Every Game In ‘Marvel MaXimum Collection,' Ranked

The “Marvel MaXimum Collection” from Limited Run Games is out in the wild, bringing with it some old-school arcade-style action. The collection features six different games, but if you include ports, some of which are wildly different, that number balloons up to thirteen. Of course, some are better than others, but it’s still great to see so many games included in the package. After all, if you grew up with the Genesis port of a game, that’s the version that will trigger your nostalgia, even if the SNES version is better in just about every way (cough, “Maximum Carnage,” cough).

Let’s take a quick look at all thirteen games in the “Marvel MaXimum Collection” and see how they stack up. We’ll take a look at each version of each game and see which ones you should see through to the end, and which ones are worth little more than a quick look. The “Marvel MaXimum Collection” is out now on all modern platforms.

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13. Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge (Game Boy)

The worst game in the collection is easily “Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge. Using the character of Arcade almost feels like a mean trick to make you think this is a port of an arcade game, and not a game featuring the C-List Marvel villain named Arcade. Curiously, it’s also the most represented game in the collection, with four versions included. The weakest of these has to be the Game Boy port, which has terrible screen crunch, terrible controls, and entire levels stripped out. At least that makes it shorter than the other versions.

12. Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge (Game Gear)

By contrast, the Game Gear version of “Arcade’s Revenge” is surprisingly faithful to the Genesis version, but there’s one problem: you’re still playing “Arcade’s Revenge.” Still, this port does a good job of showing how advanced the Game Gear was compared to the Game Boy, with full color graphics and a smoother presentation. Too bad the system never had a true killer app like “Tetris” or “Pokémon,” or maybe Sega would still be in the video game hardware business.

11. Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge (Genesis)

What can I say? It’s like the Game Gear version but a little better all around. The music suffers from that classic Sega Genesis syndrome where everything sounds like a distorted guitar played through a broken transistor radio from the 1950s, but if you want the genuine “Arcade’s Revenge” experience, this version will get you most of the way there.

10. Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge (SNES)

I suppose we could call this “the best of the worst.” It’s the best version of “Arcade’s Revenge,” but it’s still not a good game. You’ll still spend the first level wandering around activating checkpoints while falling off of buildings, and then when the game opens up to allow multiple playable characters, you’ll still laugh at how feeble Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops, and Gambit feel to play. They feel less like Marvel legends than they do Times Square impersonators in between cigarette breaks. Fortunately, it only gets better from here.

9. Captain America and The Avengers (NES)

The NES version of “Captain America and The Avengers” is completely unlike the other versions. It would be a misnomer to call it a ‘port,’ since it’s a different game entirely. It’s primarily a single player experience where players control either Hawkeye or Cap on a map of the United States dotted with different cities. It kinda sorta follows the story of the arcade original, but the levels are side-scrolling adventure stages. Yeah, you fight, but it’s not really a brawler. It’s more like a simplified take on the search-action formula popularized by “Metroid,” where you must not only find the exit to each stage, but also the key to open said exit. Unfortunately, it’s grating, unsatisfying, and generally a slog to play. This NES game isn’t terrible, but it’s just boring.

8. Captain America and The Avengers (Genesis)

What happens when you take an arcade classic and try to squeeze it down to fit on the Sega Genesis? You get a game that is completely playable, but… I mean, the arcade version is right there, so why not just play that instead? “The Avengers” on Genesis is a noble effort, but the game just doesn’t fit on Sega’s machine. The animations are dumbed down, the visuals are overall blurry and underwhelming, and the gameplay is a bit stiff and clunky compared to the fast-paced frantic action of the original. At least it supports two-player co-op.

7. Silver Surfer

I’m ‘of a certain age,’ so my knowledge of “Silver Surfer” for NES began and ended with the Angry Video Game Nerd’s review of the game. Going into it, I wasn’t expecting much, but I came away pleasantly surprised. AVGN’s criticism of the game’s extreme difficulty was entirely valid, but the “MaXimum Collection” includes a handy rewind function mapped to the L2 button, which makes it easy to undo your mistakes. Now you can blast through the auto-scrolling levels without having to worry about losing all your progress in a stage because you accidentally nicked a pixel of the environment and died. The game only takes an hour or so to complete, and there’s a kinetic joy in just plowing through it, abusing the rewind function all the way. As I said in the main review (linked above), if you’ve completed “Silver Surfer” on original hardware without cheats, you are truly an elite video game master.

6. Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage (Genesis)

Maybe I’m a victim of my own nostalgia here, but I quite enjoy “Maximum Carnage” in a “play the first couple of levels until you die and then move on” kind of way. Thus, this collection, with its toggle for infinite lives, marked the first time I ever played “Maximum Carnage” through to the end credits. And I used every one of those infinite lives, since some of the bosses in this game are absolutely brutal. And the final battle against Carnage himself? I must have died a dozen times. Still, as much as “style over substance” is a valid criticism, there’s a lot to be said for the style of “Maximum Carnage.” This might be the first game that felt like playing through a comic book (it predates “Comix Zone” by a year or so). Alas, the Genesis version has tinier music and fuzzier graphics compared to its Nintendo counterpart. Still, it’s virtually identical from a gameplay perspective, so if you play this version, you’re gonna have a fun time.

5. Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage (SNES)

“Maximum Carnage” on SNES is the complete package. The sprites are big and full of character, the levels bring non-stop combat, the bosses are annoying and cheap, and the gimmick of getting to play as Venom falls short once you realize he controls almost entirely identically to Spider-Man. Still, with the crunchy rock soundtrack from Green Jelly and the cutscenes that feature comic book panels plucked right out of the pages of the comic, “Maximum Carnage” really succeeds in putting the player in a day in the life of Spider-Man, complete with cameos from the likes of Daredevil, Cloak & Dagger, Morbius, and more. Is it the most refined brawler ever? Not by a long shot. “Streets of Rage” this is not. But it’s still a shot of dumb fun straight to your brain, and what’s wrong with a little dumb fun every once in a while?

4. Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety (Genesis)

In some ways, the sequel to “Maximum Carnage” is a step back. The comic book panel cutscenes are replaced by anemic walls of text, the music is generic and lacking the character of the original, and the sprites are smaller and less detailed. It also lacks the branching paths of “Maximum Carnage.” But when it comes to the actual gameplay, “Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety” is simply more fun to play. It’s still not a top-tier brawler, but it’s definitely more balanced and rewarding, with bosses that don’t completely stop the game for minutes at a time. Plus, “Separation Anxiety” has two-player co-op, a feature that was bizarrely absent from “Maximum Carnage.”

3. Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety (SNES)

You know the drill by now. “Separation Anxiety” on SNES is basically the same as “Separation Anxiety” on Genesis, just a little bit better in every way. The music and graphics are better, but it’s essentially the same game. If you’ve got a friend lying around doing nothing, put them to good use by handing them a controller and punching your way through about a thousand bad guys. It only takes a couple of hours, and you’ll have bonded with your buddy by the end of it. Isn’t that nice?

2. X-Men

The centerpiece of this collection is “X-Men,” the iconic arcade game first released in 1992. With the benefit of over three decades of hindsight, “X-Men” isn’t the greatest arcade brawler of all time. There’s no sprint button, the pace is broken up by the enemies’ generous health bars, and some design choices (particularly around the mutant power super-move) feel like cheap ploys to steal quarters from the pockets of arcade players. However, “X-Men” more than makes up for it with the ability to play in four-player co-op. If you take the fight online, you can enjoy a full, six-player game just like in the classic arcade, complete with an ultra-wide letterboxed presentation. Speaking of the presentation, the visuals are gorgeous, with each stage littered with details, and, well, there’s a reason the dialogue became iconic to 90s kids (“Welcome to die,” anyone?). “X-Men” isn’t the deepest arcade experience around, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun, and who’s gonna argue with that?

1. Captain America & The Avengers (Arcade)

“Captain America & The Avengers” actually predates “X-Men” arcade by a year, but it’s the unexpected MVP of this collection. It’s not as visually distinct as “X-Men,” and it only supports four players (Cap, Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Vision), but the combat is fast and kinetic, and you can even sprint! The bosses come from all over the Marvel universe, like Ultron, Mandarin, and, of course, Red Skull. There’s even a Sentinel, but, possibly for legal reasons, it’s referred to as “Giant Robot.” In addition to the typical brawler levels, “The Avengers” also has unique shoot-’em-up levels that see the cast go underwater or even to space. They break up the pacing and are pretty fun in their own right. Over the last 35 years, “The Avengers’ kind of became a forgotten classic. Thanks to “Marvel MaXimum Collection,” maybe Marvel and video game enthusiasts will begin to remember just how great this game really is.

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This story was originally published May 8, 2026 at 7:56 AM.