SPIDER-MAN 3™
WALL CRAWL RACE GAME

Spider-Man 3™ Wall Crawl Race Game, retail $21.99 (www.toysrus.com...)
Manufactured by MGA Entertainment® (www.mgae.com)
Last updated 05-27-07




This is the game many of us have seen on television in comercials on Saturday mornings.

The object of this game is to get your Spiderman (also known as "Spidey" - I used to have a pet spider named Spidey! ) up to the top before the other player does. This is accomplished by shooting at a target on the product (there are two: one for your player and one for the other player) with a laser on a device designed to be fitted to your wrist; this allows a motorised mechanism in the door unit to "reel in" the Spiderman figure. The better you can keep the laser spot on the sensor, the more quickly your Spiderman will reach the top. The game is over when one of the two Spiderman figures reaches the top, a red LED lights on that side, the Spiderman at the top stops briefly, and both figures automatically descend to the bottom.

The lasers in this product were what prompted me to purchase one for this website sakes.

The lasers are directly-injected red diode lasers.


SIZE



install four AA cells in the large "Wall Crawl" unit first, and then you can go race your Spideys.

Slide this unit over the top of an open door (1.0" to 1.5" thick only).

Slide the switch on the top of the horizontal post between the two ends to the "ON" position.
A red LED on the Wall Crawl unit will now slowly flash.

Place the wrist shooter on your wrist, as shown in the photograph directly below. The fastener is Velcro, so it can accomodate wrists of many sizes. Place the button with the wire in your hand, so that you can activate and deactivate the laser as needed.
Give the other wrist unit to your playing partner, and if necessary, instruct him or her in how to affix the product to his or her wrist.


This shows how the wrist unit (shooter) should be fastened to your wrist.

Aim the laser beam at one of the sensors on the Wall Crawl unit, press & hold down the button to activate it, and deactivate the laser as soon as you hear the motors start.
Allow the unit to spool down both Spideys until they stop and you can no longer hear the motors.


This shows where the sensors are on the front of the Wall Crawl unit.

Now, both players aim their lasers at the sensors on the front of the Wall Crawl unit; keep the lasers trained on the sensors until one of the Spideys reaches the top and stops. A red LED next to the sensor of the winning Spidey will then come on; then both Spideys will automatically "rappel" down until they reach the bottom of their travel.
At this point, the game will be ready to play again.

When you're finished playing, slide the switch on the top of the Wall Crawl unit to the "off" position.



To change the batteries in the Wall Crawl unit (the large part you put on top of a door or hang on a wall), turn it over. On one side, you'll see a rectangular battery door held on with a screw.
Take a smallish-medium phillips screwdriver, and unscrew & remove the screw. Set it aside.
Lift the battery door away, and set that aside too.

If necessary, remove the used AA cells from the compartment, and dispose of or recycle them as you see fit.

Insert four new AA cells, orienting each one so its flat-end (-) negative faces the spring for it in its chamber.

Lay the battery door back on, and insert & tighten that screw you removed earlier.
Finally, place the unit back on top of the door or on the wall - wherever you removed it from.


To change the batteries in the wrist (laser) units, use a small phillips screwdriver to unscrew & remove the four screws from the underside of the wrist unit. Set them aside - or, if you like to make things disappear, throw them in the {vulgar term for feces}bowl, yank that silver handle on the front of the cistern down, and flush them away...O WAIT!!! YOU'LL NEED THOSE!!! So just set them aside instead.

I was not able to remove the screws with the screwdrivers at my disposal, so I can offer no additional instructions here!!!


This explains why I was not able to remove the screws!!!
Note the triangular screw head!!!!!!

According to the instructional materials furnished with the game, you should now be able to remove the base of the hand unit (after the screws have been removed and thrown away...er...set aside). So do so, and set the base aside.

Remove the three used LR44 button cells, and dispose of or recycle them as you see fit.

Place three new LR44 button cells in the compartments for them, being certain to install them with the polarity (+) and (-) as shown in the battery compartment.

Place the bottom of the unit back on, and insert & tighten the four screws you removed earlier.



Because this is a toy designed specifically to be used indoors, not a flashlight designed to be carried around, thrashed, trashed, and abused, I won't throw it against the wall, stomp on it, try to drown it in the toilet bowl or the cistern, run over it, swing it against the concrete floor of a patio, bash it open to check it for candiosity, fire it from the cannonada (I guess I've been watching the TV program "Viva Piñata" too much again - candiosity is usually checked with a laser-type device or a handheld wand), send it to the Daystrom Institute for additional analysis, or inflict upon it punishments that flashlights may have inflicted upon them.
So this section of the Wall Crawl game's web page will seem a bit more bare than this section of the web page on a page about a flashlight

***VERY IMPORTANT!!!***
The "cityscape" backdrop shown on the TV commercials is *NOT* included!!! It also says exactly that on the TV screen during the commercials, so you should not receive an unwelcome surprise when purchasing one of these games.

An experiment I was asked to perform - if a powerful handheld laser would destroy the sensor - was performed using a PGL-IIIA Laser Module (~100mW of "mega power", to borrow a phrase from a TV infomercial), and when keeping the laser handheld and directed at the sensor for the black Spiderman, the Spidey climbed (as expected), then stopped shortly after the laser was deactivated - again - totally correct behaviour.
So the sensor was not damaged or destroyed by this experiment.

I half-expected it to say phrases like "LASER TEMPERATURE CRITICAL", "LASER OVERHEATED" (followed by a long pause of 15-30 seconds with the laser deader than a doorknob), and "LASER OPERATIONAL" like the coin-op arcade video game "Astro Blaster" from 1981 did.



Beam photograph of the laser in the wrist unit, on the test target at 12".
Measures 1.20807mW on a laser power meter.


Spectrographic plot
Spectrometer plot of the laser in the wrist unit.
Ocean Optics USB2000 Spectrometer on loan from WWW.TWO-CUBED.COM.

WMP movie (.avi extension) showing a Spiderman "crawling" up a door.
This clip is approximately 6.4 megabytes (6,524,014 bytes) in length; dial-up users please be aware.
It will take no less than twenty five minutes to load at 48.0Kbps.
I cannot provide it in other formats, so please do not ask.

That music you hear is from a demo I wrote for the Commodore 64 computer in 1992.
The demo's actual filename is a toilet word, so I cannot say it here. It starts with "PU" and ends with "ED".
Think of a kitty cat being flogged with a long instrument used for administering a beating and you can probably figure it out.





TEST NOTES:
Test unit was purchased from the Toys"R"Us website on 05-19-07, and was received on the afternoon of 05-25-07.


UPDATE: 00-00-00



PROS:



CONS:



    MANUFACTURER: MGA Entertainment®
    PRODUCT TYPE: Game w/lasers & photodetectors
    LAMP TYPE: Red-emitting laser diode
    No. OF LAMPS: 2 (1 per wrist unit; two wrist units in package)
    BEAM TYPE: Very narrow spot
    SWITCH TYPE: Momentary pushbutton for lasers; slide on/off on top of door/wall unit
    CASE MATERIAL: Plastic
    BEZEL: Plastic; laser protected by plastic window
    BATTERY: 4xAA cells (door/wall unit), 3xLR44 button cells (wrist units)
    CURRENT CONSUMPTION: Unknown/unable to measure
    WATER RESISTANT: *VERY* light splatter-resistance at maximum
    SUBMERSIBLE: No
    ACCESSORIES: 6xLR44 button cells (for wrist units)
    WARRANTY: 90 days

    PRODUCT RATING:

    Star Rating





Spider-Man 3™ Wall Crawl Race Game * www.toysrus.com...






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