There was a time when Marvel Comics was not the powerhouse that it is today. It might be hard to believe, but during the 1980s and 1990s, the House of Ideas was in dire straits. So much so that they had to sell off many of their licenses in order to keep the company afloat, something that’s still felt to this day in the form of Hollywood movie deals that are seemingly endless. When it came to games, things weren’t that different, resulting in a number of not so great products for kids to enjoy either at home or at arcades.
Sure, there were some exceptions like Konami’s X-Men arcade game, a beat ‘em up in the form of their traditional brawlers, a gigantic six-player cabinet that had players take on the role of the iconic group of mutants in a fight against Magneto and his cronies. Chock full of corny lines and hilarious sound effects, the game went on to become a classic, and it was only during the Xbox 360 era that it got to see the light of day in a re-release with online play included. And it’s probably the best reason to get the new Marvel MaXimum Collection, which among other titles, includes this one in a similar form.
Then again, not all is absolutely terrible outside of X-Men. Software Creations’ output of 8 and 16-bit Marvel games in the 1990s was mixed at best, but there are some neat little nuggets included here. Maximum Carnage in particular had a strong presentation for the time, including actual comic panels from the then current run of Spidey’s books, making good use of its newest popular character, Venom, as a protagonist in an admittedly repetitive brawler alongside ol’ web-head.
Partnering up to take down titular Carnage, an evil offspring of the Venom entity, both heroes get to fight with the help of some special guests like Captain America and Iron Fist, while the rogue’s gallery is packed with forgettable villains from that period in time, like Doppelganger and a boring rethread of the goblin character. Perhaps its most notable feature is the soundtrack headed by punk band Green Jelly, which lives rent-free in my head thanks to the many hours I’ve spent playing this on my brother’s Sega Genesis. Oh, both console versions are included and play mostly the same, with that one in particular looking surprisingly somewhat sharper, more colorful, and sounding better than SNES.
Its sequel, Separation Anxiety, sees Spidey and Venom go after even more symbiote spawns, loosely following the comic book arc of the same name. It’s uglier than Maximum Carnage and plays noticeably worse, with some terrible hit boxes that are only a step above some of the other titles’ included in Marvel MaXimum Collection. While not abysmal, it’s nowhere near what you’d call a reason to invest in this compilation, but thanks to some very welcome cheats, you can at least see it through its conclusion, for the achievements, at least.
Rounding out Software Creations’ output is Silver Surfer, an 8-bit side/vertical scroller shooter starring everyone’s favorite all but naked surferboarder as he squares off against third-rate villains following Galactus’ bidding to rid the galaxy of evil. Maligned thanks to a particularly nasty episode of the Angry Video Game Nerd, Silver Surfer isn’t as bad as you’d think, but it’s not good either. Its biggest issue is difficulty. It’s a very hard game thanks to the vast amount of obstacles and hazards in the Surfer’s way, as well as the fact that the dude can’t take more than a hit before bailing.
In terms of a license product for the time that it was released, Silver Surfer is in the middle of the pack in terms of fun, requiring you to be surgical skill-wise in order to get through even a single of its stages, let alone finish it. As with the rest of the console games here, you can cheat your way through the game, at least. And like Separation Anxiety, it can’t be considered the bottom of Marvel MaXimum Collection’s barrel thanks to what comes after it.
Yes, to close things off, we dive into the deepest reaches of licensed insanity with some of Data East’s abhorrent releases tied to Marvel. We’re talking about Spider-Man and X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge and Captain America and the Avengers. The first is a platformer that has you once again play as Spider-Man in a race against time as he tracks down missing X-Men kidnapped by titular Arcade, by haphazardly following his on-screen Spider-sense arrow in a not at all enjoyable adventure. Ported to all home consoles including Game Boy and Game Gear, it only gets further down the do-do the less colors there are available to be displayed, I’m afraid.
Captain America and the Avengers is almost a decent attempt at a brawler. Side-by-side with X-Men, though, it’s just sad. It doesn’t come close to the personality of Konami’s game in any way. The characters are small, animate horribly, and the gameplay is just terrible. Remember when I remarked how bad the hit detection was in some of the other titles included in Marvel MaXimum Collection? Well, it’s absolutely atrocious here. And then there’s Vision. What happened to that poor android for him to be represented in such an awful manner in this game? Seriously, Data East had loads of reference material in the comics and that’s the best they could come up with? Oh boy.
For as mixed as the list can be, it’s important to note that Limited Run and Konami are working on preserving these games by having them be playable on current hardware. The performance is as sharp as it can be, while options are barebones when it comes to filters and screen borders. It’s the absolute minimum that there could be, but at least there are save states and the ability to rewind, the latter comes in especially handy in Silver Surfer. Bonus materials are scattered across a handful of menu entries, including some design docs that are amusing to sift through in regards to Maximum Carnage, and to be honest, having a music player to play its soundtrack on demand was a nice distraction, at least for a few minutes.
Surely, Marvel MaXimum Collection isn’t nearly as impressive of a collection as say, the one Konami themselves put out for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a few years ago, or even Limited Run’s incredible retake on Jaws on NES. It could’ve included more Marvel games as X-Men can only last you so long. As it is, it’s a good one to have in your library, and if it’s any indication of what could be on their radar for future releases, there’s hope for even Springfield’s most beloved family to also get packaged up like this. One can only hope.
