The Amazing Spider-Man: Web of Fire (32X) Playthrough - NintendoComplete

A playthrough of Sega's 1996 license-based action game for the Sega 32X, The Amazing Spider-Man: Web of Fire.

Played through on the normal difficulty level.

As the only game to be launched for the system in 1996, The Amazing Spider-Man: Web of Fire was set to be the ill-fated 32X add-on's final official release. The game was developed by BlueSky, a Sega US-based studio that had recently hit its stride with a slew of well-received Genesis games including World Series Baseball, Vectorman, Shadowrun, and Jurassic Park, and hopes were high for it. With little on the horizon to look forward to for 32X owners, a game based on a high profile license and made by a well-respected developer was somewhat eagerly anticipated.

Web of Fire tasks Spidey with saving New York City from Hydra, an organization that has created a laser grid in the city's skies in an attempt to hold it hostage for an exorbitant ransom. In the world of Web of Fire, roads and waterways apparently mean little.

You begin by web-slinging your way across the NY skyline to rescue DareDevil (who can then be summoned as a special attack), and from there you fight your way through armies of Hydra's minions across the George Washington Bridge, through an oil refinery and a power plant, and onboard the enemy zeppelin before making a final raid on Htdra's headquarters.

The gameplay is fairly standard for a superhero action game of the time - you use basic combos to beat up the bad guys, and you can bind them with your webbing to prevent them from fighting back. The first and final stages provide plenty of open space that allows Spiderman to go zipping about, but the majority of the stages are linear affairs made up of winding hallways and cramped rooms, effectively neutering most of the appeal of playing as such a character as Spiderman. The stages also tend to be fairly bland - there aren't any cool set-pieces to spice up the action, and the backdrops are all garden-variety industrial settings, and the fact that you'll only see four or five enemy types across the enrire game does little to add any variety to the experience.

The game mechanics work well enough, but everything feels a bit too bare bones here. The combat is too simple, and the game quickly becomes frustrating thanks to the enemies taking far too many hits to kill. Spider-Man's tendency to stick to any surface that can kill him becomes a problem, too: good luck getting through the refinery stage without getting fried on a burning pipe that you latched on to, probably because you didn't see it blending into the rest of the dingy background. The first stage gives a reasonably good impression - it is fun to fly around for a few minutes - but this is the only time you really get to have fun like this. Any enjoyment that might've been mined from the final stage's web-swinging section is ruined by the ridiculous time limit and a general lack of web refill items.

The graphics and sound are a bit of a mixed bag, too. The 32X's larger color palette is put to good use here, and the prerendered sprites look great, but everything is dark and dreary looking. The music is fine - the synths can be a bit harsh, but they do compliment the gritty look of the graphics.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Web of Fire is a game that should have been something special, but it feels entirely half-baked. I can help but think that with more time it could've been fleshed out and refined, but the lack of moves and enemy types, the simplistic-to-a-fault level design, and the abrupt ending all smack of a project that was only half-finished - one that was published to recoup costs once the development team realized that the 32X ship was sinking fast. It's not a particularly bad game, but it is an extremely disappointing one - especially when you consider how good Sega's earlier Spider-Man's games tended to be.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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