For me, the words “Spider-Man 2” bring one thing to mind: pizza. Whether we’re looking at the iconic Tobey Maguire movie or the tie-in video game that followed, Spider-Man 2 is really all about pizza time.
As someone who grew up with Tobey Maguire as my original Spider-Man, I’ve got the lines from the first two movies in the trilogy devoted to memory. Because I’m also mildly obsessed with pizza, the “Pizza time!” meme that has come out of Tobey’s second movie is one of my all-time favorites, hands down. My husband once emblazoned it on a sign for me during my first half-marathon, and I’m not saying that poster was the entire reason I finished the race, but I’m not not saying it, either.
What does this have to do with Marvel’s upcoming Spider-Man 2 video game? I’m glad you asked because it has everything to do with my personal hopes and dreams for this latest addition to the Spider-Man video game universe. And, believe it or not, I’m not the only one.
2004’s Spider-Man 2 Looms Large in My Gamer Girl Heart
I’m a self-proclaimed nostalgia gamer, meaning I love to revisit games from my youth to see if I can recapture the magic I remember. Not too long ago, I jumped back into 2004’s Spider-Man 2, which I first played on PS2 and later revisited on an Xbox 360. The game features voice performances from much of the original cast, including my Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire, something I had forgotten until I booted it up for that pleasant surprise.
Clunky graphics and outdated references aside, the game holds up relatively well, and the console versions were incredibly well-received at the time. This probably explains why the game has lived rent-free in my mind for years.
Running around the open-world map of New York was a pretty revolutionary gaming experience back in the early aughts, and the side-quests were as entertaining as they were repetitive. I don’t care how many times I hear that panicked child shout about losing their balloon; I have to go and get it back for them. But my personal favorite mini-game? Grabbing pizzas and trying to make timely deliveries without trashing them by flipping around too much.
The Pizza Delivery Side Quest in 2004’s Spider-Man 2 Was Everything
Because I played this game in the days before you could easily connect with other gamers online, I had no idea whether other people were as obsessed as I was with the pizza delivery side quests. To this day, most of the folks I’ve met in real life just give me a weird look when I randomly wax poetic about this video game. But as the hype for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 game grows, all I can think about is that it needs to include pizza delivery.
And it turns out I’m probably not the only one. A few years ago, a gamer on Reddit tried to recreate the joy of pizza delivery by designing a version of the side quest for Marvel’s Spider-Man. Of course, the game doesn’t include actual pizzas, but rather a set of rules designed by the Redditor to get as close as possible to the 2004 Spider-Man’s mechanics for the delivery side quests.
Essentially, you pull up the Spider-Man Pizza Time theme from the 2004 game, which you can find on YouTube (please excuse me while I bookmark that immediately). Then, use the 1.5-minute video to time yourself traveling around the map to checkpoints similar to the ones where you delivered pizzas as Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man. You have to keep track of your flips and stunts because if you perform too many, you automatically “fail” the game, just like the side quest of yore.
This may be inventive and fun, but what it speaks to is the desperate plea of Spider-Man video game fans–bring back pizza time!
Last Time We Got a Pizza Theme Easter Egg. Now We Need the Real Thing
Marvel’s Spider-Man included one reference to the glory of pizza delivery in the older renditions of the games, and that was an Easter Egg that played the old “Pizza Theme.” If you travel in the first game to Little Italy and locate the Pizza Store, you’ll hear that sweet, sweet sound once more. Alas, you can’t actually go in and grab some za’s to deliver on time and in mint condition.
Speculation and leaks abound for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Still, the question on my mind is… will we get back the ability to sling through the city bringing pizza to its citizens as only your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man can?
