Collecting and celebrating older video games can be a challenging pursuit. Compilations that do so must balance the desire to preserve the original intent and structure of the games presented, while making them palatable and enjoyable to experience today. Marvel Maximum Collection mostly hits the mark, supplying fans a look at some of the most memorable and important comic book games of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and showcasing how Marvel’s position as a pop-culture juggernaut predated terms like the MCU. These are lovingly recreated games from yesteryear, and the inclusion of several quality-of-life features makes them more approachable. But are these games actually good? The answer to that is more complicated.
X-Men: The Arcade Game is the undisputed heavyweight here, and it’s great fun. Old-timers will recall the multiple cabinet sizes in which this game would appear, including a massive six-player beast of a machine from which the shouted roars of Colossus would echo to every corner of the arcade. Maximum Collection players get to select which of these versions to play, and also add in friends online for those massive six-player battles.
X-Men devoured quarters like few other games of its time, but the vibrant visuals, delightfully yet poorly translated dialogue, and flashy combat were simple and joyous fun. That remains the case today, and I love the chance to share that experience with friends and younger family who might have missed those heady arcade days.
Captain America and The Avengers doesn’t hit those same highs; the visuals don’t pop in the same way, the action isn’t as explosive, and the punches just don’t land with the same panache. Even so, it’s fun to see the wealth of comic-book cameos, and it’s amusing as the game bounces to sequences in increasingly outlandish locations like under the sea and deep in space. Like several of the titles in the collection, we also get versions that appeared on multiple platforms. And while I can’t say I like the 2D platforming action of the NES version, it’s certainly great to see it represented.
Spider-Man/Venom: Maximum Carnage and Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety were both satisfying console brawlers in their day. The former feels more impactful overall, with visuals that leap off the screen, and a notably thrilling 16-bit soundtrack. Still, its single-player limitation holds it back from the way most would want to experience a beat ‘em up. Separation Anxiety adds a second player option, but neither the story nor the fights feel quite as visceral.
Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade’s Revenge was always a strange beast of a game. The webcrawler joins the likes of Gambit and Cyclops in a tour through several strangely crafted levels built by villain Arcade. Wolverine’s run through a level of playful (murderous) toys is an especially amusing concept. Sadly, both the controls and action across the game just don’t hold up all these years later. Everything feels too fiddly, the level designs too arbitrary, and the deaths too cheap. I got a kick of nostalgia remembering my attempts as a kid, but that nostalgia was mostly for the frustration the game always created. Again, it’s the chance to dive into all the versions of the game that is the real draw, including early portable games. With that said, I question why anyone would care to make their way through the Game Boy version just for fun.
Silver Surfer rounds out the collection. Some will proclaim this game as exceedingly hard, but really, it’s just not very good. Silver Surfer goes through a series of shooting levels, and constantly spawning enemies immediately kill you and send you back to start again. Here, the extra cheats may be especially worth trying out. With some variation of a god mode on, you can experience the whole game and see all the places you would have died (which will be plentiful) while also getting to experience a truly awesome chiptune musical score, as well as some imaginative destinations across the universe.
Cheats like those that will get you through Silver Surfer are generally available across all the games, ensuring you can see what they offer without extreme difficulty, unless that’s what you’re looking for. You also get a quick rewind function and save states, which make everything even more approachable. I also like the display tweaks, which let you see everything in a sharp, modern presentation or, optionally, add CRT and scanline filters for that old-school TV-in-the-basement vibe. A music player and some digital archives are also worthwhile historical additions; in the latter case, it’s mostly instruction manuals and advertisements, so don’t expect too much insight into the original design or development, beyond one cool document exploring the early brainstorming for Maximum Carnage.
It’s silly to fault a historical compilation for including games as they originally existed. The Maximum Collection gets just about everything right, but there’s really only one game in the mix that I’d hold up as a true classic of its genre. Beyond X-Men, the experience here is likely for those hunting nostalgia or players with a particularly keen eye for understanding the early days of superhero video games. If that’s the sort of thing that makes your interior Colossus roar, you can expect a solidly good time.
