review by justin anderson

the desription: Being as big as it was, at the time, Marvel hoped for a heavy merchandising tie-in to the Maximum Carnage series. That, well, didn't really happen. A small toy line, and a watch were about it.

Of course, the video game market was a good place to start. The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis each received their own versions of Maximum Carnage, the cartridges cast in red plastic(this was at the time when the only exclusive carts were the gold Zelda games, before the Pokemon craze). This was the only red cartridge made for the Genesis, and one of only 2 for the SNES(the other being Doom). This was actually a selling point- a Carnage colored game cartridge.

LJN brings us a fairly basic Final Fight clone, based around the 14-part story. You will spend a lot of time beating up on random citizens, who are a lot stronger than you, apparently. Boss levels are usually based on the comic, if a little loosely.

the gameplay: You will play as Spidey for most of the game. Basic punching and jumping skills, with usage of webbing. This allows for web swinging, line shooting, and a web shield. The mechanics behind this is a bit tricky, though. The usage is very sensitive to which way you're moving. Trying for a web shot may get you a web line, pulling th evictim in for a beating. Then there's a small web ball, which may fire off at times, which does nothing.

Certain levels allow you to play as Venom. The first takes you to San Francisco, then to Manhattan for Carnage to ultimately wail on you. Some levels can be played as either character, depending on who you chose. Venom is a lot stronger, but slower, so he tends to get beaten up on a lot more.

Each character also has a special attack, requiring a small health sacrifice to pull off. Spidey does a spinning kick, Venom performs the spinning clothesline from Final Fight. Each is powerful, but takes about 15% of your health to perform.

In addition to the 2 playable characters, there's also a variety of heroes which can be called on for quick field attacks, by means of icons. Most are quick, taking out each enemy on the screen. The exception being Iron Fist, who will heal Spider-Man(if you're playing as Venom, he simply attacks). The icons also include Black Cat, Captain America, Cloak, Dagger, Morbuis, and Deathlok.

This game is fairly hard. Most of the basic enemies aren't too hard, but come in large groups. Especially nasty when 4 of the fat thugs or gun-toting prison escapees attack at once. Boss battles usually aren't too bad, though. By boss battles, I refer to the 5 main villains. All other bosses are basic enemies with larger hit meters. Your first is against Doppelganger, a basic fight, easier if you smack him with the water tower. They get harder, of course, as you will have to fight several at once, and towards the end, boss battles will be filled with generic enemies.

the challenge: Carnage, the final boss, is insanely hard. The only hits that do any real damage are special attacks. And you have to fight him TWICE! With no hero calls, aside from the ability to switch between Spidey and Venom during the battles.

For the most part, the game is only loosely connected to the comics. A few levels are based off key events, but usually, you will walk around fighting generic citizens.

Health and lives aren't very common, but continues can be found easily, under objects and in the few hidden rooms in the game. However, after a few levels, the difficulty rises. It will take a lot of experience with this game to actually beat it.

the review: Both versions of this game are relatively similar, with a few noticable changes. The music on the SNES sounds far better, and by default, the graphics are slightly better. Also, since the 6-button controller for a Genesis was optional, you may not be able to play the game correctly unless you have one.

A player's guide was available, for both versions. Since online fan-made game guides weren't common at the time, it was the only way to find the locations of all hidden items.

Personally, I find the game fun only for a while, but usually becomes too hard to keep my interest long enough to try to beat it. It's repetitive, with little lasting power. *** out of *****

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