by:	October 04, 2005

When I first heard that EA was creating an “EA vs. Marvel” title a few months back I scoffed. Eventually, the game came to light, as more of a “Marvel vs. Characters created for their new game”. The game features a sort of free-roaming brawling type of gameplay, in which you can use your surroundings as weapons, or to get away from whom you are fighting. In many ways it is like Sega Dreamcast’s Powerstone. The game has a good amount of Marvel stars such as Spider-Man, Venom, Wolverine, and Iron Man. Some of the Imperfects characters are a bit iffy, but overall it is a good selection. Beyond that, you get a game that is extremely simplified, has no complete direction, and at best is pretty entertaining multiplayer experience.

The story as it goes, is an evil scientist, who is actually an alien, has been trying to create the ultimate fighting machine. He failed six times, creating six Imperfects. These Imperfects are in search of the one Perfect—that has escaped and is wreaking havoc. As well as them, Marvel characters such as Wolverine and Spider-Man must fight there way through it all. The gameplay is pretty boring after awhile—you go around hitting up very small areas, with very little to do, and fight your way through until you finally beat the game. The fighting is done by very simple button pushes; in fact, it is so simple you have one punch, one kick, one throw, one block, and one button you push with them to make them more powerful. I will give the game this—you will have some pretty challenging matches sometimes, but after you get the pattern, or the trick to killing the enemy, you get through it in a breeze. I’m not quite sure what they were trying to accomplish with the game, but I think in the ways of control they were going for something as simple as Super Smash Bros. Melee on GameCube.

The game switches it up a little though, and it will force you to choose another character after a certain point in the story. In that aspect, the developers innovated pretty well. You get a lot of basic cronies to fight along the way also. The strange thing is, they will throw many of them at you at once, and it is very hard to concentrate on a whole bunch at once. It even gets annoying in many instances. The game tries to do to many things at once it seems, so you never have quite a huge idea of what is going on. It would work better if they gave you some sort of cursor, or sixth sense so you could indicate where enemies were at that exact time, but they don’t Even worse, depending on where objects are in the arena, the camera will fix itself in or out around that object.

The objects also seem to end up being the main focal point at many times. When picking some up, you can use them as weapons, others you can launch at people. The AI really likes to through stuff at you, and either of you can actually catch objects in the air. That is pretty cool actually, but it seems like the whole focus ends up being, stay away from explosive objects, or stay away from the crap thrown at you. Also strangely, the characters can become very imbalanced. For example, of Wolverine is fighting Johnny Ohm, who has plenty of projectile attacks. He will shoot lightning at you, and keep you away nearly all the time. He even seems to know your every move sometimes. With Spider-Man though, who is like his Marvel hero match, you can easily get to him, and put him down. Using your powers will deplete a meter, but it fills back up pretty fast. The more you use it, the easier you get your rage meter filled up. When that happens, your character will get unlimited powers for a bit, and it will help you out, but it won’t give you invincibility.

The single player aspect is, as you can tell, not that great. The multiplayer is where the game stands out a little bit more. You can play the game with another person, or you can play it online. Online, on Xbox Live you can do a Quick Match, which is usually best. The way the stats are done is somewhat similar to Halo 2, and even though the game is a bit easy to understand, you will come across people who found more depth into it, and you can do a lot more. Especially since they aren’t cheap AI, or dumb AI even.

Visually the game has some very well animated and detailed characters. Spider-Man looks a lot like his movie counterpart, as well as Wolverine. He doesn’t have the yellow and blue suit, but rather a ragged shirt. The actual environments look alright as well, but at times they can look a bit to basic. The shadows and the particle effects in the game also look very good, but the graphics are just as good as they would need to be. The sound in the game is good enough to give you the sense that you are fighting with super-powered heroes and fiends. The cracks, explosions, and so on are done very well. The voice acting isn’t that great, but the music is pretty good and gives you the sense that you are in a comic book made game.

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When it all comes down to it, this game is similar to PowerStone, and not even as fun. If you are a Marvel fan that is in need of a Marvel fighter then I suggest you go in the bargain bin and look for Marvel vs. Capcom 2. If you are a 3D fighting fan then you always have Dead or Alive series. Otherwise rent this game for a weekend, and leave it at that.

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