Never in my history of gaming has any game ever pissed me off as much as Marvel vs. Capcom 2. The game itself is fine in its own way, but the game and I are completely incompatible. When I play fighting games, I never make combos. I usually look for openings and make one powerful strike, not forty.

MVC2 turned me off Capcom fighters completely. In fact, I'm starting to lose faith in the company as a whole. Almost all their games are stupidly hard simply for nostalgia's sake. I love nostalgia more than most people I know, but I do not miss how hard some of the games I grew up with were.

I am aware, as a dedicated Mega Man fan, that I may be contradicting myself. Well, I have something to admit: I have never been able to beat Mega Man 9. Any other game in the main Mega series is practically a cakewalk for me (including 2; just last week I played all the way through to Wily's Castle without dying), but Wily's Castle in 9 is too long and too challenging. Many of the traps require trial and error or superhuman reflexes. Believe me, I never had that many problems in Mega Man 1 or 2. What does it tell you when I can barely beat one boss after multiple attempts? Remember, I have few problems with the older ones.

Challenges in games are fine. I love the Devil May Cry series, since the challenges are based on mastering the controls, move length, enemy attack patterns, etc. What I don't love are intentional methods of increasing a game's difficulty. "Seemingly impossible" does not equal fun. Challenge can.

The two Bionic Commandos are difficult for nostalgia's sake. The NES game was hard, so the remake and sequel should be too, right? Of course not. The NES game was hard because it was an arcade port, and arcades were designed to consume gamers' money. Completing many arcade games from start to finish often cost as much as buying a game for home consoles. However, many home consoles created artificial empty pockets by only allowing a few deaths before a forcing the player to start the whole game over.

Most games these days allow constant saves, so gamers can rest easy knowing that one minor screw-up won't erase hours of hard work. Most developers relish in these safety nets, but Capcom seems to make their games hard in other ways. From what I've seen and played, their games are emulating artifical challenge. Occasionally they're fun, but most of the time I leave unhappy.

So Capcom, how about it? If I delete the game and you somehow remove the rights for me to ever download it again for free, will you give me 1200 MS Points?

I'll get this out right now: I've played MVC2 once. Only one time at an arcade. MVC1 is a different story, but my reflexes have degraded with time (damn aging). My exploit-free team of Mega Man and Ryu probably won't be as effective as it used to be.

After some digging, the tourney favorites are pretty easy to pick out: Cable, Magneto, a Sentinel (which doesn't seem fair for any one character in any medium :P), Storm, and maybe Cyclops. The way I would pick characters is basically "who do I like?" And who I like don't seem to be all that great.

As far as online play goes, I have another confession. I have played about a hundred matches of Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix, and I have never won a single one. Sure, I've won a few rounds here and there, but my record is something like 97-0.

If I played this game online, I would become a metaphorical broom. Which is fine, actually, because in order to get my 360 on Live, I need to haul the entire console downstairs, along with a small television (which happens to be a ~40 pound, 20 year old TV), and an extra ethernet cable to connect to the router. Call me stingy, but I can't dish out $100 for a wireless router. Which wouldn't work anyway, since my room and the router are on opposite corners of my house.

So I'm probably going to avoid online play, at least until I go back to school. Where I will be schooled on every match I play.

Yeah, I lost all my confidence with fighting games thanks to Street Fighter II on Live.

This may or may not help, but I recently ordered this:

Now I know what some of you are thinking: "You should have bought the arcade stick! More precision!" To that I have three replies:

1. I grew up on a directional pad. Arcades were always a novelty to me.
2. This controller will work magnificently for old school games, like Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. It's practically a Saturn controller!
3. See above, regarding the 360's wireless thingamabob. Want to pay me $100 for an arcade stick?

So anyway, MVC2 has me excited but nervous. If I'm offline, I'm sure I'll be fine, but I could really use some competitive tips.

[EDIT] I want a refund. =\