Ultimate Spider-Man (2005)
Before the Arkham series, Spider-Man was swinging around New York City’s open world without a care in the world. While Activision’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro seemed to get most of the praise, Ultimate Spider-Man should be remembered as the granddaddy of the 2000s. Possibly its biggest fault was that it was sandwiched in an era when a new Spidey game would get released almost yearly; therefore, cooling any sort of hype for it.
Visually, this is one of those titles that still hold up 12 years later. The character and set designs look like they were ripped right out of the comic books and the gameplay was outrageously fun. From the swinging around to the acrobatic attacks, this was the ultimate (no pun intended) Spider-Man game. To top it all off, it featured a whole host of bad guys to knock around and also some notable cameos, including the Human Torch and Wolverine.
As Stan Lee would say, “Excelsior!”