Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage

"Spiderman and Venom: Maximum Frustration."

Oh Spider-Man. How could you have fallen so low? I can't imagine for the life of me why people seem to enjoy this game. Was it because it's the only SNES game to my knowledge that was red instead of the usual grey? Was it because you got to beat up goons as everyone's favourite supervillain, Venom? Whatever the reason, they're all wrong to like this game.

First off, this game is a beat'em up action game where Spider-Man and Venom have to stop the evil villain Carnage from taking over the city. And I don't hate beat'em ups at all. On the contrary I had many a great time playing classics like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4, and River City Ransom as well as many others. I love a good beat'em up! But Maximum Carnage however is a poor excuse of a game that never once lets you have fun. I spent most of this game in a stressful panic, trying my hardest just to stay alive. Let's go over the many reasons why this is. First off, the game starts you off with 3 lives, and I think one continue. It might've been no continues at all, I'm not sure. When you hit the title screen you're gonna notice that it says Press Start. And that's it. There's no continue option at all. And you know what means? If you die, you start back from the beginning! YAY! Because everyone loves making it to that 20th or so level, only to get beaten by some thugs and have to restart the whole experience over again. Oh yeah, what a treat!

You play as Spider-Man or Venom and you go from one end of the level to the other, beating on every thug that comes your way. Oh and get used to the thugs because they will be the exact same enemies in every level. The guy in the trenchcoat, The guy with the backwards cap. The girl. The fat guy. The nerd with the umbrella! Each thug actually has their own individual name as well which makes it feel even more repetitive when I see Kyle and Lizzie for the 3rd time. And it's not just the thugs either. The bosses are the same enemies too. In fact most bosses are just the thugs with a bigger health bar. Othertimes you'll be crossing Carnage and his supervillain friends. There's Doppelganger, Shriek, some goblin guy and a ghostly dude who burns your head or something, And you'll be fighting these guys again, and again, and again. There's no diversity at all. How many times can I fight Shriek and Doppelganger!? Every level it seems they're picking a fight! This is it?! Come on guys we can do better than this.

In terms of gameplay Spidey and Venom pretty much have the same abilities. They punch with only one button, they jump with another, they swing on a web with one, and they use web attacks with the other. These web attacks consist of creating a shield for yourself, trapping enemies for like 3 seconds, and dragging them over to you for a grab move. Not that you'll need it since your character already loves to grab his enemies. Seriously, anytime you get near a thug you accidently grab them because you're walking over to them as opposed to waiting for them to come to use. It's not like other games where you have to be REALLY close to do it, as long as they're in fist length, you can grab them. This is a huge problem. You can't drop enemies fast enough. You can't throw them in the other direction fast enough. So by the time you're grabbing goons, the others are wasting your precious health quicker than you can say that your spider sense is tingling. And since dying means you have to restart the whole game, this can get ridiculously frustrating.

And it's only worsened by the fact that this game is brutally difficult. I don't mind hard games, but this crosses into unplayable garbage. On too many an occasion you'll find yourself in a one on 5 person situation, many of those being with hard supervillains. In the later levels the enemies attacks take so much off your health that it just gets frustrating. The enemies have cheap moves like the girl thugs for example who whip you with their hair! What is their hair made of steel!? And It hurts so damn much! And it's such a long reach too! Meanwhile goons like Doppelganger seem to counter your hits way too often, and then you'll come across that one odd boss that just cheats the game and makes everything pointless. I speak of a robot called Muzzoid. I memorized his name because he literally almost made me snap my Super Nintendo controller in half. Anger issues? Maybe, but let me explain why. This robot had such ridiculous strength that he'd hit you, and you'd lose half of your health. His own life gauge was huge. And one of his attacks doesn't even have a warning animation or anything. He instantly brings his boulder hands down in less than a milisecond, and robs you of half health without warning. Who the hell designed this boss?

And again, if that robot killed me, I had to restart the whole damn game! And you know one fun feature about beat'em ups is that usually (if you're playing a good one) you can do it with a buddy. Co-op gameplay. There's two characters. Spidey and Venom right? So where the hell is the multiplayer!? A game this hard is begging for two people to tackle it! But no. Your friend doesn't get to join in on the fun. Or rather, join in on the misery. No game this difficult and repetitive and bland can possibly be fun. The music you listen to in the game, I swear it almost never changes. You keep hearing the same jingles throughout the whole game. This Green Jelly band wants to boast that they did the music for the game? Well, make more of it! And it's not even that spectacular either! Even the levels themselves are boringly repetitive. You literally get levels that are called "New York Streets 2". The 2 being because they use the same backgrounds for the levels. Cause that's really fun! And let's face it the game isn't exciting to look at. You're always brawling in some dark alleyway or park. Woo hoo. Really fitting for a superhero as fun as Spider-Man!

I'd say the one good thing about the game is that there are some nice comic book panel cutscenes that explain the plot as you progress through the game. But again, a game this difficult, with no save system or anything....most of the people who play this game won't see much of the plot. I don't even know how this game ends. How can I expect to? This game throws idiot bosses like Muzzoid at me, refuses to let my friends join in for some multiplayer, has hair whipping ladies beat on my Symbiote suited villain, and it throws the same damn thugs, bosses, music, and levels at me every 3 minutes. This game is awful. How hard would it have been just to throw in an easy difficulty setting, or just infinite continues?

IN THE END...
Maximum Carnage is a terrible beat'em up with a weak fighting system, repetitive gameplay, music, and levels, and it's made damn near impossible with it's brutal difficulty and lack of save or password features. Also, it lacks multiplayer. Skip this piece of junk.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 06/09/08

Game Release: Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage (US, September 1994)