Spider-Man Playthrough (Actual N64 Capture) - Part 1

[Note: This video and description were originally posted on Youtube on August 1, 2021.]

This is part 1 of my capture of me playing through Spider-Man for the Nintendo 64. This is not an emulator. This footage was recorded directly from my Nintendo 64 using an actual Spider-Man cartridge. I’m playing on hard difficulty.

Although I didn’t read comic books, I was a huge fan of the Spider-Man cartoon that aired on Fox in the mid ’90s, and I enjoyed the Spider-Man films from Sam Raimi. As a result, in 2002 I bought Spider-Man for the GameCube on a whim, and I ended up enjoying the game so much that I beat it multiple times on different difficulty levels. I later bought Spider-Man 2 for the GameCube and beat it multiple times as well.

Oddly though, for quite a while, I didn’t buy or even play the predecessor to those games: Spider-Man for the N64/PlayStation. Even though I had considered picking up the N64 version shortly after it came out (it made the cover of Nintendo Power magazine), I never got around to buying the game until 2015, when I finally purchased a sealed copy off eBay for a reasonable price.

Despite owning this game for several years, I’m just now getting around to playing it for the first time because of how busy I’ve been with all of my other playthroughs. But it is nice to finally play this game after all these years. This game actually got a sequel on the PlayStation, but sadly, it was never ported to the Nintendo 64.

This game supports the Expansion Pak, which I’m using, but I couldn’t find any specific information explaining how the game utilizes the extra system RAM, so I ran some comparisons with and without the Expansion Pak. I noticed that the Expansion made the game look a little sharper overall (fewer jagged edges), but scan lines were still present. Also, I noticed that the menu screens always displayed at a higher resolution of 480i, regardless of the Expansion Pak, similar to Vigilante 8.

Aside from the Expansion Pak support, one of the key differences between the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 versions of Spider-Man is that the N64 version has comic-book-style slideshows in between missions instead of full video cutscenes. This is obviously a result of cartridge space limitations. Some voice acting is still present though.

Since the game isn’t that tough, I’ll be completing it on hard difficulty. Also, there are hidden comic books to collect on some levels, and those unlock certain features, so I will be collecting those as well. The game is divided into 6 chapters spanning 34 levels. Since the levels are generally short, I’ll be uploading multiple levels in each video.

In this first part I completed Chapter 1: The Bank Heist.

Chapter: The Bank Heist

Level 1: Get to the Bank! - 3:50
Level 2: Bank Approach - 7:23
Level 3: Hostage Situation - 9:17
Level 4: Stop the Bomb! - 12:02

Recorded with the Hauppauge HD PVR 2 and the official N64 S-video cable. I'm using a standard N64 controller.