Review: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (XBLA) Review 8-2-2009

It is week 2 of Microsoft Summer of Arcade and this week's game is Marvel vs. Capcom 2. This is the classic 3 on 3 tag fighter from the arcades previous released on Dreamcast and later on the original Xbox and Playstation 2. For those that don't know it pits characters from the Marvel Comics universe against characters from various Capcom games such as Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Resident Evil. You pick teams of 3 to fight and you can tag team members in and out or call them in for a quick assist. It has an easy to pick up play system with easy special moves and combos.

This version is the same gameplay wise as the Dreamcast version but everything is unlocked right away, for better or worse. A big part of the Dreamcast version was to play the game and earn points to use in the shop to unlock more characters, alternate colors for characters, and stages. While that fun is gone in this version, it means you can jump right into the fights with everyone and enjoy.

There are a couple other differences than its Dreamcast cousin as well. First of all the backgrounds are now in full HD since they were made in that resolution to begin with. This means that they look the best they ever have, but unfortunately the sprites have not been redone so while they always have looked worse than the backgrounds, now they look even worse. There are a few filters that you can use to try to make them look a bit smoother but don't expect anything like BlazBlue or Street Fighter HD Remix. Everything is also 16x9 (widescreen) now for the backgrounds but the gameplay still remains in the original 4x3 setup. What this means is gameplay has not changed, you will not be able to completely move to the outter edges and attack animations will cut off at the sides. It is nothing major and one would be hard pressed to notice it for the most part.

The major addition to this version is the online play. With this addition you may be happy all characters are available so you can jump right in. As with most online games on the 360 there are player matches as well as ranked matches and the player matches host lobbies with up to 6 players. As with most fighting games there was some lag at time but if you link up with someone with a good connection you can get some great fights going.

Overall this is a great 2D fighting game to keep you playing for sometime and is well worth the $15 asking price especially when you consider the Xbox and PS2 versions were going for $80 on eBay recently. To add to value of sorts, if you get all games released during the Summer of Arcade you will get 800 points back. This is week 2, with last week being 'Splosion Man (review coming soon) so they are on their way to making that a worthy deal. The rest of the games coming out seem to be worth it from what I've read, but expect full reviews as they are released. If you'd like to pick up some Microsoft Points at a slight discount, feel free to check out My Store and I can just e-mail you the code if you'd like to save on shipping and get the code faster.

I will update the review once the Playstation 3 version is out so I can compare. I will also add info on achievements/trophies.