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?