This video game collection was announced last week, and I want to talk about it.
Konami’s 1992 X-Men Arcade is a classic beat ‘em up in the vein of their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games. Looks like this is the full-on, six-player version of the game that made use of two monitors – But don’t worry, your widescreen TV will be enough. This is the one everybody always wanted on home consoles in the ‘90s and FINALLY hit the PS3 and Xbox 360 shops in 2010. 16 years later, here’s a second chance to own it.
Captain America and the Avengers is the name of two separate games from 1990 published by Data East – The arcade beat ‘em up (and its Genesis/Mega Drive home port), as well as a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT platforming action game for the Nintendo Entertainment System. I love both, although the NES game is unreasonably difficult.
In the arcade and Genesis versions, players can control Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, or Vision, and take on a slew of the Marvel Universe’s deadliest villains, including Ulysses Klaw, The Mandarin, Ultron, Crossbones, the Juggernaut, and a final show down with the Red Skull. Like X-Men, this is a classic four-player arcade game. It’s not as pretty or colorful as X-Men, but I think it’s equally as fun!
In the NES game, Cap and Hawkeye must rescue Iron Man and Vision who have been captured by The Mandarin. Along the way, bosses Ultron, Crossbones, and The Wizard try to impede your process as you run and jump through stages of platforms and generic enemy soldiers and robots. Collect gems to power up your heroes, giving Cap’s shield more range and Hawkeye’s arrows more power.
Spider-Man & Venom in MAXIMUM CARNAGE is a 1994 SNES and Genesis video game based on the 1993 crossover comic. Another beat ‘em up, but this one is a single-player affair. Digitized panels from the comic move the story along between stages. While you have to play as Spidey at first, after a few stages, Venom becomes a playable character. Depending on the order in which you switch back and forth between heroes, different paths open up as you battle the Spider-Doppelganger, Shriek, Demogoblin, Carrion, and Carnage himself, as well as endless regular people who have been inspired by Carnage’s madness. Power-Ups granting cameo attacks by other Marvel heroes include Captain America, the Black Cat, Firestar, Cloak and Dagger, Deathlok, Morbius, and Iron Fist. This comic series was kinda nuts, and the game matches the insanity. There’s a part where it gets REALLY difficult, so… good luck. The music for this game was by supplied by heavy metal band Green Jelly, although more recently it’s come out that apparently they mostly just lent their name to the game.
Venom & Spider-Man in SEPARATION ANXIETY is the sequel to Maximum Carnage, and… isn’t really based on the Separation Anxiety comic story. But, it IS a two-player game, now, allowing you and a friend to team up as Spidey and Venom as you take on the other symbiotic bosses, Scream, Lasher, Riot, Agony, and Phage, as well as a returning Carnage. I haven’t spent as much time with this game as Maximum Carnage, but the two-player aspect was fun.
Spider-Man and the X-Men in: Arcade’s Revenge is awful. This collection has the Super NES, Genesis, Game Boy, and Game Gear versions of the game, and I promise you that they’re all bad. Just… avoid this unfortunate game. I rented it a few times as a kid, and I never had any fun with it.
Maximum Carnage, Separation Anxiety, and Arcade’s Revenge are all by Acclaim, although some of those ports were published by different imprints.
Finally, the Nintendo Entertainment System’s Silver Surfer game by Arcadia Systems included. This game is a notoriously difficult space shooter that I didn’t own as a kid, so I haven’t played it much. The soundtrack is dope as hell, though.
So, a couple of great arcade beat ‘em ups, a couple of decent home console beat ‘em ups, an action platformer, a hard-as-hell space shooter, and whatever that monstrosity Arcade’s Revenge was supposed to be.
To me, the most interesting thing about this collection of games, though, is that there’s games from Konami, Data East, Acclaim, and Arcadia Systems – That’s four different companies. Acclaim and Data East both ceased operations over 20 years ago, and Arcadia was a shuddered subsidiary of another huge company. The licensing alone on this collection seems like a logistical nightmare.
There are a handful of notable games missing from this collection, but that just leaves room for a volume 2 if this sells well enough. Assuming Limited Run Games can get all the publishers to play nicely again. And knowing that many of those games are from Sega and Capcom… well. We’ll see.
On one hand, I think it’s great that LRG are preserving these Marvel Comics-inspired video games. On the other hand, as someone who owned many of the games in this collection as a kid… I’m really only here for the X-Men and Avengers arcade games. X-Men Arcade has online multiplayer and rollback netcode. I hope Captain America and the Avengers has it added, because that game deserves to find a new audience.
