It’s time to look at a big Marvel collection that came out. This one bundles together 6 pretty obscure titles from the old days. It’s always nice to see these games finally getting a modern re-release. Some of the titles can be hit or miss but on the whole you’re getting a pretty decent amount of content here. I spent around 8 hours to take out all 6 games and they each have replay value in the different modes that you can play them through. I’ll go through each of the games below.

First up we have the classic X-Men arcade game. In this one the Professor gets kidnapped and Magneto has some kind of evil plan up his sleeve. Defeating him won’t be easy but the X-Men are on the case. This one’s very much a classic 2D beat em up. You go through several levels as you fight off all of the most iconic X-Men villains. You have a number of different attacks and then your super attack at the end.

The game is also quite difficult. I lost countless times but fortunately on console you get unlimited continues. This would have been an expensive game in the arcades although I guess that is true for all of these titles in the collection. This one started the collection off on a really high note because it ended up being my favorite out of the 6 games. The soundtrack was really good and the graphics really popped out at you. This was really everything that you could hope for in such a classic title since it even had cutscenes and everything.

After that it was time to play the Captain America game. It’s fairly similar in terms of gameplay but is much more retro. The Red Skull has returned and so the Avengers have to stop him. Their roster is fairly unique here as it is Iron-Man, Vision, Hawkeye, and Captain America. I suppose Thor might have been overkill in the power department. The levels are fun and it’s also just fun to be playing as these classic heroes. While the technical elements cannot match up to the X-Men, the game still holds up well. It’s one of those games that is easy to plug and play at any point.

The cutscenes may not be quite as advanced but I was still glad to have a story. I would also say the sheer difficulty wasn’t quite as bad as X-Men but that may also be a side effect of playing it second. I was already warmed up and ready for action when I played this one. You can also tell that the game was early in the Marvel universe with how different some characters would look. The Juggernaut was a huge example as he looks nothing like the comic version of himself. So that was a fun bit of history.

Then we get to the first Spider-Man game. Maximum Carnage is a pretty big deal in the comics and so it was cool to get the video game. This one has a pretty ambitious story with a lot of cutscenes and tons of big boss battles. You can tell that some things are trimmed to keep the game from being too long but it really works out well. The artstyle and the soundtrack are both really good. The gameplay is also super fun even if some of the bosses can be a little on the cheesy side.

Carnage in particular has really long windows of invincibility and so you have to counter at the perfect time. If you miss by even an instant then you will take massive damage. The other bosses have similar techniques and so you really have to master the gameplay. Fortunately the gameplay is really well developed so you don’t have to worry about random glitches. This is another incredibly difficult game, particularly since there are no extra lives so you have to rely on rewinding. Props to anyone who was able to complete this one back in the day.

The second Spider-Man game is less impressive. The gameplay is roughly the same but this time there is much less of a story. You just get text boxes to convey it instead of cool cutscenes. In addition there are far less guest stars. It feels like this game was made to capitalize on the success of the first one. I certainly can’t fault them for that but you can tell that it was much more slapped together.

I did like the gimmick in the final level where you had to keep switching between Venom and Spiderman in order to defeat Carnage. It felt like playing one of those Super Sonic levels where you are switching between hedgehogs. So that was done really well and was also something different from the first game. I imagine that playing as Venom would also change up the feel of the game a bit. So it may have had less going on than the first game but it was still good.

Then we get to the weakest game in the series, Spider-Man and the X-Men. I don’t really know what they were thinking with this one but the game was ambitious. I can at least give credit there. Basically the X-Men are captures by Arcade so Spider-Man heads in to help them out. Each character gets two levels and each level has a different goal.

Spider-Man’s is a full collectathon as you have to find every emblem in the stage in order to win. Storm has to find all of the levers while underwater to cause some flooding. Then Wolverine and Cyclops have more traditional platformer levels where you have to get to the end. Gambit has an endless runner level where you have to dodge everything while staying one step ahead of a giant boulder.

The main problem is that none of these gameplay styles are very well polished at all. I ran into a big glitch in the Gambit level where the enemy wouldn’t spawn and had to restart. There are intentional dead ends in Wolverine and Gambit’s level which will cause you to die and try the level again. It all just felt very cheesy and it is often hard to tell where you have to go next. This is the only game that I would just have to say was bad. It felt like a browser game in all the wrong ways. Naturally for that reason this is the longest game.

Finally we have the Silver Surfer title. This one is one of those endless shooters and it switches the gameplay a bit between levels. Half of the levels are 2D and the other half are overhead. It makes for a pretty good back and forth throughout. You have to defeat several cosmic threats in order to get the parts for an ultimate weapon but ironically the bosses tend to be the easiest parts of each level. I see it as a little gift from the devs for actually making it past the levels. After all make no mistake, the levels are incredibly difficult. This game is infamous for that.

Touching anything means instant death and it can be really difficult to know what is part of the background and what is an actual object. I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed this game much back in the days but on console it works out well enough. It was also nice to have more of a real story after the last one too and this may have been Silver Surfer’s best portrayal that I’ve seen in any game.

Overall, I would definitely recommend checking this one out. As long as you enjoy arcade titles then you’ll definitely have fun here. Each game is a little different and it can be nostalgic to see all of the classic costumes. You just don’t see a lot of retro adventures like this nowadays. I know there are other retro games in other collections to get so I’ll have to do that at some point. In the meantime, you should pick this one up to get a headstart on the old adventures that were hard to play before now.

Overall 7/10