MAXIMUM CARNAGE & SEPARATION ANXIETY: A Spider-Man and Venom Special! (Retrospective)

the following video and continued growth of this channel are made possible by your support over on patreon.com 616 Entertainment sign up today at any level you choose and help bring these brand new projects to life or if you're looking for a brand new t-shirt maybe stopped by pro wrestling tees.com 616entertainment I got you [Music] covered Spider-Man is awesome he's always been awesome whether you grew up with the 9s animated series on Fox kids or maybe you were even a comic book reader it didn't make a difference Spider-Man has always been cool fast forward to 2002 when the movie came out goodness gracious it really doesn't get much better than that the entire Sam Ry Trilogy is fantastic from top to bottom yes even Spider-Man three it's goofy it's campy it feels a bit different from the prior two entries but that's what makes it so special but the subject of today's video isn't a TV show or movie series no sir we're going to dive into two video games I held very near and dear Growing Up 1994's Maximum Carnage and 1995's separation anxiety 16 bits hundreds of enemies and two stars of the show Spider-Man and Venom grab a drink and something to snack on Dan Dan's because it's time for another friendly neighborhood retrospective okay scratch that line that was that was horrible oh how you doing Dan Dan my name is Ian welcome to another 616 entertainment retrospective much like the Alien versus Predator video that dropped recently today's video was also funded and made possible by my supporters over on patreon we still have retrospectives on GTA Vice City the history of Tony Hawks Pro Skater and more on that list so sign up at any level you choose even the cheapest level to help unlock these goals now that's enough plugin right here at the top let's get into the games now today Spider-Man games come with a certain expectation for their graphics and gameplay Insomniac released Spider-Man 2 earlier this year and I mean good God this looks incredible and the game play feels insanely good anything you've ever seen Spider-Man do before you can probably pull it off here in the game this is not what we're looking at today we're talking about two games that released on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis so dial it back a little bit our first title Spider-Man and Venom Maximum Carnage was developed by software Creations what the hell did software Creations do before for this only the best ever heard of Silver Surfer on the NES maybe Wolverine or how about Terminator 2 Judgment Day if you've never played any of these games before I'll save you the time in looking them up they're not the best not the best no and that's putting it lightly in fact all three of them were covered by The Angry Video Game Nerd which is probably all that needs to be said now that's not a great starting point is it no let's sck a little deeper software Creations also developed the 1990 puzzle game Solstice for the NES a game that reviewed very well how about the Amiga Port of ghouls and ghosts hell there's even Spider-Man and X-Men arcades Revenge a game that reviewed pretty well in its day see sometimes the surface level details cast an unfair unclear Shadow no comment on these games being published by ljn I'm not about to hit you with a their lineup of published games has a hidden history as well they're really good I'm not going to tell you that because that's not true uh for the most part they're not very good as I stated earlier Maximum Carnage hit store shelves in 1994 and if you were there back then you know all too well that a game would live and die on its box art you'd walk into Funko land or KB Toys maybe Hollywood Video or Blockbuster and you just stare at the walls and walls of games we didn't have the internet back then to tell us what was great and what was junk so more often than not the box art determined what you wanted Maximum Carnage has one of the coolest box Arts of the era man get out of here how do you look at this and not want to play it and that question brings us to the meat of the matter does the facade of badass box art Fall Apart under the weight of bad gam play or are we looking at what is truly a spectacular Spider-Man game well here's the deal I love this game oh man I love this game check it out as Spider-Man we can crawl on the walls or swing around before kicking some ass when the time does come to kick ass Spider-Man's got the speed of Anderson Sila nice and snappy using the web to pull a distant enemy closer to smash the lights out never gets old if you can perfectly Center yourself between two jabronies using the web will double smash the two of them together you can even onot the first level bosses with this move oh my God that's so much fun now I did preface all of that with as Spider-Man because Venom is playable too holy jeez as if it wasn't cool enough already in between several levels the game will give you an option of switching to the other character Venom is a bigger more hulking brute and pretty much everything Spidey does venom can do as well Spider-Man's Power Shot is a roundhouse kick whereas Venom's is a Mortal Combat style uppercut that'll send an opponent flying into the air I love the attention to detail where Venom's pull forward move is it a web but an elongated symbiote tendril so sick the story of maximum Carnage is pulled straight from the comics which is fantastic this wasn't very common back in the early '90s even the death and Return of Superman which released right around the same time in 1994 we've got cutscenes that take us from level to level but they're rarely in line with the comics the game was based on here in Maximum Carnage we've got panels from the books recreated in all their 16bit Glory pixel by pixel the overall story if you're not clued in is centered around serial killer Cletus Cassidy breaking loose from Raven coft Asylum thanks to the Symbiote that is bonded with his blood it's all out Mayhem as Cassidy now called Carnage puts together an army shriek Carion the mutated doppelganger and more are on a mission to kill as many innocent people as possible and really just wreak havoc Peter Parker can't go it alone and when a beaten down Eddie Brock shows up on his doorstep Spider-Man and Venom join forces insert cloak dagger Captain America Black Cat and more and we've now got an Allstar lineup of Heroes to go to war with the villains this really is cool as hell and yes all of the villains I've mentioned are boss battles and all of the hero pop in as super move Cameo characters it's a blockbuster cast Dan Dan and it's not lost on me how cool these cameos are I mean look at Spider-Man 2 a game that came out in 2023 there's no Captain America no Iron Fist no Cloak and Dagger black cat is here but she's from the Spider-Man Rogues Gallery herself so that's not much of an outside Cameo is it my personal connection to this game dates all the way back to my childhood you know it was a it was a normal afternoon it was probably 1995 or 96 my brother and I were in our bedroom playing video games in our Sega Genesis my dad had just gotten home from work and rather than jumping in the shower or doing whatever it is he would normally do he marched from the front door right to our bedroom and said look what I've got in his hand was a red Sega Genesis cartridge which is something I had never seen before for and when I got my hands on the game there it was Spider-Man and Venom Maximum Carnage now I didn't even know what this game was I had never heard of it at the time but I loved Spider-Man this Carnage guy looked cool and this electric Blazing Red goodness gracious we popped it into the Genesis and holy God this was the real deal these days I've got a Super Nintendo cop of the game this is another piece of what is now my collection that came from the legendary danan by the name of Mr Beef so shout out to him I wish I still had that Genesis copy but honestly I have no idea what happened to it when I was a kid we had an NES not long after that we got a Genesis for Christmas our NES and all of our games disappeared when I asked what happened to it my mom told me she gave it to my cousin the system all of the games all of it gone didn't even ask me about it to this day I still don't know what happened to all of our Genesis stuff I'd love to have those pieces of my childhood now but hey it is what it is my dad coming home with that Maximum Carnage cartridge is such a special memory because that didn't really happen for my brother and I back then my family didn't have a lot of money you know and I chose my words very carefully there he came home with the cartridge no box no manual and you might be asking why which because he probably grabbed it used on his way home from work he probably stopped off at Funko land he saw a red game and was like that's pretty cool man those were special memories Dan Dan my brother and I didn't ask for the game it was just a total surprise special memories the game's soundtrack is legendary or at least it's leg legendary to [Music] me it was composed by the real life band green jelly and that's another thing I don't recall happening very often in fact off the top of my head I can't think of another game from this era where a real band provided the soundtrack other than maybe patches lugosi's silly circus okay I made that up but tell me you wouldn't play that game I dare you it's well known that a whole ass Black Sabbath song was used in this game without any sort of clearance and that's one of those Wild West moments of the 16bit [Music] era something like that would never pass nowadays and if it did it would be patched out immediately if I have to complain about a few things I will go ahead twist my arm I'll talk toward the end of the game the boss fights are out of control shriek and doppelganger are hard enough on their own but it gets to the point where we fight these two then demo Goblin then carry on and then Carnage shows up on top of it all these fights repeat we fight some of these Jokers four or five times which is nuts if you don't have Cameo powerups to spare you simply will not win it's not going to happen you need them or you're screwed that doesn't feel very fair September 16th 1994 that's the day Spider-Man and Venom flew onto store shelves with Maximum Carnage critics were impressed with the cast of characters comic book story cutscenes and soundtrack but called the combat repetitive after a certain point this is one of those games that my friends and and the other kids at school all played if they didn't own it at the very least they'd rented it I'd love to know where you fall on this one if you're of the age where that would have been possible let me know down in the comments one of the biggest takeaways for Maximum Carnage though was the desire for multiplayer look we've got Spider-Man and Venom this amazing tag team my brother and I would play games together all the time most of my friends had siblings wouldn't it be cool if Maximum Carnage had a two-player mode or better yet what if it had a two-player sequel introducing Venom and Spider-Man separation anxiety yeah Venom gets top billing this time how do you like that that's how cool Venom is man separation anxiety delivered exactly what we wanted from Maximum Carnage two players Venom and Spidey kicking ass side by side you and a friend smashing it up all of the footage I captured for this video was me playing by myself but hey the option for two players is there nonetheless immediately you'll notice the graphical differences between separation anxiety and Maximum Carnage in this new game the camera is pulled back way further the Sprites are smaller and everything has a much more cartoony appearance why did they make this change I have absolutely no idea I think it looks worse to be honest with you now does it look bad no I wouldn't say it's bad the last retrospective video covered Alien versus Predator on Super Nintendo that looked bad this is just a small step down arguably the best part of Maximum Carnage were the comic book panel cutscenes right these were fantastic you want to see how separation anxiety tells its story here you go this is it flat black background and plain text with a singular unmoving image of whichever character you're playing as this is it it never gets better than this there's absolutely no excuse for the removal of cutscenes seeing as though separation anxiety is also a story pulled directly from the comics now it's not the story from the Arc called separation anxiety it's kind of a hodg podge of a couple things but still look at this box art how cool is this as a kid I didn't know this character was called scream I was like whoa female Carnage how about these guys this is Lasher Agony Fage and Riot again with no cutscenes to explain who these bosses are I said wow a green Venom that's like a black venom clone wo Purple Girl Venom I had no idea these were real villains with actual backstories and abilities that they're sprung from the same symbiote as Venom and Carnage even the back of the box doesn't help it just says five times the Carnage we needed those comicbook cut scenes Dan Dan what a disappointment unfortunately the less impressive graphics and other dir of Storytelling cutscenes are not the only things that drag down this sequel the game play all around is Far Far Below where we came from to the naked eye you might be thinking I don't know it looks pretty similar to me and it is in most ways the Striking combinations are pretty much the same we can still clunk two jabronies together like Mo but the difficulty holy hell oh my God is this game hard so much harder than Maximum Carnage the onslaught of enemies is just ridiculous they never stop spawning dozens of them look how often I'm getting interrupted in a combo pulling an opponent in and bashing them in clinch range is now useless as everyone will rush you before you can do any real damage Venom is stronger than Spider-Man and honestly I feel like my punches land much more often when playing as venom for some reason but either way you will never feel equipped to take on this game's insane level of challenge fighting Riot yeah that's Riot is terrible it feels impossible to get your hands on him if I didn't have an infinite lives code on I never would have been able to beat this game at the end you're required to fight Riot Fage Agony scream and flasher all before The Showdown with Carnage are you kidding me there's an argument that maybe the game is balanced for two players and I'm only one guy but no this game is hard even with a friend and what the hell is With These Guys these nameless faceless robot looking dudes these are practically the only humanoid enemies in the game it's these jerks the entire time level by level so the enemy variety is cut in half as well these white robots are new and they're a pain in the ass but jeez aou danand where' everyone else go I'm being really negative so check this out Ghost Rider is a new Cameo PowerUp so is Daredevil and Hawkeye that's a positive I'll take it but if you really want to kick in theant after beating this brutally difficult game you want to know what you unlock hard mode go to hell it's never easy to come back to a game and find out that it hasn't held up you know because like Maximum Carnage I also had separation anxiety as a kid and I loved it I mean it's Spider-Man and Venom of course I loved it and again this game doesn't suck it's just there's a reason that more people talk about Maximum Carnage all these years later that one holds up much better for my money separation anxiety released in November of 1995 if you're keeping track of time that's just over a year after the release of Maximum Carnage which may be a great excuse for why it comes off a bit rushed critics were not as kind to the sequel calling it repetitive they complained that the graphics had taken a hit and more today both of these games carry a value of about $25 which for a retro game in today's market isn't too bad for 25 bucks I could recommend Maximum Carnage separation anxiety eh not so much I hope you've enjoyed this look back at two of the Spider-Man games from my childhood Dan Dan the patreon support project still has goals to unlock one of which is the Spider-Man trilogy on PlayStation 2 I really really want to make this video and if you want to see it sign up at any level over on patreon.com 616entertainment if a fraction of the people who have commented I want to see that actually signed up man we'd be done already but speaking of being done that's a wrap on this symbiote special oh there it is Dan Dan Maximum Carnage and separation anxiety another patreon support project retrospective in the books thank you very much for watching thank you very much for being in my corner and uh thank you for just making this video possible you know it means a lot to me to have you guys by my side so until next time I love you and I'll see you [Music] soon [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh how do you like that

Channel: 616Entertainment

Views: 31,934

Keywords: Spider-Man, Venom, Carnage, Maximum Carnage, Separation Anxiety, Symbiote, Genesis, Sega, Retro, Retro games, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Spider-Man and Venom, 16 bit, review, retrospective, avgn, ljn, 616, 616Entertainment, 616 Entertainment, Spiderman, spiderman

Id: osrc2U1-Mnw

Length: 22min 45sec (1365 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 08 2023