I am Magneto, master of magnet!
The 90’s were an awesome time for gaming, and one era that I hold in high esteem. It was my heyday as a gamer and a kid, back when my only worries were if I was going to make it back in time to catch Batman: TAS AND play my games on the big TV in the living room before my mom got home. LJN games like Spider-Man/Venon: Maximum Carnage and its sequel were among my favs, so when the Marvel Maximum Collection was announced with six different games, with a host of artwork, box art and manuals I was pretty excited.
The Maximum Collection includes classic titles Silver Surfer, Captain America and The Avengers, Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade’s Revenge, Spiderman and Venom: Maximum Carnage, Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety and the crown jewel, The X-Men arcade game. It is exciting to have all these titles in one place, and to see some enhancements that have been done to each of them. For instance, the X-Men arcade game features online multiplayer support with up to six players and rollback netcode. Being able to play this game with six people is a cool experience, unfortunately there is some issues with the connection at times but this can be patched.
MSRP: $24.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $24.99
While the X-Men arcade game is the only one to have the online functionality all of the games sport some standard features. Rewinding gameplay, save states, toggleable cheats and of course visual filters are available for all the games. Personally, I am not a fan of the CRT filters and all of the borders, I can appreciate them being there for the purists, but I have a large screen for a reason. Some of the other features as I mentioned are things like official artwork for the games but there is come cool marketing materials for the Maximum Carnage and Separation Anxiety. It was just really neat to see these pages that I remember seeing in my comic books and magazines back in the day. This whole collection is just a wave of nostalgia in the best possible way.
That being said the quality of each game in this collection is wildly different. The X-Men Arcade and the Spider-Man/Venom games are S tier. These games were great back in the day and they are still solid beat-em ups today in 2026. Are they going to knock your socks off and tell you an epic story that will change your life? No, but Magneto will proudly exclaim with all the convection of a digitized villain “Welcome to die” and that alone makes it worth it to some degree. The other three games, eh; I mean they are there. Listen, first of all the Silver Surfer game was hard as balls back in the day; so here at least with the cheats and rewind feature it can actually be finished. Captain America and The Avengers is the definition of “ok” and I know I really only liked it as a kid because I could beat up villains with my man Captain America at the time.
I think my biggest complaints about this game is just that it’s not what I had hoped it was to be. I really, REALLY thought that this was going to be the X-Men games that were on the Genesis. I would have love to see like Adamantium Rage and The Punisher as well, even though the latter was included in another collection of games from a few years back. And aside from a few network hiccups during online play of the X-Men arcade game I didn’t have any real issues with the game.
So, then the question remains, is this collection worth it? Well, that answer is going to depend on what you’re looking for from it. If it’s a more modern-day superhero experience akin to what you get from Rocksteady or Insomniac Games players are seeking; well then, you are going to be soooo mad. On the other hand, if you are someone like me, who grew up with these games then you will enjoy this collection simply for nostalgia of it all. Reliving those memories of having friends spending the night, a large Pizza-Hut pizza, two-litter of soda and superhero video games. Yea, that’s what this package is best at, reliving some of the fun of those days; and for me it’s a blast.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
