Marvel Vs Capcom 3 (Viewtiful!)

Guy’s love fighting games...I am not sure why this is but it IS and undeniable truth of the world. ( Much like the fact that Michael Jackson liked little children.) Perhaps it is the idea of getting to beat each other senseless without having to do any work at all or maybe….just maybe….it is the large bouncy breast that every fighting game developer slaps on the chicks. I mean with breast’s that perfectly obey the laws of physics it is unreasonable to expect even the most chaste of men play the game with both hands. Now moving on from my sexist rant ^^ let us now discuss the merit of this wonderful title.

Marvel vs Capcom is part of the original generation of fighting games. The series has been around for years of years and it is one of the few that have gotten better with age. This new installment to the series shows all the signs of a classic face lift. The character models have been redone, the graphics are on a new engine, the controls have been simplified and oh yah they added some pretty dreamy characters don’t you think. (Drifts off into a fantasy about Wesker and Dante). *Sigh* Well back to reality as in the previous game the majority of the game is based on 3v3 fights lasting anywhere from 30 sec to infinity. The goal of which is to simply grind your opponents into the dust with a rainbow of colors and NUMBERS. Now that we have discussed the fast majority of how it reminds us of the old let us now discuss the shiny new implants it got!

Single Player

The Story:

It’s a fighting game….why on earth do you care about the story….ok fine fine here is your dam story…..Galactus comes to destroy the earth….you must stop him….the end. You happy…..or would you like me to flush it out more for you in a 400 page epic complete with musical accompaniment by journey? If you said yes….screw you….screw you all…..

Arcade mode

Under the banner of single player you will find first and foremost the classic arcade mode. As you would imagine this game type is the classic human vs computer tournament in which the player fights in 6 advancing rounds with each won fight causing the computer to increase in difficulty (it never gets easier does it) until you fight (insert epic drum roll here) Galactus. Now every fight up to this is pretty much the same. You just have a three v three battle with computers going one on one. However, this boss fight for lack of a better word mixes it up. The first thing that happens is Barney on steroids summons a dapple ganger of some random characters and instructs it to fight you. Naturally since it is a fair fight you begin to pwn the poorly engineered copy with ease, but wait a minute he has a friend. It is at about the half way point on the clone’s health that yet another clone appears and joins the fray. From here it becomes an epic gangbang of aerial combos and death. On a normal difficulty it is hard but not impossible to defeat these two with a decent amount of skill and strategy. However, for the harder (I like pointy things shoved up my butt) settings such as very hard I would recommend being as lame, gay (despite intuition) and cheap as possible because these two will combo you to death in less than 20 seconds given the chance.

A great way to just blow through this phase is to use Ammy and instantly change her weapon to beads and then proceed to whip them to death with your impressive heavy attack mashing skills (thank god you guys have practiced rapid movements with your hands!). Once the two degenerate excuses of living creatures have fallen the giant purple monster appears in all his flamer glory. Where he proceeds to use a plethora of god mody attacks to try and finish you. For this part of the fight the basic strategy is fairly simple but allow me to spell it out for you. DO NOT GET HIT! Pretty much everything Galactus does is a 30-141 hit combo that will annihilate your characters. The range of most of these is ridiculous trying to do your fancy dodges is out of the question. Seriously try it I bet he back hands you so fast that you end up thinking you went back to brothel (never never again!)! The only real option is to block…wait for one of his cool down phases and then attack. This makes for a long…tedious and overall annoying as hell boss fight….(yah developers I said it …not challenging…annoying)

Training Mode

Wait you mean to tell me there is a mode where I can just sit and endlessly punch a person that doesn’t move? HUZZAH god has answered my prayers! Yes boys and girls MvC3 as its predecessors boast of a training game type where all you studious players can practice your combos of death and destruction that you will use to rip out my heart and shove it down my own wind pipe. (I hate you all….every single one of you…yes even you in the corner over there….I loathe you…) The training mode also features a command display setting that allows you to view your control inputs along with a cpu behavior section that allows you to control the cpu’s basic behavior patterns. Literally any and every situation that could come up in the battle can be simulated here.

Mission Mode

Here is pretty much the MvC kindergarten. Where the game takes all you little dunces by the hand and says, “Here let me teach you how to beat some ones face in…or at least pull down your pants and bend over.” This mode lets you choose a character and then goes through a nice little tutorial that teaches you combos. At first the combos requested of you are pretty basic but soon you see an exponential growth in difficulty until you get to the end where you start to forget what button comes next in the 50 movement sequence. While this tool is useful and a good way to gain basic knowledge about character movements and game play it is no substitute for basic experience. However, for those of you just starting or trying new character this is a fast way to learn, easy and effective combos that you can use straight out of the gate.

Multiplayer

Quick/ Ranked Matches

Now this is one of the shinning starts in the new MvC3 universe. The multiplayer game play has been beautifully streamlined and polished. The online match making system is fast and for the most part lag free. The ranking system is fair and accurate insuring competitive matches and heart pounding excitement as you rise through the ranks winning honor for your house (wait a minute…that’s not right….oh never mind). The way ranked matches work is that your actual rank is based on the number of wins you have and over what rank opponents. Having 500 wins over a novice will place you firmly in a amateur category while having 10 wings over a 8^th degree lord will make you a 9^th degree one. It is a very smart and effective way to do the ranking systems. It insures that every person in a rank belongs there and has won the matches necessary to hold that title.

Versus

Oh come on you guys know this one. It’s were two people on the same Xbox or PS3 go head to head for bragging rights and the occasional hooker. Just like any other match each person picks three characters and they go at it.

Praise

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a beautifully peace of gamesmanship. The character models, movements, combos and supers a visually appealing and give the game a larger than life feelings. Each hit and movement is fast and flashy with absolute everything looking like a cinematic fight scene. The characters for the most part move as they should, stager, guard and counter (thought countering is not very useful since the window of opportunity is about .2 seconds for some characters) when appropriate and pull off breath taking feats of strength and skill that will make ev

en the most hardened fighting gamer smile with delight at can of whoop ass they just opened. The normal controls are for the most part intuitive and easy to use letting even the newest to title easily learn and play with some more experienced players. For the most part the button and movement input of most combos transfer from character to character though the actual move that is generated by this input is different. You see each character is different and unique in their own way and has a set of attacks that is completely exclusive to them. This creates an unimaginable amount of move variety and possible strategies that can be created by simply altering the characters in your team.

Criticism

Alright up to this point I have been pretty much a fan girl of the game. You have listened to me gush forth about how I love the flow of combat, the character models, game types and just over all game play (besides the horrific Galactus fight)it is now only fair that I mention the bad.

The overarching complaint I have with this game is also something I praised and that is the control scheme and simple button layout options. Back in MvC II it took skill to be good at this game. The simplified control layout out and combos made easy system has taken a little bit off the bite off the game for me. To be honest it is too simple and easy to chain combos and deal ridiculous amounts of damage. For the most part you can spam the same basic combo and be more effective than a person who learns the more advance ones. In my opinion it’s like the game has been scaled down for a more……..dimwitted audience. The changed has increased the games marketability and overall gamer base but has cheated some of the more loyal and dedicated (hardcore) fans of the series out of the complexity they deserve.

Do not get me wrong this is a great fighting game that will fulfill the needs of every basic-casual gamer. However, for the pro fighting gamers this title will never be a true option. This game lacks the feeling that every move you chose has a purpose and that even one missed button could break your beautifully constructed combo and leave wide open for a counter attack. While this is a minor complaint the more pressing is

sue is the simple control’s option. To me this is possibly a game breaking option for ranked play. Choosing this button configuration gives even the newest of gamers the same move set and basically skills as an elite player with hours of experience. The fact that it is even an option to allow people to use the simple controls in ranked play is an embarrassment. It promotes not learning the combos or even the basic game play mechanics. It legitimately turns this game into a button mashing fest that requires only three buttons to play effectively… no brain or skill required. I am not saying that the feature needs to be removed for the game as a whole…but it does need to be removed from ranked play. If you cannot play the game on a normal setting you have no business being in the same ranked game as a real gamer.

Next on my list of complaints is the unlockables and points system. While the basic idea of giving you player points for completing certain modes in the game was solid capcom’s execution was lacking. Most of the more substantial rewards’ values were much to low and to be honest there wasn’t enough of them. For Christ sake look at the titles list page….there must be over 9000!….which without doubt makes it the most numerous of the rewards in the game. I mean I do love me some titles(like xxSuperLord ofDarknessxx *omg so cool*) but that is kind of silly. I would have much rather have seen alternate costumes, more characters… another joke game mode….or even difficulty setting. While yes there are a few characters, movies and art work…and that’s neat and all…. I was a little disappointed to find out how quick and easy it was to get most of these. I mean all the characters are unlocked in the first 8,000 player points and all the opening movies open up after 60,000(about 5 hours of game play if your Outlaw or Elitist…I mean come on they don’t have girls =P).

Seriously though, one play through on normal arcade pretty much did it for unlocking the characters. While some of you may be yelling at me that this is a good thing because you get the characters you love early in the game I will respectfully disagree. While getting the characters was fun I now I have little to nothing to look forward to in the game besides multiplayer. So overall my complaint is just that the rewards on not correctly valued. I pretty much got akuma by sitting on my controller and all I get is a stupid title for beating the game on very hard….what is wrong with this picture. The game pretty much gives you no incentive to replay it or complete it on the harder difficulties. After the original four unlock able characters and movies alls that is left is art work, voices, pictures and omg hold your breath…..titles (thought I would say numbers didn’t you). The first three of which I have listed are able to be obtained through speed runs on the very easy difficulty.

Lastly, on my bitch list is just the character balancing. For the most part MvC did a decent job balancing the characters and making them all viable for use but there are a few that stand out above the rest as cheap and overpowered. The poster child for this is Sentinel. This character has a large health pool, a high damage dealing constant and a spam able beam move that makes him a nightmare to face.

Next, on the list of over powered is Ammy! Her bead weapons and machine fire style ice balls is a headache to fight through. A person who is agile enough to maneuver her well can get you into an impossible game of cat and mouse.

The last character that I would like to mention as unbalance is actually underpowered and this Phoenix. Her health is ridiculously low for her damage out put and skill set. Even with the possibility to be reborn that skill alone is not enough to make up for it. Getting got in one combo alone will end her immediately and ha

ving her on your team is pretty much like having a cardboard box for a character....a cardboard box that shoots fireballs.

Overall Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a beautiful, fun and exciting game…thought not one of the greats of our era. It will be popular for a while and return to obscurity because it lacks the difficulty and replay value to keep us hooked. It will remain fun and will defiantly be game we will return to from time to time to time humiliate our friends with but it will never command the same kind of dedication and love that games such as mass effect, Zelda, portal and red dead redemption have earned in our hearts. It is a good fighting game but it is just that good. For those of you that say the multiplayer will still be an option I will leave you with one qualifier. If they remove simple controls from Ranked play then yes. Marvel vs Capcom may indeed remain a flagship fighter for our era. That is a big if and only if though.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 I give you 7.2 slightly melted marshmallows out of 10 for a job well done.

PS: Find the Pineapple! ^^