Full Review: Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds

Full Review:
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds

Developed by Capcom
Published by Capcom
for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3
Released February 15th, 2011

"Let's go on another wild ride!"


After a long decade and countless MvC2 tournaments later, Capcom brings back one of its most beloved Vs. series. This time around, Ryota Niitsuma, the mind behind Street Fighter IV and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, takes the reigns and steers it in the right direction. MvC3 is a perfect blend of fan service and gameplay that lives up to the vs. franchise.

The first thing everyone will notice are the aesthetics. Cutscenes, menus, and gameplay are displayed in beautiful comic book styled cel-shaded graphics. The cutscenes are gorgeous as are the menu screens. The fights flow smoothly with vibrant colors and showcase equally awesome battle animations. The only problems that exist are the choppiness of the character models and the lack of detail of some of the background designs and animations. But of course the action moves so fast and flows so well, you're not going to notice unless you're intentionally nitpicking.

The music is surprisingly good. All of the music is some sort of techno or trance mix which I'm not much of a fan of. However, each character's theme music is composed well and end up bringing a lot of depth to each battle (especially the themes of Amaterasu, Deadpool, and Captain America). It's a nice touch how the music changes when certain characters are switched out. It makes the battle feel more quickly paced and ensures that you won't get tired of any single song. The voice acting is top notch and bring every hero and villain a unique personality. I can't quite put my finger on why but Iron Man's VA sounds brilliant. Wesker, Chris, and Jill's VAs are brought straight from Resident Evil 5 as are Ryu, Akuma, Chun-Li, and Viper's VAs are brought from Street Fighter IV. I just can't get enough of the voice acting and I'll be replaying Deadpool's sound test for quite a while just to hear all of his quirky and fourth wall breaking catch phrases.

The controls feel pretty tight. Just like the previous entries in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, each player picks three heroes or villains to battle. By attacking or receiving damage, the Hyper Meter will fill up and allow you to do devastating Hyper Combos. New to the series is X-Factor which overpowers your character and can turn the fight around. Like any fighting game, the controls may seem unresponsive even though you were absolutely sure you did a half circle light medium for that hyper combo. The controls are much more easy to grasp this time around with punch/kicks replaced with light/medium/heavy/special attacks. Also, every character does a launch by doing the same button combination unlike MvC2 where every character is confusingly different.

Even if the simpler controls don't seem simple enough, you can just switch the gameplay to simple mode! This is helps in giving a novice player a fighting chance against a pro. In simple mode, single button combinations will result in massive ground, aerial, and hyper combo maneuvers. This increases the opportunity for more players who are inexperienced with the game to jump in and play all the while feeling like a badass pro.

With all 38 characters, each having their own specific arcade mode ending, unlockable artwork, and mission modes single player has a lot to offer. Or if you're not a complete loner, play locally with friends or play online. You'll spend a lot of time playing online and ranking up your fighting card.

MvC3 is an absolute blast but there are a few things that may make you Shoryuken anyone within a close proximity. The online is fairly smooth with some laggy matches here and there. The game even lets you practice playing with a horrible connection to better prepare yourself for the lag. But all the practice in the world won't stop you from fighting wave after wave of broken characters such as Sentinel, Dante, and Magneto. These characters (allow me to further emphasize Sentinel) who are much too overpowered and can attack from long distances. You'll find these characters a lot online among players trying to increase their rankings. X-Factor, although a pretty cool addition, can allow a character with only half of their health to pretty much take out a perfectly healthy threesome. I also found it much more difficult to break an enemy's combo that wasn't a team aerial combo . These are but a few things that will bring your wonderful experience with the game to a screeching halt.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has an incredible amount of personality. Each character with lore, a technique, and a style that's so unique. The artwork and cutscenes are beautiful and bring the fans a special comic book feel that's almost as if the Capcom world had merged with the colorful and gritty universe of Marvel. The fighting is an absolute blast with its stringing aerial combos and animated hyper combos. Even if you're not a fighting game fan (like me) you'll find yourself unable to put the controller down. Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is the perfect blend of accessibility and hardcore depth that any fighting game can possibly hope to offer.

Details -

Genre: Fighting

ESRB Rating: T for Teen (Mild Language, Partial Nudity, Sexual Themes, Violence)

Player Options: 1-Player (arcade), 2-player (local and online) [recommended]

Difficulty: Hard

Learning Curve: Harsh

Stats -

Graphics: 4/5

Sound: 5/5

Playability: 4/5

Lasting Appeal: 5/5

Fun: 4/5

32 Hit Combo


Superb!


Review Descriptions

Full Review: Sonic Colors

Full Review:

Sonic Colors

Developed by Sonic Team & Dimps

Published by Sega

for the Nintendo DS

Released November 16th, 2010

Sonic's Truest Colors:

Like his life long mustachioed rival before him, Sonic takes it to the stars and gives Sonic fans something new and unique with Sonic Colors. Everyone's favorite (or most tolerated) hedgehog has had some trouble reliving the glory days of the past by either attempting to rekindle the elements of his 16-bit era (Sonic 4, Sonic Advance) or by taking him out of his element all together and putting him in a type of game that's simply weird or unnecessary (Sonic Riders, Sonic and the Black Knight). Fortunately for gamers everywhere, Sonic Colors breaks the streak of awful Sonic games by combining high speed platforming with innovative game design to create Sonics greatest adventure since the good ol' Genesis days.

Let's get the story out of the way first since I know that absolutely no one plays a Sonic game for its ever so intuitive story telling. Dr. Robotnik, being the generous psycho-genius he is, decides to create an intergalactic amusement park to make up for all of his past sins. Sonic and Tails, suspicious of their arch nemesis, check into the matter only to find out that, sure enough, old Ivo is stealing energy from a group of aliens called Whisps in order to create a mind control device. Sonic, along with the help of the Whisps, must now stop Dr. Robotnik and put an end to his treacherous amusement park for good.

The Whisps give Sonic plenty of new power maneuvers to utilize on his journey, which sounds a bit off putting to old school Sonic fans but actually offer an absolutely fun experience. Of course, it wouldn't be a Sonic game without the mindless speeding and dashing through miles of exotic levels and spin homing badniks to pieces and trust me, there's plenty of it. The main game plays like a charm with only minor physics errors such as air dashing when you mean to jump and vice versa.

After every world or so you gain the powers of new Whisps such as boosting, rocket blasting, fire booming, drilling, etc. By gathering energy from enemies or trapped Whisps, Sonic can boost with Y or transform into any of the other colored powers with X. The game greatly utilizes these powers by making the player perform certain energy maneuvers in order to complete a level (although some levels give the player the option of using the moves or just speeding to the finish.) Whether you're fire booming your enemies to oblivion, boosting at top speed through the level, or drilling the boss badnik to death, it's a fun experience that adds a lot to Sonic's worn out gameplay.

Of course, we can't forget about the classic special Chaos Emerald stages. In these special stages, Sonic runs through a half-pipe (very reminiscent of Sonic 2) as you try collecting as many colored orbs as possible before Sonic makes it to the finish. Colors utilizes the stylus in these stages which is a blast aside from the occasional stylus-to-screen lag. The biggest problem I have with the Chaos Emerald stages is that they are way too easy. In most other Sonic games, it would be unlikely to complete your first run of the game with all seven chaos emeralds, but Colors is an unfortunate exception as it is rather unlikely that you won't be snatching the emeralds before the end.

The main game itself is incredibly easy and can actually be completed in literally, one sitting. I would mark it down for this grueling flaw except that Colors offers so much replay value you'll be spending hours and hours trying to get S ranks on every level, finding secrets in each level with the new powers you obtain, collecting all of the star emblems, and finding all of the hidden unlockables. Not to mention just trying to complete a few of the games many side missions will have you shaking your DS violently for hours. I suppose it's a better idea to have these time attacks, enemy & Whisp hunts, and ring collecting missions not mandatory. They're challenging; which is nice but I just wonder to myself why the actually game is humiliatingly easy while the missions create sudden difficulty spikes.

The one thing I hate about every Sonic game is the hedgehog's voice. It's just too damn annoying. I thought I had all I could take with his whiny, high pitched voice in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. When I booted the game up and prepared myself for the opening dialogue, I prepared for the worst. I was shocked to find out that I wasn't annoyed at all with his voice. Sega actually found a guy (Roger Craig Smith) who could provide a voice to Sonic I can actually listen to. In fact, all of the voice actors do a pretty good job and that's a definite plus in my book.

The music itself is corny. I'm not too fond of the opening track or much of the music but there were a few tunes that seemed melodiously out of place which had me tapping my foot. The sound effects are the best part, though. The booming blasts, the crackling fires, and the awesome "Burn!" or "Rocket!" screams Sonic makes before transforming are, dare I say, cool.

The graphics are gorgeous, vibrant, and colorful. The backgrounds are beautiful as are their animations. Everything seems to jump off the screen. The replacement of sprites with 3D character models are a pleasant surprise. It works very well. The biggest problem with the visuals is the use of the duel screen gameplay. Both screens are used to play; with Sonic switching between both during certain areas of each level. Sometimes, my eyes follow Sonic like magic and swiftly switch between screens (which feels awesome) but other times my eyes stay on one screen while Sonic speeds far into the other. It's a small annoyance that can cost you all of your collected rings.

Sonic Colors offers gamers a Sonic experience like no other. The new gameplay offers so much that it will make you wish the actual game was more than five hours long. Colors not only gives Sonic fans the okay to wear their Sonic shirts and backpacks with pride again, but it also reminds gamers everywhere how great Sonic was and potentially can be.

Details -

Genre: Platformer, 2-D Sidescroller

ESRB Rating: E for Everyone (Mild Cartoon Violence)

Difficulty: Easy (Main Quest) Hard (Missions)

Learning Curve: Pick-Up-And-Go

Stats -

Graphics: 5/5

Sound: 3/5

Controls: 4/5

Lasting Appeal: 3/5

Fun: 5/5

30 Hit-Combo!!

Superb!

Review Descriptions

Critical Hit: Nintendo 3DS - More than just a Gimmick

I have to admit that I wasn't all too excited about the Nintendo DS when it was announced six years ago. The whole duel screens and "touching is good" campaign surrounding its touch screen technology didn't intrigue me all that much. I wasn't going goo goo for the Nintendo 64 style graphics that it offered especially when the PSP gave its players beautiful Playstation 2 worthy graphics. (The left image shows the character Cecil from FFIV in DS graphics on top and PSP graphics on bottom) The DS offered up a gimmick and some great games but the whole system just didn't feel complete.

Six years later, Nintendo unveiled the successor to the DS at the 2010 e3 Expo. The title "3DS" alone gave away its three dimensional capabilities but in the coming months, the 3DS would become more than just a gimmicky money grab. It became something that I was excited for.

First of all, the way that the 3DS shows off its three dimensional effect without the use of glasses is definitely a plus. This was a relief to me after hearing how much eye strain people get when watching a 3D tv or wearing glasses when watching a 3D movie. The way it works is that a panel is set between the image screen and outer glass which works the same way as 3D glasses do. So, instead of going through the trouble of looking for the glasses and putting them on, the 3DS is all set and ready for three dimensional action from the get-go! And in case the 3D becomes too bothersome, the 3DS is equipped with a toggle so you can choose how powerful the 3D affect is shown. Now that's thinking of the consumer.

Now that we got the 'gimmick' out of the way, let's get into the meat of the 3DS. The graphics. The graphics are no joke here. Improving on the DS's N64-style graphics, the 3DS offers graphics that give this generation of console gaming a run for its money. Take a look at the remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for the 3DS. It looks as spectacular as it did on the Playstation 2. The below picture is Capcom's Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. When I first saw the

screenshots I thought how close to the 360/PS3 Resident Evil 5 this 3DS game looks. I wasn't sure how far Nintendo would go in the graphics department, seeing as how the Wii is just as powerful as the Gamecube but now I am sure that they are going all out with the 3DS.

Speaking of games, the 3DS doesn't disappoint. It seems that nearly every developer is on board with the new handheld. All of the major developers have their foot in the 3DS's door in some way or another. Games such as Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts 3D, Capcom's Resident Evil Revelations, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed: Lost Legacy, Tecmo's Dead or Alive: Dimensions, Sega's Super Monkey Ball, are among the many games already planned for the upcoming handheld. And of course, Nintendo brings an onslaught of first party titles at launch and in the future. These include Animal Crossing, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Mario Kart 3DS, Paper Mario 3DS, Pilot Wings Resort, and also the remakes The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, and Star Fox 64 3DS. Yes, it is definitely looking like a healthy line-up for the 3DS.

The Wii's Virtual Console brought games from NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, and other consoles of the past. Recently Nintendo announced that 3DS will have the Virtual Console experience as well. As of now, there is only word of being able to purchase Gameboy and Gameboy Color games from the network but hopefully Nintendo would add more games from more handhelds from the 90's. This feature, however, is in doubt seeing as how Nintendo let the Wii's Virtual Console die due to lack of updates.

The Nintendo 3DS is set to release in the US sometime before March 2011 and priced between $250 and $300 dollars. Yes a high price point, but I think I may sacrifice my wallet to get my hands on the 3DS.