With the arrival of Marvel MAXimum Collection on current-gen consoles (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch) for the very reasonable price of $25 USD, I’m one step closer to envisioning my virtual dream arcade in the comfort of my own home. As a young gaming adult in the nineties, I voraciously played the latest arcade co-op games with my brothers and friends, particularly those from Konami.
Deluxe-scale, multiplayer arcade cabinets built for simultaneous 4-player beat-‘em up action were all the rage back then, and the licensed, Konami-published games that powered them, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time and The Simpsons: The Arcade Game, were already legendary quarter-munchers. These games were “experiences,” and I made sure to have at least $10 in my pocket so that I could be sure to beat the game at least once or twice and roll credits alongside my comrades.
Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the arrival of 1991’s Captain America and The Avengers and 1992’s X-Men: The Arcade Game, two co-op arcade games that not only were among the first to feature officially licensed Marvel characters, but also embodied in their gameplay the essence of a Marvel “team book” better than any videogame had accomplished to date. So when the opportunity to review Marvel MAXimum Collection arrived in the present day, I was happy to volunteer.
The Marvel MAXimum Collection compiles the following Arcade and home console classics, including multiple versions where applicable:
- X-Men: The Arcade Game (Arcade version)
- Captain America and The Avengers (Arcade version, MEGA, 8-bit)
- Spider-Man/Venom: Maximum Carnage (SUPER, MEGA)
- Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety (SUPER, MEGA)
- Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade’s Revenge (SUPER, MEGA, PORTABLE, GEAR)
- Silver Surfer (8-bit)
(Please Note: MEGA = Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, SUPER = Super Nintendo, PORTABLE = Nintendo Game Boy, GEAR = Sega Game Gear and 8-Bit = Nintendo Entertainment System).
In my personal opinion, the star of this collection, hands down, is X-Men: The Arcade, for several reasons. First and foremost, excluding mobile versions, this highly faithful emulation of Konami’s original custom-built 16-bit arcade board beat-‘em-up is the only official home console version of X-Men: The Arcade Game to be released since the 2010 digital-only port by Backbone Entertainment for PlayStation and Xbox 360. Sales of those versions were discontinued in 2013 and cannot be accessed unless you already own them on those older consoles, making Marvel MAXimum Collection the only way to purchase and play the game on modern consoles in either digital or physical form.
Ironically, although Limited Run Games (LRG) is the publisher, The Maximum Collection is not part of a limited set and is widely available to purchase digitally and to pre-order physically from LRG directly (pre-orders are being offered until May 24th). This is great news for both digital and physical fans, and presents plenty of opportunity for fans to purchase what has been, until now, a very rare game to own.
“The MAXimum Collection version of X-Men: TAG is indeed the definitive version to own, at least on paper.”
The pedigree of X-Men: The Arcade Game’s dual-screen, six-player arcade cabinet was also quite rare among other multiplayer co-op games of the day, and LRG has faithfully converted that arcade experience to the MAXimum Collection with support for up to six players either offline or online with rollback netcode.
While the Xbox 360 and PlayStation versions also supported six-player, drop-in, drop-out multiplayer in their day, they offered only four-player support in offline mode, which would suggest that the MAXimum Collection version of X-Men: TAG is indeed the definitive version to own, at least on paper. Online play was not yet enabled at the time of this writing, unfortunately. It is also nice that, regardless of how many people you are playing the game with, you can still choose to play in the six-player expanded widescreen mode, a must if you have a large widescreen TV.
It can be argued that X-Men: TAG’s combat can be quite repetitive, and the ability to add an unlimited number of quarters to each playable character’s slot might render the 6 levels of difficulty moot, but I personally never tire of playing the game. Wolverine, Cyclops, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Storm and Dazzler all share common moves (like jump-kicks), but their individual takes on those moves are cool and highly entertaining. Their screen-clearing special moves are unique to each character and also have their own weaknesses, making it necessary for players to pick the right combination of characters when playing as a duo or trio.
With 4 players or more, however, the game devolves into delightful chaos, and speaking of chaos, it’s important to remember that every X-man has their own unique ground-and-pound move that will have you bursting with laughter, especially when multiple heroes gang up on a downed foe and kick the crap out of them, which of course is the heroic thing to do.
The last thing I must say about X-Men: TAG before moving on to the rest of the MAXimum Collection is that the game’s soundtrack easily ranks among the best Japanese bass-guitar-driven “jazz-buttrock” that Konami’s composers have ever produced for a beat-’em-up.
In fact, the overall sound of the collection as a whole is impressively clean, clear and loud, and in X-Men the echoing sound effects are extremely faithful to the infamously wacky voice lines and sound bytes of the original arcade coin-op, including Magneto’s unforgettable “WELCOME TO DIE!” or Colossus’ ear-bleeding roar every time he uses his special ability. If you’re a fan of the X-Men in any capacity, The Marvel MAXimum Collection is easily worth picking up for X-Men: The Arcade Game all by itself.
By contrast, Captain America and the Avengers isn’t quite the spotless gem that X-Men: TAG was. Developed by Data East (of Bad Dudes fame), it featured a blocky, low-fidelity-meets-watercolour look that quite frankly didn’t impress me as an arcade kid back in the day and hasn’t aged well since either. But in its heyday, it was still a 4-player co-op game deserving of attention if you were fortunate enough to find a cabinet at your local arcade. Similar to X-Men: TAG, Captain America and The Avengers is an arcade game that’s designed to suck up all of your quarters, and the game’s stiff combat, limited continues, cheap enemies and stringent number of power ups will have players hearing the familiar cry “I CAN’T MOVE” frequently as the cabinet demands yet another virtual 50 cents from you to revive your chosen hero.
Also holding the game back is a lack of variety in its Avengers lineup, with only Cap, Hawkeye, Vision, and Iron Man to choose from, and no female Avengers beyond The Wasp, who makes the occasional appearance as a support character alongside Quicksilver, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and Wonder Man. The on-screen character designs vaguely resemble their iconic comic-book incarnations enough to be recognizable, but they lack any real personality or impressive special abilities. Cap throws his shield, Hawkeye shoots arrows, Vision and Iron Man shoot an energy beam from their hands or heads, and that’s about it…fairly predictable, with the remainder of their moves limited to basic punches, jumping dive kicks and throws.
“If you’re a fan of the X-Men in any capacity, The Marvel MAXimum Collection is easily worth picking up for X-Men: The Arcade Game all by itself.”
All that being said, having access to the Genesis and NES versions of Captain America and The Avengers adds a great deal of value, with the former version being one that gamers who did not regularly hang out in arcades would have likely had the most exposure to first, and the latter being a completely different genre entirely: an 8-bit platformer. I myself recall enjoying the Genesis version with my brothers for a weekend rental all those years ago, and while there was no question it was the inferior when compared to the arcade, it still has plenty of sentimental value to me as a Genesis owner, and should prove a steal for collectors who plan on picking up a physical copy of Marvel MAXimum Collection as opposed to an overpriced cartridge on eBay.
I was never a big fan of the Venom/Carnage era of Spider-Man and thus failed to get into either Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage (1994) or its sequel, Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety (1995) when they were new. But had I realized back then that they were largely side-scrolling beat-‘em-ups, with the second game in particular offering 2-player local co-operative play, I might have given both of these titles a weekend rental (provided I had not already ditched my Super Nintendo and moved on to Sega and Sony’s 32-bit consoles by that time).
Both games are heavily Streets of Rage 2-inspired in terms of combat, and they’re both super-difficult to play without using cheats. Thankfully, developer Software Creations stuffed both games chock-full of cheats when they originally built them, and not only do the old passwords work, but the Marvel MAXimum Collection also provides an integrated Cheats overlay that can be pulled up to easily toggle unlocked cheats on and off. Sadly, the combat isn’t as fun as it is in Streets of Rage 2 by a long shot, plus the levels stretch out the gameplay by reusing backdrops and making players trudge to one edge of the stage, then all the way back to the start and back yet again before a boss appears.
The music is heavily inspired by Streets of Rage composer Yuzo Koshiro, but the tracks are short, extremely repetitive and sound like they were created by committee. Nonetheless, the aforementioned cheats manage to save these two games and transform what could have been a mindless slog into a goofy and somewhat entertaining rampage about town with Spidey and Venom. Both the Super Nintendo and Genesis versions of each game are included and look and sound as close to identical as one could expect from a multi-platform release back in that era. Fans of Spidey, Venom and Carnage should be pleased.
“…the Marvel MAXimum Collection is far from being a perfect Marvel-inspired retro-collection…”
I wish I could say that I was just as enthused about the Marvel MAXimum Collection’s final pair of offerings: Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge and Silver Surfer. Arcade’s Revenge is a Spidey/X-Men crossover that features platforming gameplay in deadly murder rooms and scenarios constructed by the villainous mastermind, Arcade. Needless to say, the puzzle-like nature of the challenges was difficult, and I found myself falling asleep very early on after dying several times. For a villain who calls himself Arcade, his amusement park of death, Murderworld, makes for a rather unenjoyable video game. Cheats are available to make the ordeal more bearable, but even with them active, I found myself bouncing off the game right away.
Meanwhile, Silver Surfer, a sluggish-moving, difficult horizontal side-scrolling and vertical scrolling 8-bit shooter, feels completely out of place when compared to the rest of the collection. Even toggling on infinite lives fails to make the game more interesting, but at least it offers a turbo button for rapid fire.
As far as extras go, Marvel MAXimum Collection is… adequate. There are plenty of digitized archival assets to check out, including instruction manuals, advertisements, optional 4:3 overlays, a toggle for CRT and scanline filters, and a music player to listen to the various soundtracks of ALL the games. There’s also the ability to rewind to an earlier point in one’s gameplay using LT, but there doesn’t appear to be a way to disable it if one wants to avoid tripping the feature on by accident.
Overall, the Marvel MAXimum Collection is far from being a perfect Marvel-inspired retro-collection; in fact, it’s downright criminal that Sega’s Spider-Man: The Video Game wasn’t included as a third arcade beat-‘em-up pillar, which, to be frank, I’d have gladly paid a little extra for. But as I mentioned earlier, just having X-Men: The Arcade Game and Captain America and The Avengers released from their respective past-gen prisons to be enjoyed on today’s modern consoles is alone well worth the price of admission, with the Spidey/Venom adventures Maximum Carnage and Separation Anxiety serving as the icing on top.
