The History Of Gaming, Part Nine: I Exert My Spider-Forgiveness! I Forgive Him & I Do No Damage!

We’re still on a Spider-Man 3 kick after I went to see it last night, and what better Spider-Man game is there in the entire universe than Questprobe, by the fantastic Scott Adams, adventure king?

Questprobe was something of an odd duck – text adventure games written about a selection of Marvel characters, in which they each had to get hold of a number of *gems – not gems – that had been secreted about the place by the Chief Examiner, a shadowy figure who just hung around like a deus ex machina and made life difficult. The first of these games was about the Hulk, my then-favourite superhero, and also had look-ins by Dr Strange and Ant-Man, two who I’ve come to love since then for their quirky charm. Unfortunately the game made no sense, existing as it did in a maze of bizarre domes, energy fields and context-less puzzles. And if you went North you were transported into a room with a *gem which you had to get and a ‘Natter Energy Egg’ that blew up and killed you if you did. Don’t take my word for it, it’s right here. You get past the first puzzle by biting your lip and releasing the rage-fuelled behemoth that Ang Lee managed to comprehensively screw up the film of. By making it pretentious, badly lit and overly complicated. How the christ do you make the Hulk overly complicated? It’s a guy who was blown up by a giant bomb and now hits things with his massive green fists. How is that not a cinematic wet dream? Shame on you, Ang Lee.

The second game was a lot better, as it was set in a recognisable place, and the puzzles made a degree of sense. This was, of course, Spider-Man, in which you must rescue the Daily Bugle from a consortium of spider-foes led by Mysterio. The Chief Examiner is still flitting around and there are still *gems involved in true Scott Adams style, but overall it’s a good, not-overly-difficult and fairly charming game. In which you get to fight Sandman. (Venom hadn’t been invented yet, and the Goblin was dead dead dead at the time, with his miraculous marketing-induced recovery still awaiting him in the future.)

This makes it THE FIRST EVER SPIDER-MAN 3 TIE-IN GAME.

Here is that incredible fight with Sandman in full:

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OH NOES evidently Spidey is still EMO SPIDEY for he does not know how to forgive! Actually, unlike the film you defeat Sandman not by making him cry so many tears that he turns into a mud creature but by walking on the ceiling, like Lionel Richie, so that he never even realises you’re there and continues having a nap in sand form.

Speaking of Lionel Richie:

WHAT SHALL I DO? dance on ceiling
I don’t know what a “on” is.

Spidey is pretty thick for the guy who invented web fluid. Let’s try that again:

WHAT SHALL I DO? dance ceiling
nothing special happens.

Another dream shattered. Thanks, Spidey.