Marvel Maximum Collection Review – Welcome to Death! – WGB

Marvel games have a strange history. All of today’s blockbusters are the same Marvel’s Spider-Man 2there’s a graveyard of old titles—arcade battles, janky platformers, and oddities—left behind on aging hardware or scattered across half-forgotten ports.

I Marvel Maximum Collection digs up a number of those backups and bundles them together in one package, dusting them off from modern platforms with a combination of storage, comfort, and a little modern polish. The result is an amazing collection and a reminder that I’m not as good at games as I was back in the day.

For $25 ($40, if you want the portable version from Limited Run Games) you get an amazing collection of classics that were either unplayable on home consoles or required some extra hoops to jump through. Not only do you get games but you also get different versions of the platform, too. For the full list of titles in the pack, click on the dropdown below, but otherwise here are the main games: IX-Men: The Arcade Game, Captain America And The Avengers, Spider-Man/Venom: Maxiumum Carnage, Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety, Spider-Man/Xmen: Arcade’s Revenge again The Silver Surfer.

The presentation is handled in a solid way, putting you directly into the menu where you can browse the various games available to you. Could they throw some razzle-dazzle into the way the games are presented? Of course. But let’s be honest, it’s great that they let you into the games.

Now, I’m not going to go into full reviews of all the games here. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I can separate myself enough from modern games to do these old school beauties justice. I’m used to the snowflake treatment we get now, the cotton wool they pile on us as they guide us from one place to another while dropping checkpoints all over the place. I’m used to being treated like a handsome prince, and these games are a reminder of how good I was at games, and how old I am now.

But I’m going to wax a little poetic here. Give them a little ‘ol Marvel rizz, you know. X-Men: The Arcade The game is the talk of the town and for a very good reason – it hasn’t been available for a long time on consoles despite its popularity. Everything you’d expect is here, right down to the widescreen 6-player mode and online play option, introduced in 2010’s digital remasters. However, some extras have been added: rollback netcode for smooth online play, and crosstalk. Also, keep in mind that this isn’t a 2010 HD release – this is a real arcade game installed on state-of-the-art hardware, so it’s as close to the real experience as you’ll get outside of an arcade cabinet. Same goes for everything else in the collection.

It would be nice to see online support added to the other games in this package, too. Being able to play with a friend around the world in one of the two-player or four-player offerings would be nothing short of nostalgia-cocaine.

The Spider-Man collection section is particularly impressive in terms of how rare some of these games are. I Spider-Man/Xmen: Revenge of the Arcade The Game Boy and Game Gear versions are very rare to my knowledge, so to have them played here – and in physical form if you so choose – is amazing. And friends, Separation Anxiety still holding up very well.

The Silver Surfer it was a notoriously difficult game back in the day, and I’m happy to report that it’s still a complete bastard in 2026. Your inclusion here is very interesting because, compared to others, it’s a great topic that I doubt many people outside of hardcore were aware of.

Arcade Revengefor now, it’s still kinda crap, but in a way that’s a whole lot of fun to hear again in 2026.

Apart from the finals, playing with this group and chasing the Platinum trophy has been a real pleasure. Sometimes it’s frustrating because of how hard they can be, sometimes they’re confusing because of how weird they are in places, and sometimes they’re just plain bad (I’m looking at you, Arcade Revenge), but always playing these is a privilege.

Options, Extras, New Features

Now, with that out of the way, let’s talk about what this package adds and the cool bonus stuff you get, shall we?

Tapping the overlay button (which is consistent throughout the game) brings up a few different options for messing with that. Here you can change the appearance of the measurements – which varies from subject to subject-, turn on the CRT filter to give it a more nostalgic vibe or choose from several images to act as borders so you don’t just look at big black bars.

But the two main abilities are able to save the game whenever you want, and the rewind feature that allows you to jump back in time by pulling the left trigger. Both make finishing the games in this collection much easier, even if it means sacrificing some of your ego. Arcade kids won’t be impressed by your weakness. Well, it’s my weakness because I’ve used both features completely.

Other useful features include cheat menus that are easily accessible from the game selection screen, so now you can finally win that Silver Surfer game. And a few games, like X-Men: The Arcade Game, let you add credits and live with the tap of a button. Others, they like Spider-Man: Maximum Carnagedon’t let yourself do this – you have to beat them the old fashioned way, with a lot of insults and finally throw the controller out the window. Unless, of course, you look at some of the original cheats and find the right buttons to make them work. But I can’t yet confirm if they work.

Part of the archive of Marvel Maximum Collection it’s… sad.

On paper, it sounds decent enough. There are manuals included Captain America and the Avengers, The Great Killing, Separation Anxiety, Arcade Revengeagain The Silver Surfer. Those are fun to investigate. The box art is fading a bit, it adds IX-Men Arcade in the mix, while ads cover much of the same area. So far, so good.

But when you start digging into more things, the cracks become apparent. Official artwork is surprisingly small, just limited The Great Killing, Arcade Revengeagain The Silver Surfer. That’s a small slice of Marvel history for something billed as a “top” collection, and it doesn’t really sound like you’re getting an extensive behind-the-scenes look.

Most disappointing, however, is the design documentation. There is one entry—The Great Killing-and while it’s up to 14 pages, it’s pretty basic. You get location descriptions, a breakdown of the heroes and villains from each episode, a rough sequence chart, and a simple story outline. It’s a little interesting in a “nice to explore” kind of way, but it’s not the deep dive you’d hope for.

And that really sums up the entire archive. Nothing here is too bad, but for a collection that leans so heavily on nostalgia, it feels oddly light on meaningful historical material. However, in defense of this collection, I do not know how much is available and accessible, so what is here may be more than could be mined.

We get a music player, however, where you can choose from any tracks in all the games. That’s a mix of songs, mostly The Silver Surferapparently he thought he could measure his evil by making you touch your foot. It was right.

As save sets go, this is pretty close to perfect. Sure, I would have liked to see more meat in the archive—more interviews, deeper design details, or a wider spread of the artwork—but it’s the cherry on top. And there probably wasn’t much to come together in the first place.

What matters most is that these games are here, playable, accessible, and untouched in all their weird, frustrating, and shiny glory. This is not a remake, and it doesn’t try to be. It’s a time capsule—a reminder of how different old games are, good and bad.

Seeing these titles preserved and passed on to a new generation is something special. Even if some of them are still complete bastards.