Marvel vs Capcom 2

Let us flash back to the year 2000 and see what happened. The Y2K bug was nothing more than an over hyped scenario, which had many people stocked with supplies that they will never use. The “dot com” fad nearing the end of its heyday, and its founders had come up with incentive ways to make it more profitable. Finally the Sega Dreamcast was gaining steam before it was ultimately shutout. During that time, a game was released for the Dreamcast called Marvel vs Capcom 2. When my friend first got it, we thought that this was one of the best 2D fighting games around. We played it for hours on end. Fast-forward to nearly three years later, where Capcom releases the same game for the Xbox. Is this game worthy of your money? Read on to find out.

Let’s face it; Capcom is one of the best 2D fighting game developers around. But they are losing serious ground by making rehashes of two-year-old games, with no extras at all. There haven’t been many true original-fighting games in a while; they are all ports of ports of arcade games. There is nothing wrong with that, but when most companies port an already ported game, they include reasons for getting the game over the predecessors, or make it better in some form or fashion. This is not the case with Marvel vs Capcom 2. It is the exact same game when it was released over two years ago, and age has not agreed with this game.

On the positive side, the game still plays wonderfully! Nothing has changed since the inception of Street Fighter game fighting style, which Capcom is known for. Once players pick up the controller, they will be instantly throwing fireballs, spider webbing, and other things that these super human fighters are well known for. The matches in this game are a three-on-three tag team, which means you can pick three characters and your enemies get three as well. This makes for a big fight. One of the best things about this approach is if you can get a super move. With all of your characters, the other character is going down in no time. When a characters health gets low, players can change on the fly and fight with another one of their choices, while the other is recovering slightly.

One thing to keep gamers coming back to Marvel vs Capcom 2 is the sheer variety of characters available in this game. Players will have the chance to have fifty six different characters to choose from once everything is unlocked. There are other things that players can unlock as well, so that they will want to keep coming back for more.

I am sorry to say this, but Marvel vs Capcom 2 looks bad. There is a lot of pixilation that can be seen with the naked eye all throughout the game. Forgive me if I am mistaken, but isn’t the Xbox supposed to be more powerful than the Dreamcast? This is not the game to show your friends the power of the Xbox! What is funny is that all of the backgrounds are in 3D, with a lot of animations going around, and it looks really nice and crisp. When the characters are thrown in the arenas, players will definitely see all of the pixilation more clearly.

The characters are pretty nicely detailed and have a great set of animations and moves they can perform. On the other hand the characters are a little bit bigger, which explains most of the pixilation. The one good thing is that even though there is a lot of pixilation, the game runs extremely fast, and there is never any drop in frame rate. Even with all three characters performing their special move, which involves many a lot of bright flashes, the game will still run smoothly.

The sound for the game is less than stellar. I have my home theater system setup to all of my consoles, and this game sounded really bad on it. I got the same results when I plugged the Xbox directly to my TV as well. It is not that the music or sound effects are bad; it is due to the fact that the game sounds drown out. This is a shame because it is always fun hearing the classics music and sound effects that this game contains. Even though most of these sounds are rehashed, they will take you back to your childhood playing some of the old arcade games at the stores.

Marvel vs Capcom 2 is rated T for Teen for violence, blood, and sexual themes.

Gameplay: 8.3
It plays exactly like it did two years ago, which is a good thing. Capcom has one of the best fighting schemes around!

Graphics: 6.5
You would think with over two years between the Dreamcast and Xbox version, that this game would have been cleaned up some. This is not the case, the game actually looks worse than the predecessor! This is not acceptable for games that are produced for the Xbox.

Sound: 5.5
The sound is to blurred out to actually appreciate anything from this category.

Difficulty: Easy
If you have played any Capcom games in the past, then you will pick up this game in an instant. The AI will not prove to be too much of a challenge for you. If this is your first time to play a Capcom fighting game, the learning curve is not that steep, and you will be able to pick it up within thirty minutes.

Concept: 3.0
Hello! Where's the innovation? Marvel vs Capcom 2 was awesome back two years ago, because nothing can be better then fighting with the best Street Fighter characters against the most powerful Marvel characters. Capcom really needs to go back to the drawing board, they at least could have put in a few more extras!

Multiplayer: 8.0
Capcom always has the best multiplayer fighting games. Nothing can be better than fighting against a human to see who the best at this game is. Computer AI just cannot compare to the “fun factor” another human player brings to the game.

Overall: 7.0
Is Capcom losing its grip on creating the best 2D fighting games around? I think they might be, with games such as Guilty Gear on the rise, they are putting the house that invented Street Fighter to shame. This game does not use the Xbox anywhere near its potential. This game is just a way to get the few who didn’t purchase it on any of the previous systems to have a chance at it. If you are just dying for a new fighter, than pick this one up, otherwise just leave this one for a rental.