Spider-Man 2
Activision | PS2, Xbox, GameCube

People who never played very far into this near-perfect Spider-Man simulator like to talk about its "web-swinging mechanics" and how realistic it felt to rocket through the game's full-sized mockup of Manhattan. They also like to talk about how big and seamless the city was, and about how exhilarating it was to leap, crawl and swing around its skyscrapers with complete freedom to ignore whatever street crime was going on just below.

And yeah, all that was really, really awesome. But not as awesome as this:

Put simply, no other movie game captures the experience of being a superhero like Spider-Man 2 did. All the non-movie subplots (Black Cat as a love interest! Silly boss fight with Mysterio!) and snarky narration by Bruce Campbell were pretty cool, too, giving the game its own distinct atmosphere, independent of the movie. We could have done without the phoned-in "I am Spider-Man and I have something else going on in an hour so give me my check now please" performance from Tobey Maguire, but this hit most of the right notes regardless.