Spiderman - PSX - Activision - £29.99 - Out Now.

Spiderman, Spiderman does everything a spider can…nah nah nahh!!!!! POW! Take that! ZAPPP! I've got you this time Doctor Octopus... (EDITOR'S NOTE: GET ON WITH THE REVIEW!) Ahem. Ok, I s'pose I was a little bit sidetracked there; but it's just that I've always wanted to be Spiderman - Marvel comic's web-slingin', wall-crawling superhero. Gee, just imagine how cool it would be to shoot webs from your hand, or to crawl on the ceiling…yup, you'd even get to wear a cool red and blue all-in-one leotard.

Alright, enough of the daydreaming, so what's Spiderman like on the Playstation? Let's face it, most attempts to translate comic superheroes to our console's have mostly failed - just think of the disastrous N64 Superman or the uninspiring Playstation X-Men beat-em-up's. The main problem with these type of games is that that they fail to get across the feeling of actually being a superhero. We want to be in control of someone who can do anything! But more often than not, comic-book licenses limit what we can do meaning they're often frustrating and boring.

Spiderman is different though. Employing the same game engine as Tony Hawk's Skateboarding (meaning smooth, glitch-free 3D environments), it's one of the few Superhero games that really captures what it must be like to be good ol' Spidey. Split up into a series of totally diverse comic-story based missions, you must get away from helicopter gunships, fight Spidey's arch-enemies (Venom, Doctor Octopus and Rhinoceros), free hostages, scale huge buildings and generally live out all your Spiderman fantasies!

The presentation is great, and everything looks and sounds exactly like it should - so I'm sure the Spiderman anoraks out there would give it the seal (or web) of approval. Most importantly though, it plays brilliantly; with an intuitive control method and a great learning curve that'll keep you gripped until the end (which perhaps comes just a little too quickly?). The sound effects are also excellent, and to top it all off; Spiderman creator Stan Lee provides the narration as the stories in the game unfold - POW!

So I reckon that it's hat's off to Activision and developers Neversoft, for finally producing a game which captures the spirit and excitement of being one of the greatest superheroes around. And maybe (like me) you'll come away from the screen still thinking you can climb on the ceiling…erm, or maybe not. (I'm still nursing the bruises)

- Eddy Vista