Does the VE have a ramp entrance protector on the left side of the right ramp? If not, you better get one.

I was not sure if the colored webs were ever included on a factory run or not. I thought they might have been (as Steve Ritchie was selling them as an add-on on his own website for awhile....and that makes them seem somewhat official), but it seems we have conflicting reports on this. Maybe late run international games got them but not North America???

Here is a better alternative:

http://passionforpinball.com/tourney.htm

You don't want a tourney button on the lockdown bar where you are always bumping it on accident or having to disconnect, run the wire through the lockdown bar receiver just to remove the lockdown bar and then going through the reverse process to put the lockdown bar back on and reconnect the button. After having to resolder my tourney button wires for the second time I thought....."There has to be a better way!"....and there is: Add the button to your coindoor in it's own recessed hole and forget about the ongoing hassles of having the button on the lockdown bar and it's disconnecting and reconnecting hassle every time you want to remove the lockdown bar.

I'm not only an endorser..... I'm a partial inventor of it. Dougie's first mod idea and it's still on my Black Spider-Man to this very day.

Doug (SpeakerLightKits.com)
dougspidey2 (resized).JPG

Well they started adding a recessed square hole right under the start button for the tourney button in later SAM / SPIKE 1 games. On SPIKE 2 games they still have a hole for the tourney button under that start button, but it's not recessed....so it makes it so if you add the "classic" tourney start button on them.....they stick out and look like they shouldn't be there.

What Stern needs to do now is to make a low profile "Tournament Start" button that is made like their SPIKE 2 "Start" buttons. There is an ongoing discussion on that here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-tournament-button-spike-system-2

Also.....I believe the tourney button was only included on Black Spider-Man from the factory.......and possibly Canadian or international games as it seems they still include them on Canadian games where the US games get the blank hole under the start button. Who knows how Canada negotiated this special treatment.

The games that have the cabinets made with the square, recessed holes under the start button seem to be the best solution in my opinion. What I never understood was when people with those style of games would deck out their games with hundreds of dollars of mods and not pay the $5 to add the tourney button to fill the ugly square hole that was made for it. Even if you don't hook it up.......it still looks better than a blank, black plug in a hole. Also....those tourney systems used to cost hundreds of dollars extra as an add-on item from Stern. Now they are built into the game system. You might as well spring the extra $5 for the button to have the option to use it.

I think, or thought, Little Shop of Games, but I don't see them on their website. I see some other related things they used to have listed not on their site anymore so maybe they were the ones that had them, but stopped. So, I'm not sure, but I think the Spider Bods belonged to them.

Well, It's not really meant to slow the ball down as much as keep it against the rail on the right side. If the ball is already hugging the rail on the right (or have some speed on it)...it probably won't hit the gate at all.

They are 44 / 47 bulbs.

I would go with the original...colored incandescent bulbs (blue and yellow). They are the best of both worlds in my opinion. They look good when they are not on and the look good when they are on. Classy is really how I would describe colored incandescent bulbs. I don't like the cheap look of the condoms or the white domes on direct view indicator LED lights. Also...some LEDs won't fit in the Venom and Sandman mode indicator locations as the bulbs can be fatter than the holes in the backboard.

https://www.pinballlife.com/colored-incandescent-bulbs.html

As for the back row of lights, they were originally white...and I can't see any reason they would be anything else. I can see a person switching them to LEDs, but I would keep them white, but may make sure to go with a warm or "sunlight" white to go along with the backboards skyline theme.

I've had my game for 10+ years and I still don't understand what they (or the spider sense lane) do.

Still a bit vague. Was it lit during the multiball? Before the multiball? What was running before the mutiball? Was anything running before it? Were the targets complete before but not during the multiball?

If the red Spider Sense insert is lit during a multiball and you hit it...it should be an add a ball in my opinion. I never count on it to do anything as I have been disappointed too many times by it not being the add a ball during multiball....and it's not like I can hit it on purpose anyway. Of course...Spidey was made in a time before add a ball was the norm for so many multiballs.

I had asked many people about how it worked and their understanding was about how it is described...it does some stuff. It does different stuff at different times. Enjoy your "whatever prize" for a ball randomly going in there when it was lit. I never felt enough curiosity to pull the glass and look into it, but now I'm wonder..... like when they say it has to be completed during multiball to be an add a ball.....do they mean the target bank has to be FINISHED OFF during that multiball or ALL 3 DIFFERENT TARGETS NEED TO BE HIT DURING the multiball? If all 3 need to be hit during...what if 1 is lit when the mb starts...do you need to finish those last 2 off AND THEN complete it again to get the add a ball?

The whole "The awards are added in order from the earliest-started-mode to the latest." is what confuses me the most. So what if I start Sandman, then GG and then start start Doc Ock MB. Do I really have to complete that 3 bank 3 times to qualify the add a ball?!? I think it being a generic "mystery award" when completed would have been better. With the award being sensitive (get it...Spider sense) to what is running at the time. That is pretty much how the X-Men mystery award at the scoop is. If it's during a timed mode it is usually extra time, if it is during a multi-ball it is add a ball. If you haven't started the multiball and are not in a timed mode it may count as a locked ball. I can see the disadvantage Spider-man has in this aspect is the ball is not held there so it would be hard to let the player know what they got. Kinda like the shield awards on Iron Man....no time to look up at the screen, but at least I think it always tells you what you were awarded.

All and all...not a big deal, but the Spider Sense lane has always been the part of the game I understand the least. The game is not perfect (snoozefest attract light show....sadly the boot rom has a better attract mode than the game itself does, poor instant info...how many black suit balls do I have locked and a confusing Spider Sense lane), but it's more than perfect enough for me and I don't see myself ever getting rid of it.

I know he was still putting them out fairly regularly when I got my game in 2009 (2 years after the game was released). The last update (I'm not sure when it snuck out) was long after everyone through it was finished. The weird thing about the last update was it had no read me file and the only thing that folks noticed as being different was the web animations when the ball is in the pop bumpers. That animation only being in the newest code revision makes for an easy tell if a game is on the newest code or not.

I was actually expecting / hoping the better instant info would be added at one point, but I gave up on that long ago. To be honest, I find the lack of a "number of balls locked" indicator to be a design oversight as much as a software oversight. 2 indicator lights somewhere, is what the game should have had to show how many black suit balls you have locked.

Not so fun fact: Spider-Man is no longer listed on Stern's website and therefore they do not have a link to download the code for it. The vault edition is there, but as we know, the code for it is not compatible with the original Spider-Man. So as far as I can see, this is the only Stern game that they do not have the code (or manual) posted for.

OOoooooooo a direct link to the download. Sneaky!

I have the latest code...I just think it's strange and a shame that Spider-Man is the only Stern game to not be listed or have it's manual or code linked to on their site. It's like they said...."Get out of here old Spider-Man....we only want the new vault edition Spider-Man around here!".

Each villain already has a separate insert light showing how many of their modes you have beat. Worrying about a nearly indistinguishable difference in those lights is absurd in my opinion. Even with the incandescent lights in the villain inserts....who can look at the Green Goblin light and know if you have beat only 1 or all 3 modes? Why not just look at the mode lights instead of guessing?

As for the white arrow multipliers....they disappear after each ball, so I can't imagine forgetting what multiplayer I have on any given shot. I've never had more than 2 going at any given time (a 2x and a 3x) so maybe me being a poor player and not cutting through 2 or 3 white arrow modes in one ball makes keeping track easier for me. In any case....it's much easier to forget how many black suit multiball balls you have locked from ball to ball than keeping track of 2x and 3x multiplier shots during the same ball. Also, if I do have a 2x and a 3x lit....you can actually see they are lit differently, even with LED bulbs (the ones i have in my game anyway).

As I just described.... it sounds like I have the same type of LED bulbs that you have described. I bought them many years ago from Germany.... NoFlix from Pinball Center. I don't usually pay much attention to the villain inserts, but I know on the white arrow inserts you can see the difference between the 2x and 3x multiplied shots by the way the bulbs light up differently.

I don't know if I have ever snuck a Sandman "knock out blow" shot in from the top. As for multiple balls getting clogged up in Sandman....yeah...I usually enjoy that a bit too much. I like to yell obscenities at it like "choke on that b1sh!" or "spit em' out M.F.er!". I find it adds to my enjoyment of the situation.

It's pretty easy for the ramp (I forget which one) to get broken even with the blue nubs in place. If I remember correctly the game came with 3 out of the 4 ramp protectors (the metal pieces on the sides of the ramp entrances) when the game shipped. Why they put 3 on there and left the 4th one off....who knows. I'm sure they save a $1 or less and have sold a shed ton of ramps because of it. Anyway...I can't even remember which one it was. I have all 4 now, but remember one of them being an aftermarket add-on.

I have never ever had one bounce out of the right side.....or ever heard of such a thing. That even being possible never even crossed my mind.

I have heard of issues with the ball coming back out of the entrance and used to see that issue quite often....but after adding the drop dead foam...I can say I never remember it happening again. It's like a non-issue that was so completely fixed I forget all about it unless playing on someone else's game that doesn't have the foam added. It also seems that most games I play have the foam added or some sort of fix.

They call it drop dead foam. Pinbits sold it....it looks like their website is out of commission at the moment. They are just round discs of foam that you can peel one side off and stick in place.

I used a full disc on the top of the scoop plate and another half circle (and then some) in the back of the playfield cutout in that area.

I also remember using one in the lock area, as the ball would hit the popup pin to be locked, but hit the ball guide on the lower side of the back lane and bounce out of the lock area instead up rolling into the VUK. The foam disc fixed that also.

IMG_5203 (resized).JPG

IMG_5204 (resized).JPG

I see this place has what they call drop dead foam....it looks like the same stuff, but in different shapes. I'm just not sure if all of those pieces have the peel and stick backing or not. If they do....you should be able to cut those pieces to do the job and have plenty left over for possible uses in other games or needed areas.

https://shop.thepinwitch.com/Geraetespezifisches/Capcom/Big-Bang-Bar/Big-Bang-Bar---Dead-Drop-Foam-Kit.html

I'm not sure what plastic you are talking about, but if it is the Sandman vs Spiderman plastic that is just left of the pop bumper area....here is a thread about it and a protector for it:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/poll-is-your-sandman-vs-spider-man-plastic-broken

I think it is easily the most broken plastic in Spider-Man and many people either don't know theirs is broken...or in denial about it being broken. Pinbits used to include it in one of their plastic protectors sets, but then later pulled it. It was a bit of a pill to put in, but it is very much needed as the Sandman webslinger aiming the speeding ball right at that plastic is just asking for it.

One was designed and sold separately at:

https://www.fabunlimited.com/pinball

, but I do not see it listed with his pinball parts now. I would suspect you may be able to contact Jason at Fabrication Unlimited and he would maybe make one for you.

I didn't know they officially did an upgrade / fix for this. I used some "drop dead" foam back there (and in the Doc Ock hole) to prevent bounce outs off of the diverter post.

No....I was just looking as I was talking about it with some of my friends recently too. No luck. I would expect there would be a substitute as it was just a stiff, stick-on foam, but I don't know what it would be or where to get it.

It works great in the Doc Ock hole though.....0 bounce outs since I padded it up.

When going to check on my Combo record....I noticed the original battery had finally pooped out on my Black Spider-Man. I bought it in June of 2009 but don't have the manufacture date written down.

I've got 2 and, I think 3, in there before and after some struggling...it has always got them cleared out. I kinda like it. I usually yell "Choak on it!" when it happens.

Looks like he has them listed individually on his website. None of the ones listed are clear though. I'm expecting if someone contacted him, he could hook them up if that is what they were wanting.

https://www.fabunlimited.com/pinball/stern-spiderman-colored-webs