Demo Review: Marvel vs. Capcom 2

My demo review for Marvel vs. Capcom 2 will be the shortest ever. I remember playing the game a few times in the arcade but moreso watching my friend play the game. Back then, it was pretty neat to see players swapped in and out.

So when I heard that it was going to be remade and available for PSN and XBL, I was pretty stoked. And I was really stoked when I heard the PSN was going to get an exclusive demo. So, a day after it was released and 200MB later, I installed the game and played it.

After playing around with it, I realized … the only playable mode was local multiplayer. I couldn’t play single player! Or online battles! The only two options available were local multiplayer and all the options!

What an absolute waste of time and space! Why not … allow five matches in single player. Why confine the exclusive PSN demo to local multiplayer – something that is considered a dying trend to many people? What in the hell was Capcom thinking? I guess this game is aimed at people who have local friends that own a PS3 or people who have an extra PlayStation controller.

So the demo failed at what it tried to do, which is to give gamers a taste of the game. So unless you have two PlayStation controllers lying around, don’t bother downloading this demo.

Review: Street Fighter 4

The thing about fighting games is that the initial experience is the actual experience. Unlike games like Resident Evil, Little Big Planet and Bioshock – what you experience in your first hour in terms of graphics, gameplay and story progression is pretty much it.

Like I said before, the game showed promise although it’ll be nowhere near as enjoyable as Street Fighter II was back on the Super Nintendo. But many people are saying that it’s the first Street Fighter to feel like Street Fighter II since … Street Fighter II. And overall, the game’s not bad at all … but I can definitely see areas that can be improved.

I wouldn’t buy the RE5 Versus Pack

Update: It appears my suspicions in this article were correct. According to Joystiq comments, the size of the download was 2MB. That size is very small for two new “brand new” features. Which proves my theory that it was nothing more than an unlock code.

I’m not buying the upcoming Versus Pack for Resident Evil 5. It’s was a hard decision for me to make. I really like Resident Evil 5 and I have fun in both story and Mercenaries mode. What I don’t like is the fact that Capcom is – again – throwing out downloadable content a little too soon after the game comes out.

My decision to not buy it isn’t because I’m strapped for cash … because $5 is normally an easy purchase for me for video game content, but I can’t justify doing it for an addon that is available so soon after the game initially comes out. And with the way Mercenaries mode runs, I have no doubt that this DLC is merely just a key to unlock the locked content on the game disc.

I’m suggesting that people not buy the downloadable content because if they do, it may soon become a common thing for companies to nickel-and-dime gamers with addon content that should be included with the initial release.

First Impressions: Resident Evil 5

Having recovered from the bitterness I suffered thanks to Killzone 2, I went to the local Blockbuster to look for a game to rent – because, you know … buying a game without having tried it out is stupid. My choices were Saints Row 2, Street Fighter 4 or Resident Evil 5. What a choice of sequels! Considering rentals are now $8.99 I had to choose wisely – so I went with Resident Evil 5 … after all I liked the demo.

My history with Resident Evil is kind of a rocky one. Outside of the first one, I really didn’t care for the series. The controls were kind of funky and the controls made it rather difficult to kill enemies coming from all directions. The controls overall just killed the feeling for me. I had also gotten tired of the story – “zombies infesting the town” got kinda’ old … especially after the second one. Then you had tons of spinnofs and it kinda’ got out of control. Resident Evil 4 took a step away from zombies, but the controls were still really frustrating for me and killed the mood for me. So when I downloaded the demo for Resident Evil 5, I wasn’t expecting much but it was a rather delightful change in my opinion.

And now I can say that Resident Evil 5 is, in one word, awesome.

Demo Review: Resident Evil 5

Resident Evil … one of the best – if not THE – survival horror game to play. In almost all games, it’s scared the crap out of me … mainly because animals would crash through windows and I could never get passed it. You’d figure after awhile I’d remember that where there are one-sided mirrors or just boarded-up windows there is most likely an animal that will crash through to kill you.

Resident Evil 5 kind of follows Resident Evil 4 as a separation from the first three games and the 200 spinoffs. Resident Evil 4 strayed away from the “city-invaded-by-zombies” genre and went more to a “desolate-village-in-the-middle-of-nowhere” genre. Resident Evil 5 takes you to what seems like Africa or South America and now hosts a over-the-shoulder camera as well as a big involvement of cooperation.

I haven’t been into a Resident Evil game since the first one … but did Resident Evil 5 possibly bring me back into the series? Well, quite possibly.