It's Spider-Man!! This is what I consider the first 'good' Spidey game, since he actually talks, not to mention the gameplay's good. Too bad they made a parasitic leech of a sequel that totally doesn't exist.
Spider-Man 2000 revolves around Spidey trying to hunt down an impostor who stole an invention of Doc Ock, framing him and setting off a whole chain of events that shrouds the city in mist and turns Spidey into Public Enemy #1.
- Takes no damage except when I did.
- Heavy glitch abuse. Like, a lot.
- Speed/entertainment tradeoffs.
- YURGOINGTOBEARAC-oh wrong game.
Two main versions of the game can be TASed, the N64 and PSX versions. While the PSX version is quite a bit more polished, I went with the N64 version for the better load times. Elsewise, every trick done in this run can be done on the PSX.
Basic Controls
Web Swinging
Web swinging is quite a bit more complicated then you would be led to believe. This was before the movie version of Spider-Man 2 revolutionized web swinging and then got promptly thrown out. In this game, web swinging is determined by Spidey's distance from a swingable object. For example, aiming for a far building makes Spidey swing long, but not fast. This is quite difficult to optimize as a result. If you see me ending a web swing early, it's usually to angle Spidey to focus on a new, faster, web-swinging target.
Another aspect of web swinging is a 'web zip', which is where Spidey shoots a line forwards and launches to that point. It's pretty fast, but wildly inconsistent to do outside of indoor areas.
Web Abilities
Spidey has 5 different web abilities.
The first is just plain old webbing, which can be used to hit faraway switches and stun enemies.
The second is web gloves, which gives Spidey a boost in strength for 2.6 combos (it runs out on the final hit of the second combo).
The third is Impact Webs, which lets Spidey shoot a ball of web at an enemy. It's quite similar to normal webbing, except it deals damage and also takes time to reach its target, which is useful for the random trick.
The fourth is the Web Dome, which protects Spidey in a dome of webbing that explodes after a certain amount of time or when a button is pressed. Used a whole once on some lizards.
Finally, there's the web yank. It's useless...............yeah.
Movement
The game does not use analog control, which means you have a whole 8 directions to experiment with. This makes movement more limited, but also much less complicated. The camera is also very limited because of this, only being able to swing behind Spidey when a button is pressed.
1. Get to the Bank!
First level in the game, pretty basic. A very minor clip is used on a ledge in order to skip a small amount of maneuvering to a building. I approach the building from the right side because it's about 10 frames faster then the left side.
2. Bank Approach
Climb up a building and Impact Web some goons, easy enough.
3. Hostage Situation
Now this is where stuff starts to get interesting. For some reason, holding UP and A at a specific point in the intro cutscene lets Spidey grab onto an invisible ceiling. From there, it is then possible to get out of bounds. Thanks to web-swinging, this can then be used to travel through the level in an unloaded state, which means everything except props and NPCs are unloaded. This makes it extremely easy to skip everything and rescue the hostages without any hassle.
4. Stop the Bomb!
A clip in the door lets me skip most of the level, simple enough. Swinging into the bank while it's closing is technically slower, but darn it it's too good to not keep (Time loss of about 8-10 frames).
5. Race to the Bugle
Outdoors again. Doing a route that completely skips climbing most of the buildings is completely impossible outside of TASing, by the way.
6. Spidey vs. Scorpion!
This fight is very interesting. I hit Scorpion right as he strikes JJJ for two reasons. The first is that it keeps JJJ stunned for a second or two longer, and the second is it gives me enough time to put on web gloves. This culminates in Scorpion running straight into JJJ, which locks both of them in place and prevents Scorpion from counterattacking me. After that it's child's play.
7. Police Chopper Chase
Helicopters.....yay. Not much to say, it's pretty straightforward, run from the choppers.
8. Missile Attack
The cops are super serious now, blowing up a decrepit building and all. Forgot to mention, pressing B lets Spidey web zip upwards, which can be used to skip large sections of climbing the building.
9. Building Top Chase
More running from choppers. Shocker.
10. Scale the Girders
More climbing. You don't actually need to land on the box at the end of the level, you just need to swing nearby it and then fall. Saves some time.
11. Police Evaded
These cops at least have better aim then stormtroopers. They grazed me a whole once.
12. Spidey vs. Rhino!
Poor old Rhino. With careful positioning, you can get Rhino stuck behind some barrels, letting me pummel him into submission without resistance.
13. Catch Venom
The first part of this level is actually timed, as you need Venom to reach the end around the same time as you elsewise the entire sequence implodes on itself. After you exit the building you can just rush to the end since the cutscene doesn't actually need Venom there at all.
14. Spidey vs. Venom!
Basic fight, after 3 hits of anything Venom will fade out and back in. Not much else to say.
15. Sewer Entrance
Start of the longest section in the game. You can't swing on the black goo, so jumping is the next best thing. Not much else to say.
16. Sewer Cavern
You're supposed to use Z-targeting for some of the web-swinging, but that's slow so I skip it all.
17. Subway
A 3 minute autoscroller, thanks game.
18. Sewage Plant
An extremely accurate web swing lets me skip by a gate, letting me skip the entire level.
19. Hidden Switches
They put the end level trigger OOB, which I can so helpfully get to thanks to a weak wall. They sure do know how to bug test.
20. Tunnel Crawl
Getting all those consecutive web zips in the tunnel is impossible RTA, needless to say.
21. Venom's Puzzle
Look at the big brain on Spidey :s
22. The Lizard's Maze
Pretty straightforward. For some reason I get OOB towards the end. I have no clue how.
23. Spidey vs. Venom Again!
Same as last time, only we have Mary Jane complaining about drowning or whatever. What a drama queen.
24. Symbiotes Infest Bugle
Is this gonna be a standup fight, sir, or another bughunt?
25. Elevator Descent
Have to wait for the elevator to destroy the symbiote webbing, but luckily they were sane about it this time.
26. Stop the Presses
I destroy the first two symbiote generators in order to get a door to open, which I then use to clip OOB and skip the rest of the level.
27. Bugle's Basement
Small trick towards the end skips the imposter cutscene, which saves quite a lot of time.
28. Spidey vs. Mysterio!
They didn't even fucking try with this one.
29. Waterfront Warehouse
Probably my favorite OOB skip in this game here.
30. Underwater Trench
Swing forward, the level. In harder difficulties those walkways don't exist btw.
31. Stopping the Fog
Another basic level, just hit switches. You can't skip the cutscene at the end, but hey it's not that bad.
32. Spidey vs. Doc Ock!
Doc's switches can be activated much sooner then you would think. Saves lots of time.
33. Spidey vs. Carnage!
Wow a fight even easier then Mysterio. Knock him into the sonic generator and impact web him for days.
34. Spidey vs. Monster-Ock!
As long as you stay ahead of him, he'll be doing some Mario Kart shit behind you to keep up. This means you have to wait for him to reach the end trigger before the level ends. Lame. You also can't run out of webbing in this level, thank goodness.
Final input is skipping the last cutscene. In case you're wondering why Symbiote Spider-Man is in the credits, you unlock him by beating the game without running out of webbing.
Q/A
Q: How long did this take you, 3 days? kappa
A: Two weeks, on and off. Got a work ethic like you wouldn't believe.
Q: Why is this on Easy Mode?
A: Easy Mode changes some things, the biggest of which is allowing Spidey to rescue hostages by simply being near them, which makes the OOB level 3 strat possible. It also gives Spidey more webbing at the beginning and some slightly easier platforming in the later levels.
Q: This is a TAS and u should be doing this on Hard Mode. I'm going to write a post about this!
A: k I'll just ignore you.
Q: Is this optimized?
A: Except for some speed/entertainment tradeoffs, yes.
Thanks
Thanks to Samsara, xy2, Spikestuff, Mothrayas, Solarplex, Masterjun, and Nahoc for showing interest in this project.
Suggested Screenshot
ars4326: Hi again, arandomgameTASer. All in all, entertaining run! The precision web slinging along with the frequent OOB clipping were elements that really stood out here. Nice work!
Accepting for publication to Moons!
