Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety

This article is about the video game. For the comic series, see Venom: Separation Anxiety.

Venom • Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety
Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety Venom • Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety cover (North American Sega Genesis version)
Developer(s)	Software Creations
Publisher(s)	Acclaim Entertainment
Series	Spider-Man
Platforms	SNES, Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis, PC
Release date(s)
Genre(s)	Beat 'em up
Mode(s)	Single-player, cooperative

Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety is a side-scrolling beat 'em up video game and sequel to Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage, released for Sega Genesis and Super NES and then ported to PC. One or two players team up as Spider-Man and Venom to defeat the evil symbiote Carnage. The game boasts a large number of thugs that the player has to defeat: heavily armed Jury and Venom's symbiote children. There is also cameo assistance from Captain America, Ghost Rider, Hawkeye, and Daredevil.

Characters

• Spider-Man – The titular hero of the series, Spider-Man is weaker and faster than his teammate, Venom. As in the comic, he is able to punch, kick, swing from webs and cling to walls. In combat, his special moves are oriented toward agility and finesse rather than brute strength.

• Venom – As a symbiote, Venom is a combination of both human and alien organism. He has all of Spider-Man's generic abilities (web-swinging and wall-crawling), but unlike Spider-Man, his combat moves are primarily based on raw power. He also takes less damage per hit than Spider-Man.

• Carnage- The main antagonist of the game, and appears as the final boss.

• The Jury – Unlike the Symbiotes, these level bosses are not superhuman; instead, they are extremely well armed and well equipped mercenaries. They appear singly and in pairs at the end of selected levels, and again together at the end of the game. The members are Sentry, Ramshot, Screech, Bomblast, Firearm and Wysper.

• Symbiotes – Like the Jury, these hybrid alien/human level bosses possess varied combat skills and attack either alone or in pairs until the end of the game. The symbiotes are Riot, Agony, Lasher, Scream and Phage.

Plot

Though the game is titled after the comic book series Venom: Separation Anxiety, the story more closely follows the events of Venom's first limited series, Venom: Lethal Protector. The game's plot loosely follows Lethal Protector in the following ways:

• Appearance of Spider-Man (in Lethal Protector #1.)
• Confronting the digger in San Francisco (as seen in Lethal Protector #1.)
• Discovering the underground city (as seen in Lethal Protector #1.)
• Appearance of The Jury (as seen in Lethal Protector #2.)
• Removal of five symbiote seeds to create five new symbiotes (as seen in Lethal Protector #4.)
• Spider-Man and Venom's escape from the Life Foundation (as seen in Lethal Protector #5.)
• Confronting the five symbiotes at the Life Foundation Headquarters (as seen in Lethal Protector #5.)

Reception

The game received mixed to positive reviews. GamePro Magazine gave the Genesis version an 8/10, stating "With all it's faults, Separation Anxiety still delivers rock 'em-sock 'em action. It's well worth playing through the next time your spider sense begins to tingle." However, Electronic Gaming Monthly only gave the Genesis port a 4.75/10, while Sega-16 rated it 4/10. The SNES port has an overall rating of 61.50% on Game Rankings.com, while Nintendo Power gave the SNES version 3.25/5. Average gamers have generally rated the game higher, with the game holding a rank of 8/10 on GameSpot.

External links

• Spider-Man Separation Anxiety FAQ
• Venom – Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety Cheats
• Spider-Man and Venom Separation Anxiety for Genesis
• Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety at MobyGames