Marvel vs Capcom 3 - Review

There are a few kinds of fighting games. Some are very balanced where all characters are created equal. Some require a high amount of skill/practice and patience to be great at it. Some are just stupid amounts of fun and totally unbalanced. That is what the Marvel vs Capcom series has always been, fun, but horridly unbalanced. Games that stop being fun at tournament level because they require you to use the very best of the best characters and not who you want to use to win.

Luckily in this day and age of online gaming, not everyone cares about who's the best, and don't play with an always win mentality, so games like this aren't so bad anymore. What's better is MvC3 is much more user friendly where combos are relatively universal between characters and are pretty simple to pull off. This offends the pros, but honestly I think it's for the better. There's nothing I hate seeing more than in MvC2 someone whip out Magneto and use his infinite that took him years of practice to do. That is not my interest when playing a game, to invest years of time into it to 'get it.' That's just sad really. MvC3 lets everyone in on the fun, and the high level stuff is still hard enough to do where you'll need a few good months of practice still.

Now enough with my initial banter, onto the review.

Graphics:

This game is gorgeous. It plays and feels like you're in a comic book. The lights are flashy, the frames are smooth and the backgrounds are interesting and always on the move. The level of detail on the characters shine through, and the animations really make you feel like you're using certain characters. Like Dante, if you've ever played a Devil May Cry game this really feels like Dante if he were in a fighting game. He has damn near all of his moves from the games, and his sword swing flows just like the DMC games. That's pretty impressive, and that isn't noticed just with him, but with everyone else too.

Still, it's hard to write anything else about the graphics. They are great, the end.

Sound:

The music is shockingly good, I guess they needed these 10 years to finally get decent tracks for a Marvel game. MvC2 was noted as having practically the WORST soundtrack for a fighting game ever. MvC3 on the other hand, not only has really great music, but it fluctuates by what characters you have out which is really neat.

The voice acting is...good? Ok, it's good...but annoying and ever present. I think I've gone to bed the past few nights hearing Deadpool scream "PINEAPPLE SURPRISE!" It's not as bad as some games like Blazblue where EVERY character is constantly talking, but this is still pretty bad as MOST characters are saying something all the time.

The sound effects are very satisfying and fit well with everything going onscreen. Chris's shotgun blast sound is especially good.

Gameplay:

Unlike the previous Marvel vs Capcom game where you needed a Ph.D in combo execution to play it, MvC3 tones that down and makes it much easier for nearly anyone to play. This is great honestly. I can't find a downside to this. While it's nice to know playing Street Fighter that I can do this or that and few others can, it still creates a barrier of people in the know and people who are not. And those who are not are often in the majority, so you're left with a smaller selection of people to play against in the end who are at or above your level.

Making the game easier to play was the best thing they could have done with this kind of game. It's still challenging to do advanced combos, and the best of the best will still undoubtedly be the best, but at least the worst of us gets a sporting chance now.

The game plays as such, everyone has a light, medium, hard, and launcher button, and two assist buttons. You get a 3 man team, and combos are pretty much always A, B, C, D or light, medium, hard, launcher (special as Capcom calls it) as is the case with this game. Once you hit the launcher you may jump to meet them and continue a A, B, C pattern ending on D to ground/bounce them to continue another combo or end in a super move. See? Simple isn't it?

There's advanced things to do like air dashing, super jumping, instant overheads/crossovers, and maintaining a zone like in most fighters. But the basics of the game are very simple, probably the simplest I have ever played.

There are 35 characters for now, and more on the way comprising of course of Marvel and Capcom characters. A fine selection to choose from indeed.

Online:

Online is great, once you get into a game. But that's the problem, finding a game is REALLY dumb. Unlike Street Fighter 4 where you select from a list of potential opponents which showed their connection speed, MvC3 does an auto search that has a high chance of failing. When it fails, it sends you back to the loading screen, which takes a bit, then back to the online menu. This is very annoying, and very frustrating. It takes longer to find a single match than it takes to play two of them.

With that said the online is decent. It matches you up very close to your opponents rank. There's a fun RPG level up mechanic much like what is found in nearly every online game ever now. And you can save 3 of your favorite team combinations for speedy access.

Player matches are great, because you find someone and can quickly rifle games off at the speed of light. Once a match is done if both players select rematch, then BOOM you immediately get another match, no loading times, no menu selections, nothing, it's fantastic. The same is for offline Versus, which is just super convenient.

Lobby is terrible though. There's no spectator view, and I have yet to find a fighting game except MvC3 that doesn't have spectator view. That's pretty bad. So when you're in a lobby you get to watch...nothing and wait your turn. It's so boring. I'm not sure what Capcom was thinking here. I almost bet we'll get it in DLC for an added cost...

Story:

N/A it's a fighting game.

Conclusion:

MvC3 is a pretty fun fighting game. It will most likely end up being known for a handful of cheap tactics the pro community comes up with, but oh well, hopefully a bunch of people from all skill sets stick with it to make the online stay fun for a few years.

Keep up the good work Capcom.

***UPDATE 4/1/11***

I couldn't hate this game more. Sure it's still fun in small amounts, but it has a TON of issues. Blocking things for one seems utterly broken and sometimes impossible. There are times in this game I have my hands off the buttons entirely, blocking in the correct way and the game doesn't register me blocking. THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME, and it's ridiculous. Most of the cast is entirely pointless as well, and utterly useless. Just like in MvC2, there are only a handful of characters worth picking and you'll never get a team of 3 where you like every character in it. No, you are FORCED to pick some characters just because they work well with others.

Other notes: X-Factor is the dumbest system ever. Wesker is broken beyond belief, he has way too much priority, is way too fast, does way too much damage for having way above average health. Everything is WAY too safe especially Wesker who I honestly believe has nothing punishable about him.

After 40 hours with this game I can honestly say I think I'm done with it. I find no enjoyment in creating teams for the sole purpose of killing characters in one combo, or teams that just run away and throw projectiles. I'd like to use Zero and Haggar on a team if possible, but they are both terrible and REALLY don't work well together. Too bad. Sticking with Street Fighter where you are allowed to block, can pick whoever you want, don't have to worry about stupid things like team synergy and broken hypers that deal WAY too much chip damage (especially in x-factor where blocking nets you as much damage as if you ate the hyper cleanly).

The game frustrates me to no end, and I'm not easily flustered. Sure, I could be good at this game too. All I have to do is pick Sentinel, Dr. Doom, and Ammy. Or a similar combination of broken characters like everyone else does.

***END UPDATE***

*"Pineapple Surprise" is in reference to grenades Deadpool throws at you*

Super Missed Opportunity All Stars - Wii

I rarely say many bad things about Nintendo on this site, mainly because they rarely deserve it. But in this instance I am so ashamed to be a huge Nintendo fan. Marketed as Mario's big 25th anniversary birthday bash, a culmination of Mario magic, 25 years of koopa stomping fun and what do we get? A lousy port.

Now, I'm not naive, I knew what I was buying going into it. I knew before I left my house to go buy this that in my SNES was Super Mario All Stars, still hooked up, still ready to play. However, I kept saying the extras would be worth it, the swath of history I will soak up will be well worth the $30 purchase. Besides that, my classic controller is way better than my old gimpy SNES controllers anyway.

There was a sudden air of doubt that fell over me however, as I made the transaction at Best Buy. A feeling of doubt so heavy, that I considered the $30 in my hand before sending it on it's way. One more look at Mario's glistening eyes on the box though was all it took for me to continue my transaction.

I went home with a renewed vigor that I had not made a poor choice. It was just $30 after all...just $30... Rushing through my door I immediately hunted down and unearthed my CD player that I haven't used in ages. I wiped the dust off, and plugged the CD in and cranked up the volume. Quickly, the room had filled itself with Mario ambiance as I then brought out the only other extra packaged within this milestone title.

The other item is a book, a sort of history of Mario. Now I have read and viewed MANY articles about the history of Mario over the years, even pseudo wrote one myself, I had anticipated this version hoping to learn many new things since it's from the mouths of the men who created it directly, no middle man. While the Mario music played in the background, I dug in. Each page contained a picture of a Mario game in the main series, and there are 10 in all. Below the box art are quotes from Iwata, Miyamoto, and Kondo capsulizing one distinct memory from the game.

These quotes were very short, and one sentence long...No interesting stories were told, and no fun insights on the game. No tales of trial and tribulation while developing it, no team quarrels, nothing...I would say there is more detail given from Punxsutawney Phil every groundhogs day than what this book contained. Sure, there were ancient early drawings of the game by Miyamoto and apparently they wanted to give Mario a weapon and have up on the D-pad be jump which was interesting and it would have been nice to hear their thoughts on that more, but no we just have to interpret that they chose not to do those things because they knew it would suck.

The quotes probably annoy me most of all. Iwata has nothing very interesting to say as he was never really part of the team that helped create these games. Miyamoto's quotes usually brought up one interesting challenge he had making the game, or something new he wanted to showcase. That was nice, but it leaves you wanting to know more. Kondo has the worst quotes of all as he literally repeats some of what he says between games. His early quotes are just him being annoyed with the tech limitations and how he got around them, and then after that he's just happy that he can do percussion...We get it Kondo, percussion is a great addition to music in gaming.

As I flipped the last page, I sat back and let the music from the CD finish. A song had just ended and I awaited the next tune. I awaited the amazing amount of percussion to fill the room that Kondo went on and on about...but instead I was greeted with a single noise. A Mario sound effect. Then I was greeted with another, and other, then the game over tune, and another sound effect. 10 sound effects later and the CD had ended. It was under 30 minutes long in total. So not only did they only use a fraction I can't even calculate on the game disc for 1 SNES port, they didn't even bother filling up the CD with more music. They used ONE song for each of the 10 main games. Why? They could have gotten away with 2 per game and still had CD space to spare.

So in UNDER a half hour I had gone through what Nintendo considers 25 years worth of Mario history. The extras were pathetic, poor excuses, an absolute shame. It's clear Nintendo doesn't care about Mario in the same way its fans do. I was born alongside this character, grew up with him on my TV, and while I had no hand in his creation I imagine I could have drummed up better extras within 24 hours of planning than the projected 25 years Nintendo had to plan this anniversary collection if they wanted.

The game itself is even more a slap in the face. Again, it's just a port of the SNES game which contains 4 games Mario 1-3, and Lost Levels which is the real Super Mario Brothers 2 that Japan got, but we just got Doki Doki Panic with Mario characters (our Super Mario 2). The sad thing is, Nintendo had released Super Mario All Stars + at the end of the SNES life. The "+" is in reference to the additional game of Super Mario World that was added into the collection. Did we get that port? Nope...no Mario World on this disc.

The game could have been so much more. It could have had Mario World, it could have had his Game Boy adventures of Mario Land. It could have had Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine with Wii controls. That would have been a great 25th anniversary, that would do Mario justice. Sad to say that Sega has actually outdone Nintendo at something. For Sonic's anniversary we got something pretty special. The Sonic Ultimate Collection on the PS3 or Xbox 360 contains 40 Genesis games, and most notably all the Sonic games. 40 games, and it is $20. Nintendo on the other hand gives us 4 games, for $30. The very idea that Sega managed to do something right over Nintendo boggles my mind and I never thought I would even say it. It's sadly true.

Maybe I'll live to see Mario's 50th anniversary and they'll celebrate it by making a disc with Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 on one disc, with a CD that contains two songs total, and a booklet with pictures of space in it. Get on that Nintendo, you got 25 years to make it happen!

*gets CD and plays the "game over" tune*

PS: I know the box art pic is in French, but that was on purpose. I don't understand French and I really don't understand this decision by Nintendo.

I've Been Digging Around...

Oh.

Hi there, I've been gone a while. That is because there is an indie game that has been taking the Internet by storm and that has taken my life over. That game is Minecraft.

If you have not heard of the game, allow me to enlighten you. The game started development in 2009 by Markus "Notch" Persson. Released to the public in a pre-alpha state, and having just hit the beta stage in December 2010, the game has hit ONE MILLION total sales just last month.

Now this popular game must have the sweetest graphics and you will need a high end computer to play, one might ask.

No and yes. The beauty of this game is the look and the feel of the game. It is a 3D open sandbox block game about construction and I could leave it at that because there is currently no story or goal to the game yet, but why has something so seemingly simple attracted so many fans?

It's the detail within the game. You start off plopped on a map during the day. The map in the game is randomly generated and infinate. Hope that you are spawned near some trees because that is one of the first things you need to harvest. Once you harvest the lumber, you can then craft it into wooden planks, and from there you can craft a crafting table.

From there you need to craft a wooden pick axe and find some coal to harvest to make torches and a small fort before the day is through because at night, zombies, spiders and other enimies will sneak up on you with little to no warning.

You continue a pattern of building during the day and digging during the night. You can find iron, gold, and diamond to craft with. and there are way more building materials than I would like to list on this blog.

You can also find Red Dust, which is used to make circuts and even make your own traps. The level of though that has gone into this game is insane. One can only wonder what will be added to the final version.

Speaking of the final version, Notch ended up forming his own company and hired people to help him develop the game.

The beauty of the game is you are in control of the design of the city and the what you want to add. It's even better when you log on to a multiplayer server. Getting to see and interact with others creations gives inspirations on what you can do.

What did I do last week? I make a hockey arena. The week before? A skyscraper. Before that? spent 6 days explore a cave system that was naturally formed under my city. What have I seen others do? Oh, how about making a Cake Dispenser of DEATH! (awesome I know)

While the game is still in development, Notch is giving a discount to those how purchase the beta. which I belive still clocks in under $20. This is $20 that will be well invested. So have fun and check it out. I got more digging to do.

Burnout Paradise - All Burnt Out

I just recently got into the racing game scene again thanks mostly to some killer Steam deals, (seriously if you're not using Steam and you are a PC gamer there is something very wrong with you). I used to play all manner of racing games, most of my N64 game library is racing games for some very strange reason.

Each new racing game I got though always seemed worse than the last. I was constantly disappointed with games like Top Gear, some RC Car racing game I got, and a few other racing sim games that I can't remember the names of at the moment. I noticed the only racing games I was actually enjoying were from Nintendo like F-Zero, Mario Kart, and Wave Race. That bothered me a bit and made me wonder if I actually like racing games at all or do I just like the wacky fun of Nintendo games instead. So through the whole Game Cube/PS2 era and even this current gen I didn't bother with any racing games for fear I would continue to be disappointed.

But I knew I loved the chase, perfecting time attack scores, edging out a narrow win on the final lap, and so on. All of those things I knew I enjoyed from F-Zero and Mario Kart but I could never find that satisfaction in any other racer.

Teleport to today and a lovely string of Steam deals that let me get Grid, Dirt 2, and Burnout Paradise all for under $25 total. I started off with Grid and immediately fell in love. I would do a review of Grid or Dirt 2, but those games are such a perfect mix of arcade/sim that it would just be nothing but gushing.

Enter Burnout Paradise, a game that I have oddly logged more time into than either Grid or Dirt 2 and yet I feel it to be quite inferior to both of those.

Graphics:

Not too shabby in the looks department. The cars are shiny, sleek, and overall very pretty. The landscape could use some work although I can't run this game at max settings so that could be my fault. It just seems to lack decent lighting effects all around, though, again that could just be my mid-range computer. What is dumb is I can run Grid and Dirt 2 at max and they look way better than Burnout...optimization EA...optimization...

Sound:

This game has a very large selection of music, mostly stuff I hate, but all of it is quite fitting for this game. Many times a song will pop up at the most opportune moments and makes me smile like crazy. Like if I'm in a mission where I have to wreck X number of cars I'll get some awesome Beethoven track to go with it perfectly.

The car noises themselves aren't as apparent, at least not when compared to Grid or Dirt 2. I don't sense the "umph" in these vehicles as much as I think I could have with some proper effects. No matter, the sounds of cars smattering together are pretty good though.

Gameplay:

I admit I really should have looked into what this game was before buying it a little better. I was not aware in the slightest that this game is an open world, free roaming racing game. I really wish I had been aware though, because this is really not the type of racing game for me.

The setup is you're the car in one large city, and you travel to intersections which all house an event of some kind. The events are, standard race, stunts, marked man, and crash other cars. There are a TON of events, but the main issue is each one is essentially the same after a few hours of play. Where in most racing games the variety comes in the courses you get, Burnout has one course, a large city. The gameplay itself is very good. The cars go very fast, fly far, and you get crazy awesome boosts and crashes are satisfying.

The city is covered in ramps, and you can do extra things like hunt down and destroy billboards, or find all the hidden areas and extra cars, but that tends to get boring. Again the main issue I have is the severe lack of tracks as I was not aware what type of game this was going in.

Let's break down the events for a moment. In the standard races there are many starting points, but only 5 total end points. So you will see the same checkered flag over...and over...and over...The only upside is you can choose how you get there and what streets you take and what shortcuts you want to use. The game gives you suggestions, and honestly what the game says to do is usually always the best route. Following the path you want though can become annoying as you constantly have to pause the action to check your map...lame!

What is worse, is in the marked man event you get the SAME 5 end points, they never change. In marked man cars are out to kill you and you have to get to one of the 5 end points before you die 3 times. It's fun...but again it feels exactly the same as a racing event minus the AI blood-lust with the exact same 5 end areas.

The wrecking cars event is probably the most fun though. It's stupidly simple to wreck cars and always satisfying. I have no issues with this honestly. Except that I always won it so early and the game doesn't stop until the time runs out even though you reached your allotted wreck amount. So I end up pissing away two minutes actively avoiding cars, because wrecking them GAINS you 10 more seconds!

The worst events are the stunts. You have to get lucky to win these I think. The scores you have to set are SO high after a while, and the time you get is VERY small. You have to chain your stunts for the entire amount of time to win really. But the problem with doing that is how easy it is to wreck in this game ruining your combo. The issue with chaining a combo is you have to maintain stunts consistently, or use your boosts. Of course, doing this makes you drive recklessly, and at high speeds cars tend to pop out of nowhere effectively ending a combo.

There are certain stunt areas though that make getting a high score REALLY easy as it essentially sets you right in front of multipliers and super jumps in one long strip. Other stunt areas leave you with next to nothing, and often I find myself hunting down that long strip of awesome wasting half my timer in doing so. Thankfully, as long as you maintain a chain without wrecking the timer is meaningless. You can stay on 0:00 forever really as you get a "Final" streak if you will, to get more points.

Doing events allows you to increase your license and get more cars essentially. The goal, I guess, is to get the best license possible. Each license has an incremental goal. At first you have to succeed at a few events of your choice then you upgrade. Then the events reset so you can do them again for your next upgrade, however you have to do more this time. So not only do you end up racing to the same checkered flag ALL the time, you end up doing the EXACT same events over and over again.

Conclusion:

Now I won't lie when I say I did have fun with this game. It is the kind of game that made me do that thing where I'm like "Just one more event then I'll quit," except I wouldn't quit. But it has an empty sort of fun to it. While playing I would stop and reflect on what I'm actually doing, and realizing I've "been here, done that" a good dozen times and try to understand why I'm still doing it. Just because I have 13 events left for the next license? What for? New tracks don't unlock, there are only a few more cars left to get, and what happens when I do that? I looked into it...nothing happens. You get the best license...and that's it. Game is done. And it doesn't even take all that long to do. Maybe 12 hours or so of grinding the same events constantly and that's it.

I mean the game is even shorter if you're not a tard like me and kept playing. You do a few of each event, jump a few things, hit a few billboards...crash a car or two...and then that's it. You have now experienced everything Burnout has to offer save for unlocking all the vehicles. That's why I say I got an empty feeling playing the game after an hour...because I've done it all already and yet I'm still doing it.

Is that the mark of a good game, or me feeling guilty that I paid $14 for a game that only took me an hour to really do what I wanted in it so I kept playing anyway knowing there weren't any more goals to set? I don't have an answer to that, but it is a functional game in its own right. Sadly though it really feels like a chore doing the same events over and over for seemingly no real reason chasing after some vague goal that barely exists.

*just one more event*