Marvel Versus Capcom 3

I, having not played any kind of fighting game since Super Street Fighter III in the arcades, welcomed this opportunity to reenter the fighting game genre. The game plays totally different than any other fighting game that I have played in the past. Instead of having the best of three separate rounds with only one character versus one character; MvC3 has you playing three different characters in one big beat down free for all. There's also an option that has one of your other characters coming in to support you in an attack. This was a shock to me because I'm just used to one on one games.

The characters are culled from both Marvel characters and Capcom characters. There's the old standbys like Ryu, Chun-Li, Arthur (from Ghosts and Goblins) and in a really odd twist Okami from the game of the same name as well as others for the Capcom side; while on the Marvel side of things there's Deadpool, X-23, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Iron Man and many others. By far the oddest choice for the Marvel side of things was Taskmaster.

The story of the game is relatively simple. You play through about six stages of three character teams before going up against the big bad in the game who happens to Galactus. Galactus take very little skill to beat and is kind of like the Master Hand in the Smash Brother's series of games for Nintendo consoles. Unfortunately he is as cheesy as they come because a lot of his attacks will drain a character with full health in one shot, even if blocking. I came so close to beating him once and I had to stop because my hands were hurting so much. My team for taking on Galactus the first time was Deadpool, Wolverine and X-23. I figured I liked all three characters so why not give it a shot. As I got later in the pool of six levels the teams got progressively cheesy. M.O.D.O.K. is by far the cheesiest character in the game because if you even try to do an air attack on him he'll shoot you down out of the air with his mental blast ranged attack and if you try to get in close with him he'll grab you and throw you around like a rag doll.

I found myself having a button mashing good time, really not caring whether or not I got off any fancy multiple hit combos. I would like to try to learn how to do some of the finesse moves in the middle of a fight, but my brain does not work that way at all. I think for my next team I'll try Haggar, Hulk and a random character chosen by the computer. I'm going to have to look on the character select screen and see who else is big and muscled to go on this team.