It's not just you (and dustinb12) Joan,
Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage is a phenomenal game! It is simultaneously one of the best
Spider-Man games of the era (by far), one of the best beat-em-up games of the era (especially in terms of gameplay), one of the best
Super Nintendo games in general (I confess that I haven't played the
Sega Genesis version of the title), had one of the most impressive soundtracks of a 16-bit game, incorporated cut-scenes that matched the comics it was based on near perfectly, and even had a neato customized red cartridge!
Even though there wasn't much wall crawling and swinging for skyscraper-to-skyscraper, it was first game where I actually felt like I was playing as
Spider-Man in a fight and could play as
Venom period! It may have been nice to switch between the two characters at a whim, as can be done in the final boss battle, but having the character selection result in a different path through the game was also great! Incorporating the rest of the supporting cast as power-ups that are called to briefly attack the on-screen foes was also neat, although it is kind of funny to have them pop up, fight for about a second, and then run away!
I had a good laugh when the
Angry Video Game Nerd eventually played it and was shocked that there's actually a good
Spider-Man game, that was made by
LJN (his nemesis and the maker of many truly terrible licensed games) no less!
It's a bit of a shame that its sequel,
Spider-Man & Venom: Separation Anxiety (based upon the first
Venom mini-series) wasn't nearly as good--but was still better than most other
Spider-Man games!
As for the
Maximum Carnage story-arc upon wish it was based: That arc was a high-water moment of the
Spider-Man comics in the nineties, lined up perfectly with my initial comic reading days in junior high, and felt like everything that the earlier appearances of
Venom and
Carnage that were leading up to that decade! (In retrospect, between that,
The Death and Return of Superman,
Batman's Knightfall, the soon-to-come
Age of Apocalypse in the
X-Men books,
The Sandman,
Hellblazer, the soon-to-come
Preacher,
The Maxx,
Spawn when it first began, etc, etc, etc: I got into comics at the perfect time to become hooked for life!) Looking back at
Maximum Carnage now and putting aside my nostalgia for it, I can see its much criticized flaws: that it has too many fight scenes to the point of tedium (which works well for a video game adaptation), that
Death-Lok's feel good ray was silly (and, again, the hostile emotions induced in the public by
Shriek prior to that point works well for a video game adaptation), and that the truly great
Spider-Man arcs were those of decades past (e.g.
The Death of Gwen Stacy). Regardless, I still consider it to be a great arc of the era and perhaps even one of the last truly great
Spider-Man arcs given what lied in that character's future: the likes of the overlong, convoluted
Clone Saga and the insulting abomination known as *shudder*
One More Day!
As for a movie adaptation of
Maximum Carnage... perhaps as part of a future phase of the
Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it's much too early at this time for a
Maximum Carnage movie.
Sony and
Marvel only recently worked out a deal to include
Spider-Man in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe, and have yet to actually introduce him, as teen-aged Peter Parker, in one of their films (likely
Captain America: Civil War). Once
Spider-Man is introduced and established in the
Marvel Cinematic Universe, they would then need to do the very same for
Venom before finally introducing
Carnage and his
Maximum Carnage!
