This 24-Year-Old Spider-Man Game Has One of the Best Things From Any Marvel Game

2002’s Spider-Man was a massive game-changer in the world of pop culture. Although the cinematic superhero genre had been revitalized by the success of Blade and X-Men, the massive turnout for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man truly revitalized the genre — and laid the groundwork for the massive influx of superhero stories that began to appear across film, television, and games. This includes adaptations of the Spider-Man films by Raimi, featuring stars from the film.

While Spider-Man 2 might be the better remembered game thanks to its terrific web-swinging mechanic and open-world exploration, the first Spider-Man tie-in to the movies also had a fantastic advantage: Bruce Campbell. Playing the unseen narrator of the game’s tutorial mission, the goofy sense of humor and playful banter of the tutorial mission remain a highlight of the entire adaptation trilogy. In fact, the establishment of a lighter superhero tone accompanied by the actual tutorial is something other Marvel games should try to replicate.

Bruce Campbell’s Narration In Is A Treat That Some Players May Have Missed

Released April 16, 2002, the tutorial for Spider-Man lends the game a great sense of comedy from the jump. Bruce Campbell’s narration immediately pokes fun at the conventions of tutorials, noting that no one wants to play them, but you have to learn somewhere. Throughout it all, Campbell delivers some great gags, all cheekily poking fun at players, Spider-Man, and gaming conventions as a whole. It’s very silly, with the kind of dry delivery that JK Simmons would later bring to Cave Johnson in Portal 2. It’s a delight, to the point where the tutorial is worth playing even if you already know the basic mechanics.

As the narrator, Campbell gets to underscore the lighter feeling of the game compared to the film, with a goofy approach that delivers some genuinely great gags. Campbell would return for the adaptations of Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, but it’s his first turn as the narrator that still stands out the most. There’s a dryness to the approach that feels perfectly attuned to Campbell’s public persona and the snarky asides his characters are always delivering. While the tutorial does do a good job of laying out the controls and mechanics, it also slips in a few verbal puns and sly pieces of wordplay for the sake of a good laugh. It livens up a mode that is typically forgettable at best, making the tutorial section one of the more memorable aspects of a game that would be quickly overshadowed in history by its sequel. Beyond that, though, there’s another layer to the narration that makes it perfect for a Marvel video game.

More Marvel Games Need To Remember To Have As Much Fun As Bruce Campbell Is Having

The Marvel Universe is, at its core, a very silly space. It’s a place where super soldiers from World War II can brush shoulders with Asgardian Gods and practicing sorcerers without anyone really batting an eye. It’s a place where Dracula can co-exist with talking raccoons from outer space. There’s an inherently absurd sense of invention and whimsy baked into the underlying worldbuilding of the franchise, which is reflected in the best adaptations of the comics. Marvel doesn’t quite feel like Marvel if it isn’t aware of the ridiculous elements and can poke fun at itself. That’s the spirit inherent to Bruce Campbell’s appearance in the Spider-Man games, a sense of goofy knowledge about the inherent premise and presentation that never feels anything less than full-throated and authentic.

Campbell, who similarly had the right tone for his appearances in Marvel films like the Spider-Man trilogy or Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, understands that the series is meant to be a little silly. The tutorial reflects that, a goofy run-down of the game’s basic mechanics that is nevertheless entertaining for the little jabs and gags that Campbell slips throughout. Other Marvel games have come out in the years since, many of them great in their own right. However, something like the Campbell intro could be an asset to many of them, lending a sense of snark and fun to the game from jump.

It doesn’t need to be Campbell every time, either, just someone who can deliver some very goofy and self-aware jokes with the right level of charm and snark. This is also different from the surface-level sarcasm of characters in games like Marvel Rivals or Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Campbell’s narration was odd, goofy, and hilarious — and it helped establish the game’s overall tone with relative ease. Honestly, with how snarky most Marvel games are to reflect the typical tone of the franchise, these kinds of beats might be a perfect intro to the world players are stepping into. More than just establishing controls and gameplay mechanics, the narration to the tutorials in Spider-Man establishes the personality and the tone of the world incredibly well.