Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage

"Maximum Repetition"

INTRO: First off let me say I am a huge spider-man fan. So coming into this game I really wanted to like it. I never got to play it when it first came out. So when I went back to play a bunch of old Genesis games MC Spider-Man was definitely at the top of my list. Unfortunately all that anticipation turned out to be for nothing. This game is by far the worst Spider-Man game I have ever played.

GRAPHICS: On a very short list the graphics are the best part of the game. All of the environments are very colorful and grab your attention. The characters are also highly detailed too. But the movement of the enemies, and even Spider-man himself, seem very stupid to put it lightly. Spider-man chugs along with high tucked elbows throwing ridiculous looking jabs. It reminds me of that boxing board game. Spider-man's jumps and web attacks look alright themselves but the transitions to them during action are horrible. Despite all this you can at least say the game has a solid frame rate.

SOUND: The music is a redeeming point for the game. Acclaim hired the metal band Green Jelly to do the whole of the soundtrack. It does sit well with the theme and gets you excited when you start to play the game. But once you start playing the awesome soundtrack fades out to horrible sound effects. Spider-man's punches are some of the most annoying sound bits ever captured.

CONTROLS: Your limited abilities are made quite horrible to use in practice unless you have a 6 button controller. Swinging and the advanced (hah! If that's not an oxymoron then I don't know what is) combat controls are difficult to perform using the d-pad instead. Managing the angles of movement while wall crawling is also excessively difficult.

STORY: This is what makes the game so disappointing, the plot actually had genuine chance to be something good. The game opens up with a fairly lengthy intro set up Carnage's break from Ravencroft and teaming up with several lesser known villains. Very similar to the comics. But after the intro the plot merely comes a convinice to further the agony of the this deplorable game.

GAMEPLAY: Nothing more than a standard beat em up game here. You play as Spider-man or Venom battling the various baddies to eventually defeat Carnage. Although switching between Venom and Spider-man sounds cool it has no impact on the game really. You just press forward throwing the same punch after punch fighting the same type of goon over and over again.

BOTTOM LINE: If your Spider-man fan then you will be very disappointed in this game. Because even standing alone on it sown merits it is no way worth your time or money.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 07/23/07