Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage

"At last SpiderMan deserves to be called "the amazing"."

This game is amazing for various reasons, first of all, the evil company LJN is involved, I know the game was developed by Software Creations, but the LJN logo can be seen in some of the worst games of the Nes and Snes era (just see X-Men or Wolverine for the Nes), then it is a Spiderman game, and Spiderman games use to stink more than the biggest pile of garbage you could ever imagine. I tried the game just to see how crappy it was, and to my surprise it turned to be one of the best beat em-ups I have ever played.

Story:
Carnage, that completely nuts symbiote is starting a carnage (this is pretty obvious right?) in the city, and as Batman and Superman are occupied everyone’s favourite wall climber arachnid has to take care of the situation, and this time together with nothing less than Venom, the most bad ass Spider Man enemy of all time together with Carnage himself.

Graphics:
Great, they are very similar to the original Spiderman comic. Spider Man, Venom, and all the enemies are BIG and perfectly animated.

Music:
The important thing here is the opening theme, it seems that it was performed by a group called Green Jelly, I’ve never heard about them, I’m not in that kind of music, but man, it R-U-L-E-S, it is so powerful that you’ll NEVER forget it.

Gameplay:
Spider Man has a lot of movements, combos, special attacks, etc, you will never get bored of kicking your enemies asses.

You can’t choose between Spider Man or Venom at the beginning, but later each one has their own stages (though I have to say the they could’ve had more), and depending what you do or who you choose in certain moments there will be different paths to follow.

Venom is quite different from Spider Man in terms of controls, unlike most beat em-ups where all the characters are basically the same with a different appearance.

Together with Spider Man and Venom it is possible to call other super heroes like Captain America, Morbius, Black Cat, Silver Surfer and some others for help.

For me, this is the best beat em-up for the Snes as well as one of the best beat em-ups to date, not to mention the best Spider Man game ever, and one and a hundred million times better than its second part, Separation Anxiety, even if this one lacks a two player option, the only serious problem in the game.

””My lack of vocabulary and grammatical errors (if there’s any) are because I’m not from an English speaking country, sorry.””

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/14/03