Let’s talk about Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge. This was a game we had rented back in the day, with much excitement. And even at the time though, in the midst of X-Men mania and everything, I was fully aware that this one wasn’t very good. Sure, it had both Gambit and Spider-Man playable—my two absolute favorite comic book characters—but the game itself was less than impressive.

So we’ve got Spider-Man, we’ve got the X-Men, and we’ve got the 16-bit Super Nintendo, what’s not to like? Well, there are 5 playable characters to choose from, but the game opens with an obligatory Spider-Man level which must be completed before any X-Men are selectable. This first level almost serves as a tutorial, letting you get the hang of the controls before things really kick off. I say “almost” serves as a tutorial, because the controls differ somewhat—and the gameplay differs wildly—between characters. So it might be a decent tutorial for Spidey, but not necessarily for the rest of the cast.

And you know, the initial Spider-Man level plays alright. The controls are a bit stilted, sure. Spidey’s jump is uncharacteristically short and limited; a leap more akin to Simon Belmolt than anything that a spider can. The wall-crawling is also fairly awkward to get into/out of, although there’s a magnetic snap to it that kinda reminds me of clinging to walls in Ninja Gaiden.

Doing a web swing is actually pretty fun…at least for the single second in which it lasts. Maybe this is only in hindsight, but it feels very strange to me that you can only initiate a web swing from a standing position, or stuck to a wall, but not in the air. Surely I’ve been conditioned by more recent Spider-Man games, but my first impulse is to jump and then start webslinging. That doesn’t work here, as your feet must be firmly planted for the web swing button to register.

Worse still, simply swinging on a web will rarely get you where you want to go. Often you’ll need to adjust the length of the web line to successfully swing to your target platform. And as it turns out you can shorten the line by pressing Up on the D-pad. Pressing Up while web swinging takes some getting used to, because it is not at all intuitive. Luckily that first Spidey level is designed in such a way that you must learn to do it to proceed. So I guess it really is a tutorial level!

At this point I should mention that Arcade’s Revenge is another LJN title. Yes, LJN—a toy company turned video game publisher—who earned a pretty terrible reputation during the 80’s and early 90’s for releasing games of dubious quality based on recognizable properties. While they published lots of stuff, they never actually developed any of those games in-house; instead they were always contracting with outside developers. For example, we previously covered The Amazing Spider-Man on Game Boy, a game published by LJN and developed by Rare.

In this case, LJN is publishing a game developed by Software Creations Ltd., a British game studio formed in 1985 out of Manchester. (Hey cool, my grandmother’s from Manchester.) And it must be said that Software Creations made some pretty cool stuff in their day. Or at the very least, the music in their games tended to be rad as hell, thanks to the composing duo of brothers Geoff and Tim Follin. The music they wrote for Silver Surfer on NES is the stuff of legend.

And the music isn’t too shabby this time around either. I wouldn’t say the soundtrack is amazing or anything, but it’s certainly serviceable. The tunes have a disco flare to them that might harken back to the live-action Spider-Man TV show in the 70’s. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it….

So here’s 2D platformer developed by a British studio, and playing it today I can absolutely tell that’s the case. In my older age I’ve learned how to spot the British flavour of platformer design, and this first level has all the telltale signs. We have a fairly large environment to traverse, with relatively few enemies to engage with, and—here’s the big giveaway—a whole bunch of items scattered throughout the area which must be collected in order to progress. It’s a bit like needing to find a key to unlock the door, but your key’s been exploded into little bits, so you’ve got to scrounge up every last piece.

In this case, Spidey not only has to collect a series of macguffins, but he must pick them up in the correct order. Our hero’s spider-sense will point you in the direction of your next collectable target, which is handy I guess.

Speaking of spider-sense, I noticed that the sound effect used for it was basically just radio static. That seems like an odd choice for the audio queue here, although the wavy lines used to visually represent spider-sense could be interrupted as little lightning bolts. Now I’m wondering if Spider-Man cartoons and games prior to the 90’s animated series used a radio static sound effect for spider-sense, or if this game is an outlier. Also, the hurt sound effect used by the male protagonists sounds to my ear like almost the same clip used in Super Castlevania. I wonder if that’s just a default sound effect or something.

Alright, so once the Spidey tutorial level is complete, you can select any of the five characters: Spider-Man, Wolverine, Cyclops, Storm, and Gambit. Unfortunately the gameplay offered in each character’s stage is rather wildly different.

Spidey’s next level is largely more of the same stuff seen in the tutorial, except now there are more enemies and hazards to contend with. Also, there are now walls the old webhead is unable to stick to. Why can’t Spider-Man stick to this particular type of…uh, looks like…concrete? No explanation, it just doesn’t work now.

Wolverine is stuck in some kind of nightmarish circus/toy factory thing. There are killer clowns, life-size windup toy soldiers, machine toting Jack-in-the-boxes, buzzsaws, etc. Pressing the A Button extends/retracts Wolverine's adamantium claws, and there’s no penalty or limitation on using them. Which kind of begs the question—why aren’t his claws just out the whole time? The X Button does an uppercut-like attack, which can be used to claw through certain walls.

Cyclops’s level involves minecarts, although he’s not riding a minecart the whole time. Rather you use minecarts to maneuver around the level. Controls feel especially awkward for old Scott Summers. You can kneel down to fire optic blasts at downward angles, but this locks him in place until you press Up to stand again. So crouching is a toggle for only this character, which feels very strange in a 2D action platformer.

Storm gets particularly shafted with an underwater level. It features an air gauge for health, electric hazards, and probably everything else players hated from TMNT on the NES. It seems like the developers didn’t know what to do with a character who can fly, and so they just decided to make her swim. This was a terrible design decision. Our girl Ororo deserved better.

Gambit’s stage also sucks. The Ragin’ Cajun is pursued by giant spikeball, creating a vibe somewhat similar to auto-scrolling levels in Mario games. Except that in Mario games the jumping feels good and the experience is usually quite fun. Worse than Gambit’s jump here is his card throwing, with projectiles that limply follow a short arc and fall offscreen. I’m wondering if the developers actually had the 90’s cartoon or any recent X-Men comic books to reference, just to get a sense of what Gambit’s charged cards are supposed to look like in motion.

After giving it a few playthroughs, I can confidently state that Arcade’s Revenge is not particularly fun. The icing on the cake, however, is that the game is also quite difficult. I’m fairly certain that I have never gotten past any character’s first stage (Spider-Man’s tutorial level not withstanding). So while Juggernaut and Shocker and Carnage are featured on the front cover, and I’d be curious to see where they appear in the game, I’m not actually that curious. The game simply isn’t enjoyable enough to struggle through.

Developers Software Creations clearly had some ideas they wanted to try here, and unfortunately most of those ideas didn’t work out too well. I genuinely want to know if this game actually started development as an X-Men game—or even a Spider-Man game—in the first place. Or, as I suspect might have happened, if Marvel Comics branding was painted over a mishmash of video game prototypes which the developers had previously been working on. Using Arcade as the main villain might just be a clever way to utilize whatever random game elements you have lying around without having to justify anything.

Ultimately Spider-Man and the X-Men in Arcade's Revenge is a bit of a mess, and not likely to top anyone’s list of favorite Spider-Man, or favorite X-Men games either. While it’s not completely horrible, I can’t imagine anyone choosing to play this today, especially given the SNES alternatives. Either Spider-Man or Maximum Carnage is likely to be a better time. And X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse is a far superior X-Men game, truly a classic. If we’re feeling generous though, the team-up aspect is a nice touch, and you only get that here. I just wish they did something more substantive with it.

And hey, let’s not forget that this game received multiple ports. The Super NES version came out in November 1992, followed by a Sega Genesis version in 1993. Then in 1994, handheld versions were released for both the Game Boy and Game Gear. So presumably, if this game was just pure trash, they wouldn’t port it to that many systems, would they?

Yes, yes they definitely would. That’s the LJN way, baby!