RICHARD WONG
Arts Writer

Have you ever wondered who would win in a fight between Halle Berry and Kristin Kreuk? No? Okay then, how about their big screen counterparts, Storm of X-Men and Chun Li from Street Fighter?

With Marvel vs. Capcom: Fate of Two Worlds, you can now find out who would win a fight between these two violent vixens as well as many other iconic characters.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 pits Marvel Comics’ most legendary heroes and villains against the most famous figureheads of Capcom’s storied gaming history.

Household names such as Spider-man, Iron Man, The Hulk, Ryu,  Chun Li and many more are all available for players to indulge their pugilistic desires with. The game’s roster is easily one of its very best attributes. To say watching Captain America slug it out with Wolverine is glorious would be a colossal understatement, and wielding Thor’s fabled hammer Mjolnir is the epitome of awesome.

The three on three 2D fighting format returns once again and the action is lighting fast as the franchise’s reputation for being a visual spectacle remains intact. Simply put, this game looks great. Character models are implemented with a cell shaded style designed to mimic comic book art, and their three-dimensional nature makes them really pop off of the two-dimensional fighting plane.

Adding serious visual flare is the fact that the screen is constantly alive with superb animation, whether it be from the characters or the environment itself. Fantastically rendered characters and incredibly flashy special moves will have players smiling ear to ear.

It is a shame, then, that there is a little more to the title than its basic arcade and versus modes. While it allows players to focus on the incredibly hectic fun at hand, it would have been nice to see a little more variety in the available gameplay modes.

While Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a fighting game, the in-game violence is quite tame and the fisticuffs never result in anything more than anguished faces as characters fall down. This is as family friendly as a fighting game is going to get.  While there is a time and place for realism in gaming, eliminating the graphic nature of the violence suits the style of this particular title, and it allows players to concentrate on the task of vanquishing their foes without any dark undertones, keeping the mood light and fun.

Fireballs will fly and deft uppercuts will be thrown as you attempt to find the optimal trio with which to dole out damage amongst the large and varying cast of characters.

The control setup in the Marvel vs. Capcom series has traditionally been one of the most intricate in all of gaming. With dozens of different moves and combos for each character and each of these moves having their own specific input scheme, past installments have made the series somewhat inaccessible to casual fans.

However in an effort to cater to the more nonchalant crowd, Fate of Two Worlds introduces a brand new control scheme called Simple Mode. With this new mode players can pull off jaw dropping special moves and spectacular combos at the push of a button.

While this new mode could cause the competitive play — both online and off — to become unbalanced, Capcom has smartly toned down the potency of characters in Simple Mode. As well, the move sets are limited in this mode and players will still need to become versed in the game in normal mode, steep learning curve and all, to get the most out of each character. A bit of an oversight then that there is no true in-game tutorial. Still, Simple Mode is a valuable addition that will help players who are new to the series to not feel entirely left out in the cold.

This places Marvel vs. Capcom 3 in the very rare position of being a game that will satisfy the most hardcore of gaming fans while at the same time being a fantastic option as a casual pick up and play title.

The gameplay is flashy, fast and extremely fun, and when combined with the wide spread appeal of the game’s characters, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is easy to recommend to everyone except those who dislike things that are awesome. It can both satisfy the hardcore gamer inside of you while also being the pull out and play focus of any casual get together.

Whether you’re in it for the super beings of the Marvel Universe, or the Legends of Capcom’s incomparable history, this is a title that will draw the eyes of fans from across many different genres and they’re not going to be disappointed by what they see.