Ever since the day’s of Atari, there have always been poorly made products that only sell because of a particular license associated with them. It’s been an industry trend for quite a long while, and despite how annoying the trend is, casual gamers have still not wised up to the "licensed crap" ploy. Because of this, Naki has felt free to release the Spider-Pad, that despite it’s connection with the coolest Superhero ever, is still a pretty shoddy product.
The first problem with the Spider-Pad, that will become painfully obvious to you the second you start playing, is how oversensitive the joysticks are. Every time you merely breathe on the joystick, whatever you’re controlling on the screen will instantly turn in that direction. Such over sensitivity is not to be treasured either, as games that require precise joystick movements are nearly impossible to play.
The game’s triggers are exactly the opposite of the joysticks however, as their main problem is how insensitive they are. Many times while you’re playing games that require the trigger buttons, you’ll be constantly frustrated by the fact that you are jamming on the shoulder button, yet your in-game character isn’t doing the action specific to that trigger.
Like the trigger controls, the button layout is also an unwelcome chore. While Naki did make an admirable attempt to make the Y, B, A, X buttons more accessible than the common Xbox controller, the fact is that Naki basically made the buttons too close together. Even with my relatively small teenage hands, I was having trouble pressing one and only button at once, as I constantly hit two buttons when I only wanted to hit one.
The other lesser used buttons, Black, White, Start, and Back, also have their collection of problems. Sure, it looks snazzy to have the Start and Back buttons right in the middle of the white spider on the gamepad, but trying to reach those buttons is about as impossible as justifying Brendan Fraser as a good actor (no exaggeration.) Fortunately, such is not the case with the black and white buttons at the top right corner of the gamepad, seeing that both buttons are easy to reach. Still though, how often do you really use those buttons in games?
When it all comes down to it, The Spider-Pad isn’t that great of a controller despite the cool design. The button layout is weak, and the triggers and joysticks suffer from sensitivity problems. Diehard Spider-Man merchandise collectors should take notice. The other 99.8% of the gaming population should steer clear.