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

Best Comedy

• Punching Mysterio (Spider-Man 2, PS2/Xbox/GameCube versions)
• Social Media Posts (Marvel’s Spider-Man)
• The Tutorial Narrator (Spider-Man)
• Taunting the Human Torch (Ultimate Spider-Man)
• Giving Mary Jane Mysterio’s Helmet to Use as a Fishbowl (Spider-Man: Mysterio’s Menace)

Winner: Social Media Posts

These games are notably light-hearted because they’re, well, based on a sarcastically funny character. But there are a select few moments that are particularly hilarious, from shouting things like “Moon Knight is faster than you!” while you’re beating the Human Torch in a race, to completely out-of-nowhere color blind jokes in the tutorial section of the movie game. There’s also something iconic about Mysterio’s bluff, especially when his health bar is shown to be so comically huge that you actually might believe him.

But in the end, I have to reward something that seems to have a higher degree of difficulty throughout video games in general: Social media. For whatever reason, whenever any fake social media content is put into games, there is likely to be an intense amount of cringe (I’m looking at you, Kingdom Hearts III).

Miraculously, however, the PS4 edition manages to make its fictitious rendering of Twitter not seem like its littered with cops. I spent time to check on the feed every so often as I was playing, which is the last thing I would’ve expected from my time with the game.

Whether it be random, poignant social commentary like “#TheAristocraticMindMusical apparently we need more stories about how rich white people can be sad too”, a satire of J. Jonah Jameson’s account, glorious puns like “I wonder what Spider-Man does on his downtime/He’s all about surfing the web”, and even stuff like “Yoga pants are a gift to us all. So comfy for butts and eyes alike.”