour will allow you to find the Green Goblin's current hideout, complete with some unique dialogue.
• Enemy Chatter: At the Race to the Bugle level, you can hear some mooks chatting if you go to the right building. Scorpion won't stop walking though.
• Everything-Is-Smashable Area: When you fight the Scorpion, you can destroy absolutely everything in Jameson's office. As a matter of fact, destroying everything on the first room is a requirement to get a comic book, and throwing destructible things at the Scorpion is one of the better ways of defeating him.
• Evil Is Hammy: Carnage. He is very loud and excited in his boss fight.
• Evil Sounds Deep: Downplayed. Venom's voice is veeerrrryy deep, but is not exactly that evil.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: Scorpion has a very raspy voice.
• Experienced Protagonist: It's not discussed much, but one throw-away line from Mysterio mentions he and Spidey have been battling for decades - notice the plural. If this Peter started Spidey-ing at 15 like most incarnations, he'd be at least in his mid 20's, possibly even older depending on when he first fought the spoiler villain. Spidey's deeper-than-usual voice and his marriage to Mary Jane also suggests he's quite a bit older than most versions of the character.
• Faux Action Girl: Black Cat, not only is she one-shotted by Rhino, she's also kidnapped by Doc Ock and his men. And in the What If? mode, she just can't stop dancing...
• Filler: The Scorpion attacking Jameson isn't really linked to the plot; it's just a warm-up boss, though Scorpion still ends up in the main cell at the end. Spidey was already busy being pursued by the police for his alleged role in the Expo heist.
• Foreshadowing:
  • A billboard featuring Carnage is prominently displayed in the first level.
  • When Spider-Man teams up with Venom, the two of them brainstorm potential culprits behind the fog. In particular, Spider-Man identifies his imposter as either Mysterio or the Chameleon. He turns out to be right on the former option.
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • The PC port has issues with more modern computers, often running into some nasty bugs that make progress difficult or even impossible. The most infamous example is when the player chases Venom; near the end of a cutscene, Spider-Man will inevitably die from falling into the fog, no matter what the player does. Some of these issues can be circumvented through artificially lowering the frame rate, but this generally isn't considered a perfect fix.
  • Also in the Chase Venom level on consoles, there's a point where the stage will transition into a cutscene where Spidey chases Venom through a building complex. An indication of the bug happening is when near the end of the cutscene, a shot showing a window has Spidey fail to appear in it to chase Venom. So once that cutscene ends, Spider-Man will immediately veer to the right and try to climb up a wall that doesn't exist (what's supposed to happen is that Spidey swings out of the building after Venom, climbing up the wall of the building in front of the one they were in). If you don't haul ass the second that cutscene ends, Venom will escape, and you have to do the entire stage all over again.
  • In the PC version of the Scorpion fight it's possible for Spider-Man not to swing in through the window during the scripted in-level cutscene. This leads to the cutscene being suddenly interrupted by him falling to his death. This can be avoided by skipping the cutscene but breaks the game if you attempt to watch it.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Probably due to console limitations, Spidey can throw mooks off of rooftops despite following the Thou Shalt Not Kill rule. In some levels, he can do this to cops without being branded a Cop Killer.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: One of the ways to defeat mooks? Toss them into one another.
• Guide Dang It!: A number of the collectible comic books, which require backtracking or entering specific areas after activating a trigger. One especially prominent example is the comic at the beginning of the sewer levels: Spider-Man needs to fight the first two lizard mutants, walk far enough down the cavern to say that they must be some of The Lizard's experiments, and then run all the way back down the cavern to collect it.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: Black Cat gives tips during the first level.
• Head Desk: Doc Ock starts banging his head against the bars of the cell upon realizing that his cellmates are idiots.
• Healthy Green, Harmful Red: Spider-Man's and the bosses' health meter is given as a colour gradient, like a "reverse rainbow": green for full, yellow as the midpoint, and red for low.
• Heroes Gone Fishing: We get to see Captain America, Spidey, Daredevil and The Punisher chilling out playing cards at the end, while Black Cat and the Human Torch dance.
  The Human Torch: Look at me!!! I'm on fire!!!
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Spider-Man, due to being framed by Mysterio for theft and kidnapping. The cops even send attack helicopters armed with machine guns and rockets to bring him in.
• Herr Doctor: Thanks to Efrem Zimbalist Jr. reprising his role from Spider-Man: The Animated Series, Dr. Octavius has a German accent once again.
• Hijacked by Ganon: The mastermind behind framing Spider-Man, stealing Dr. Octavius's device, and forming the villains to hunt him down is Doctor Octopus. The game and accompanying tie-in comic don't bother to hide it all that much, due to his very identifiable design and voice, with even Peter not being all that surprised when their identity is revealed.
  Spider-Man: Should've known a reformed Doc Ock was too good to be true.
• Hypocritical Humor: When Spider-Man tells Mysterio that whoever he’s working for can’t control symbiotes—no one can—Mysterio arrogantly retorts, "no one before now". Turns out Mysterio was working for Doc Ock. In the end, when all the villains are in prison, Mysterio whines that it’s not his fault they failed. Instead he blames Doc Ock for coming up with a plan that was horrible, since "everyone knows you can't control the symbiotes!"
• I Fought the Law and the Law Won: During the Police chase, the helicopter is invulnerable and the cops will keep respawning when defeated. Even if you activate "stealth mode" with the Spider-Man Unlimited costume and the cops cannot see you, the helicopter can still see you and proceed to shoot you, so your only option is to run.
• I'll Kill You!: Monster Ock repeatedly shrieks "DIE" at the top of its lungs while chasing Spider-Man - and makes good on that promise if he catches up to him.
• Impact Silhouette: When Venom leaps through a billboard at the end of his race with Spider-Man, even his tongue leaves a silhouette-shaped hole in it.
• Implacable Man:
  • Carnage is immune to most of Spider-Man's attacks, making the sonic bubble the only reliable way of hurting him.
  • Spider-Man is this himself if the RUSTCRST cheat which gives Invincibility is entered or if the Captain Universe suit is used.
  • Monster Ock, since he does not have a health bar and is utterly invincible against Spider-Man's attacks. With the place about to explode, Spider-Man gets no chance to find Monster Ock's weakness, so the only way to "defeat" him is to run like hell to the exit.
• Improvised Weapon: You can hurl barrels, print copiers, vases, and fellow thugs at enemies.
• Insane Troll Logic: The villains' plan to bond everyone in New York with symbiotes. Spidey reiterates several times that it's nuts, and the only elaboration we get on the point of it all are the hubristic ramblings of Doc Ock.
  Ock: I need not control the symbiotes. We will work as one! 'Tis a new world. Humanity needs the skills that my technology will bring them. Symbiosis is the only way.
• Invisible Jerkass:
  • Venom is able to become invisible during his boss battles, which makes it difficult to know where he'll spawn and makes it impossible to fight him until he returns.
  • The "Spider Unlimited" costume allows the player to become this. Spidey becomes invisible to regular enemies (but not bosses and police attack helicopters), allowing him to beat them up without them being able to see him.
• Invisibility: The Spider-Man Unlimited costume grants this as an ability. It has no cooldown at all, and while it's active, enemies won't react to Spidey's presence no matter what he does to them, allowing him to breeze through the levels without any fear of reprisal. No such luck against bosses or attack helicopters, though. They'll be able to see and attack him easily, invisible or not.
• Ironic Echo Cut: Played for laughs when Venom says that Peter hates it when they get the drop on him. Cue Spider-Man shouting that he hates it when Venom gets the drop on him.
• Kill It with Fire: This is the only reliable way to kill the symbiotes, as they are damage sponges otherwise.
• Large Ham: Venom. Many of the levels spent chasing him are peppered with his laughter, silly one-liners and generally ridiculous hijinks, and his voice actor has an absolute blast the whole time.
• Laughing Mad: Carnage. A lot.
• Level in Boss Clothing: The attack helicopter and Monster Ock are too powerful for Spider-Man to take on, so he spends their respective fights running away.
• Lizard Folk: Aside from The Lizard himself, various lizard monsters appear as the main enemies in the sewers. They were created by The Lizard in his experiments.
• Locomotive Level: A full four years before Spider-Man 2 in fact.
• Luck-Based Mission: Unfortunately, the fight against Mysterio turns into this on hard difficulty, as it relies on A) Spidey actually hitting him with impact web because of how fast-paced the fight is B) not running out of web fluid or health during the second phase during his seemingly random attack pattern and C) the awkward camera and arena hitboxes not screwing you over. On lower difficulties the fight is still difficult, but Spidey can at least take more damage which helps with the second phase.
• Male Gaze: Black Cat's well-defined rear end is prominently displayed on-screen during 4 different occasions (the tutorial level twice, the 6th cutscene and the end of level 31 after you rescue her). The storyboard for the 6th cutscene specifically had her butt take up almost the entire screen in one shot (toned down in the actual cutscene). Both her and Mary Jane also have the most obvious cleavage the PS1's engine could render.
• Master of Illusion: Mysterio, as always. He, in disguise, stole the technology for Dr. Octopus. This also allows him to grow in size. Somehow.
• Mirror Match: Mysterio briefly pulls this when he first engages Spider-Man, before revealing himself.
• Mook Maker: The symbiote generators.
• Ominous Fog: Much like Silent Hill before it, this was implemented due to graphical limitations, and likewise justified, though in a different way: The fog is being pumped into the city to make the New York citizens less resistant to symbiotes.
• One-Man Army: In the first level, Spider-Man takes out a couple dozen Jade Syndicate bank robbers with assault rifles. In the final level, he also infiltrates the mastermind's secret underwater base, plowing his way through symbiotes and the automated defenses (laser turrets and electrified floors) in the process.
• One-Winged Angel: After defeating Carnage, the symbiote uses Doctor Octopus as its host, resulting in "Monster Ock", who can tear through solid steel and support structures with ease, snarling and grunting at Spidey inhumanly as it chases him. Thankfully, the symbiote still retains its traditional weakness, so the exploding base ends up ripping the symbiote off Octavius.
• Ow, My Body Part!: In the "Chase Venom" level, Spidey pursues Venom through what appears to be an office building, and randomly says "Ow, my head!" or "Ooh, toe, toe, toe, ow!" while apparently falling down a flight of stairs.
• Plot-Irrelevant Villain:
  • The Jade Syndicate don't really have anything to do with the main plot, being there to get the players used to the game and its mechanics.
  • Scorpion is the first proper boss in the game, seeming to take advantage of the manhunt against Spider-Man to attempt to murder Jameson, but has nothing to do with the mastermind's plan (not even being recruited by them in the prequel comic) or overarching plot of the game as a whole. He does, however, get to interact with the rest of the rogues in the end cutscene, incredulous that, despite teaming up, they still couldn't defeat Spider-Man.
• Police Are Useless: Or, at least, they're against Spider-Man for the entirety of the story due to him being framed for stealing a reformed Octavius's device. They deploy heavily armed SWAT teams and attack helicopters to apprehend Spider-Man for theft, but are otherwise always late or getting wrecked by the bad guys.
• Product Placement: Advertisements for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 are everywhere in New York City.
  Spider-Man: Tony Hawk? Hey, I skated with that guy!
• Pungeon Master: Venom is one these from the instant you meet him.
  Spider-Man: "We're not going to see Jameson. We're going to use his computer database."
  Venom: "Oooh, are we gonna surf the web?"
  Spider-Man: "Let's just go. Okay?"
• Purple Is Powerful: The symbiotes are purple and the strongest mooks in the game.
• Put on a Prison Bus: The first game ends with a scene showing Rhino, Mysterio, Scorpion, Doc Ock, and a random Mook sharing a prison cell. The sequel, Spider-Man 2 – Enter: Electro has a similar final scene, with Hammerhead, Shocker, and Electro sharing a cell, with the final shot revealing their cell is right next to the one from the first game.
• Remember the New Guy?: In the very first level, Spider-Man is able to immediately identify the Jade Syndicate by name as the group responsible for the bank heist, even though they currently haven't appeared in any sort of licensed Spider-Man material before or since this game.
• Rubber-Band A.I.: No matter how far away Spider-Man gets in the final level, Monster Ock will always catch up.
• Run or Die: The last level requires Spider-Man to do this, since even if Monster Ock wasn't an insta kill, the underwater base is exploding all around you.
• Serial Escalation: The first guys you fight are a bunch of Mook wannabee bank robbers known as the Jade Syndicate. From there you fight Scorpion, who is uninvolved in the plot but is taking advantage of the situation to settle his score with J. Jonah Jameson. After that, you begin to fight more and more serious assailants, until by the end you're facing a positively nightmarish symbiotic Doc Ock named "Monster Ock".
• Shout-Out: Several, to both other games and various pop culture references.
  Venom: Watch that last step, Parker. It's a doozy.
  Venom: Where'd Spider-Wuss go? SPIDER-WUSS! COME OUT AND PLAAAAY!
  • What If? Mode knocks it up a notch, including a vault with the graffiti Hans was here and finding The Ark of the Covenant in a warehouse box.
  • Also in What If? mode, when Spider-Man confronts his doppelganger in the basement of the Bugle he jumps up and tries to kick the imposter, who dodges, and the two freeze in mid air as the camera pans around them.
  • During the helicopter chase in What If? Mode, the pilot will start humming Ride of the Valkyries and quote Col. Kilgore.
• Silliness Switch: What If? Mode makes a lot of changes to the game that make it more comedic, for example Black Cat being unable to stop dancing while imprisoned, and the gas pumps being blocked with giant bananas (taking his "banana in a tailpipe" comment literally).
• The Smurfette Principle: While the game's story itself averts this by having a whopping *2* female characters, both of them are voiced by Jennifer Hale. So the trope here actually applies to the voice cast.
• Story-Driven Invulnerability:
  • When you race against Venom, you can't damage him at all.
  • Nor, when fleeing from Monster Ock, can you actually try to fight him off.
• Super Drowning Skills: Spider-Man instantly drowns if he makes contact with water in the sewers.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Spidey runs into several other NYC-based heroes, but none manage to do anything significant to help him besides Captain America doing a Just in Time rescue at the end. This is justified as all of them (besides maybe the Human Torch) would be very much out of their weight class dealing with Spidey's villains.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Normally, in the level with Venom attempting to drown Mary Jane, she begs for help in fright. In What If? Mode, she instead tells you what an idiot you are before demanding you turn off the switch.
• Traintop Battle: One level consists of Spider-Man duking it out with the Lizard Folk on top of a subway car.
• Trojan Ambulance: After Black Cat is badly injured by Rhino, she gets taken away in an ambulance by fake paramedics working for Doc Ock.
• Troll: Both as an enemy and as an ally, Venom just loves messing with Spidey for the hell of it.
  Venom : Hah, Parker hates it when we get the drop on him!
  Spider-Man: Aargh! I HATE it when he gets the drop on me!
• Turns Red: Mysterio does it twice. First, he adds floors that occasionally spark to the stage after you take out the six initial conduits. After you take out two more conduits, his globe will glow, and there will be electric floors moving around.
• Uncertain Doom: Cletus Kasady, after losing the symbiote, is never seen again as Spider-Man is getting chased by Monster Ock while the lab is blowing up. He is likely to have died unless the symbiote somehow reached him after detaching from Doc Ock.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Spider-Man saves Jameson from being killed by Scorpion, but he assumes it's all a trick and demands the police kill him.
  Spider-Man: J.J., you are out of the will. I mean it this time!
• Unnecessarily Large Interior: The basement of the Daily Bugle has huge hallways big enough for Spider-Man to web swing in. The entrance to the hidden base is even bigger and between the electrified floors and walls and lack of actual walkways, web swinging is necessary just to get through.
• Useless Useful Stealth: The Unlimited Spider-Man unlockable costume allows you to become invisible, except against bosses and attack helicopters.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • Beating up thugs? Funny enough. Beating up thugs while invisible to the naked eye? Oh, yeah. And if you have unlimited webbing, you can play with them even more. It's really fun doing this to them.
  • On some rooftops, you can web throw thugs off the building. If you punch/kick them off, they'll stop in mid-air, stand up, look down, and then fall screaming to their deaths Looney Tunes style.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Complete and utter negligence, in other words letting Scorpion have his way with J. Jonah Jameson and letting Venom drown Mary Jane will result in instant failure.
• Villains Out Shopping: In the ending, the bad guys all play cards in jail.
  Rhino: Hey, I got a Bingo! Ha ha! You guys think you're so smart, but I won! Ha! Who's your daddy, Doc Ock?!! Ha ha ha! Victory is mine! You're always laughing at me, but who's cryin' now, huh?!! Ha ha ha ha, ha...eh...Wait a minute, I think I made a mistake...
• Villain Team-Up: Carnage, Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, and Rhino team up to take over New York. Scorpion has this to say about it after they all get thrown in jail:
  Scorpion: You mean to tell me that all of you were working together, and you still couldn't stop Spider-Man?
  Mysterio: It's not my fault. Doc Ock's plan was horrible!
  • It also annoys Spider-Man.
  Spider-Man: What is this, the Bad Guy Olympics!?
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: The Jade Syndicate are just your basic bunch of brutish, bank-robbing baddies to beat up and bust at the beginning of the game, and otherwise serve no purpose in the overall storyline. Although one of their members does appear during the ending, playing cards with the other imprisoned villains.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: So, did Spider-Man and Venom just decide to leave the Lizard locked-up in the sewers?
• What If?: Played for Laughs. A code allows you to change the game to What If mode, showing a lot comedic changes, such as crashing through a skyscraper including a more sequential sequence of gags, the captured Black Cat dancing while she's imprisoned and Carnage sounding like a baby, as well as The Lizard refusing to tell you where to go if you come back to him three times. You also get a few more cameos, such as Ghost Rider racing down a nearby skyscraper.
• Wolverine Publicity: Many of Marvel's major heroes (Human Torch, Captain America, Daredevil, and a few others) appear here. Wolverine also gets a cameo appearance on a billboard that states they're going to interview him.
• Would Hit a Girl: Rhino has no problem in attacking Black Cat.

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