Spider-Man Game Awards: Ranking the best parts of Spider-Man video games

One of the most prominent figures in pop culture, Spider-Man has had a lengthy history of video game adaptations. To honor the wall crawler’s most splendid — and sometimes not-so-splendid — moments throughout video game history, we created a multi-faceted award’s show, of sorts.

I love Spider-Man more than most things in life. From the days of my reading the Ultimate run of comics, to the films starring Tobey Maguire in the early 2000s, the character captured my imagination and helped fill a void that my adolescent-self struggled to fill. He was, in a way, my best friend.

Even to this day, I anticipate every major release of the franchise and treat it like a national holiday, no matter if it’s movies, comics, TV episodes and, of course, video games. With the release of Far From Home, I figured now was a good enough excuse to reflect on all of the various web-slinger games that the industry has produced over so, so, so many years.

These are the Spider-Man Game Awards. Potential spoilers ahead!

Best Portable/Handheld Game

• Ultimate Spider-Man: Total Mayhem (iOS, Android)
• Spider-Man (GBA)
• Spider-Man Unlimited (iOS, Android)
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (iOS, Android)
• Spider-Man: Mysterio’s Menace (GBA)

Winner: Ultimate Spider-Man: Total Mayhem

To make people squirm, I thought about counting Insomniac’s entry as being eligible when it’s played using the remote play feature on the PlayStation Vita, but even a conniving weasel like myself has a limit. I also strongly considered giving Unlimited this award solely for the sheer amount of playable characters the game has, but an endless runner — albeit an excellent one — didn’t seem like a worthy enough recipient. With those notes, deciding this award was quite easy.

While people may sometimes scoff at developer Gameloft, there’s no doubt they release relatively high-quality games on mobile devices. Total Mayhem is one of those such games, as it provides some excellent combat and boss fights featuring Spidey’s greatest enemies. The combat is actually similar to 2008’s Web of Shadows but somehow feels a lot more satisfying than that game (Forewarning: I’m an anti-Web of Shadows guy).

Total Mayhem even gave you the option of donning the symbiote suit once you beat the game, and since it contained different animations and abilities, this added an additional layer of replay value to an already substantial experience.