In the middle of that pandemonium was Spider-Man. That left major titles like the brilliant Final Fantasy IX, the true cult classic Vagrant Story, the all-time great Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, and even big-name sequels like Driver 2 fighting for the affection – and money – of gamers who were just marking the days until the PlayStation 2 arrived. Indeed, many PlayStation games released in 2000 failed to garner the attention that they might have otherwise received had they arrived a year or two prior. Sega’s beloved final console wasn’t the only victim of PlayStation hype, though. While the PlayStation 2 wouldn’t be released in North America until October 2000 – and Europe in November 2000 – the mere allure of its arrival was strong enough to effectively kill Sega’s Dreamcast, which had launched just one year prior. By the time that Spider-Man for the PlayStation was released in North America, the PlayStation 2 had already been released in Japan and was generating the kind of hype worthy of a system that would go on to become the best-selling video game console of all-time. Yet, the most important name in this chronological conundrum is PlayStation. Marvel, meanwhile, was still trying to recover from its December 1996 bankruptcy filing and had begun looking for more ways to expand the brand (which included the release of the historically important superhero films, Blade and X-Men). Publisher Activision had begun making some of the acquisitions that would eventually turn it into one of the most successful game publishers in the world. Developer Neversoft had just released the revolutionary T ony Hawk’s Pro Skater the year before and hadn’t yet become a studio largely responsible for pumping out skateboarding sequels. Released in North America on Aug(and later ported to the N64, Dreamcast, PC, and Game Boy Color), Spider-Man was released at a time of transition for pretty much everyone involved with the project.
It’s also a big part of the reason why 2000’s Spider-Man for PlayStation isn’t often remembered as one of the greatest superhero games of all-time.
It’s a plague disguised as a trend that robs some games of their legacy.
That might sound like a strange warning, but without fail, the final years of a console yield truly great games that fail to attract the attention they deserve. As we are apparently entering the final days of the current console generation, now is a good time to remind gamers everywhere to not stare so intently at the future that you end up overlooking some of this generation’s best titles.
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