If you ever wondered what the very first video game to feature Spider-Man was, wonder no more; it was this Atari 2600 game, released in 1982.

There’s probably no starker evidence of just how far games have come than looking at this and comparing it to Spider-Man games over the years; it’s frankly incredible to see this game alongside the latest Spider-Man games for PS5, for example.

Despite its age and hardware-necessitated minimalism, this Parker Brothers-published Spidey game is surprisingly addictive, with an arcade simplicity and the game wrapped around a single mechanic.

Web swinging is a facet of Spidey’s powers that many games have struggled to get right over the years; here, the entire game is built around it.

Spider-Man himself is so strongly stuck to the wall of the building that his only means of movement is firing a web, then pulling himself up the thread.

He starts at the bottom of a building, and must fire webs straight or diagonally up to scale it.

Criminals randomly appear at windows and you can’t fire your web into or through them, but you do get points if you touch them as you move (or ‘apprehend’ them!).

When you get far enough up the building, you reach a section that’s still under construction, made of girders and upon which bombs are primed to explode.

Just like the criminals, you can’t fire your web so that it goes onto or through the bombs, but if you can touch them on your way up, you’ll defuse them for a decent amount of bonus points (though they don’t hang around for long, being primed to explode pretty quickly.

Even further up and just prior to the level’s exit is the Green Goblin himself; though he’s pretty laid back and easy to avoid on the game’s opening levels, he does become much more difficult to deal with as you progress.

That is, if you can progress.

Like just about any game of its time, Spider-Man is incredibly challenging.

Even firing your web successfully is really difficult, and your supply of web fluid is limited, acting as a sort of timer; it drains when you fire it and when you’re falling, which will happen often.

Despite this, the arcade purity of the game’s mechanics makes it incredibly compelling, almost strangely so in fact.

I’m always so fascinated with the results programmers got from the Atari 2600 and its limited power, as well as the ingenuity of the mechanics they used to differentiate games, despite the fact that they were dealing with a bunch of blocks, barely even pixels.

As dated and basic as Atari 2600 games are, Spider-Man included, I still find them not just nostalgic, but incredibly addictive, despite (or perhaps because) they’re often just high score chases.

Spider-Man is no different, it’s a fun little game and its pick up and play nature, arcade style immediacy and instant restarts (no loading here!) give it a one-more-go addictiveness that’s hard to resist.

It even has an admirable attempt at the classic Spider-Man theme tune, though it doesn’t quite get there.

Just in case you’re wondering, it works perfectly on the Atari 2600+ too, so if you’re hankering for some proper old school superhero action on your new/old console, it’s not costly or difficult to get your hands on Spider-Man.