Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 – Spider-Man Alternate Costumes

Have you become bored with the vanilla version of Marvel vs Capcom 3, which Capcom released back in February of this year? Well fear not, because last week the Ultimate version of gaming’s greatest fighting crossover dropped. And along with it, gamers were given 12 new characters (six of which only matter to comic fans like myself) and a whole Hoary Host of new costumes for returning characters, such as Spider-Man. Since a lot hasn’t changed between the versions, I do not think it’s super necessary to have a full on review (unless Brad deems it necessary), but I will show off some of Spidey’s latest threads. I picked my copy up over the weekend and have been running around in Spidey’s FF costume (as seen to the left), and it looks splendid in action. The Scarlet Spider costume to the right was recently revealed to be a DLC costume that you will need to purchase at a later date. So while that is upsetting, I’m more than likely going to shell out the necessary Microsoft Points to go all Maximum Spider on my opponents while wearing the Spider-hoodie. For pictures of the remaining costumes available in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, and a brief recap of my very limited time with the game so far, follow the jump.

In addition to the classic red and blue, Spider-Man’s remaining alternate costumes available from the get-go are as follows: the equally-classic-as-the-original black symbiote suit, the I-don’t-like-loud-noises stealth suit in the red-lit off-mode, the created-by-Tony-Stark-to-manipulate-poor-Peter Iron-Spider suit and the I-lost-my-Spider-Sense-so-am-now-afraid-of-bullets Spider-Armor.

 Mini review recap from my first five hours or so of playing. As far as the game goes, like I said there’s not a whole lot of new things. The new costumes, new characters and new levels are fun, but you’re still basically playing the same game. I have spent the majority of the time playing with Hawkeye and Dr. Strange as Spider-Man’s two new partners, are those two characters are really fun. Hawkeye has a lot of great trick shots and Dr. Strange’s magic is a real joy to play with. I despise any character that has the ability to teleport across the stage exploiting the block feature, but since Dr. Strange has that power, I plan to try and use that to my advantage as much as possible. The other new characters for Marvel who I have briefly dabbled with are Ghost Rider, Nova, Rocket Raccoon and Iron Fist.

The nods to the comics are still in full force as some of the closing quips have changed up based on the new characters. Spider-Man has a new line after a win which I enjoy: “If I were you, I wouldn’t read tomorrow’s Daily Bugle.” (Or something like that, I’ve only seen it once so far.) Some other quips directed at Spider-Man when he is defeated (which I have sadly seen too often for my liking so far) come from Hawkeye – “Why did they even let you on the Avengers, Spidey?” and conversations with the photo-happy Dead Rising protagonist, Frank West, who is trying to upstage Peter Parker by selling pictures of Spider-Man’s defeat to the Daily Bugle.

The majority of the levels have been slightly changed. The S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier stage is now set during the day giving you a better look at all the planes zipping around the sky. My favorite level change is the addition of the Days of Future Past stage with Sentinels in the background searching for mutants and the famous poster of murdered mutant mugshots on the cover of Uncanny X-Men #141.

The gameplay is pretty much the same, with some tweaks applied to some of the characters to try and make the game a bit more balanced. You are also able to play as Galactus in a new mode, but I was not too thrilled with that feature as Galactus is pretty slow and it gets a bit repetitive after a while. I have not had a chance to try out the new gamemode called Heroes and Heralds that offers players the chance to use cards that gift your chracters with special abilities such as invisibility, but plan on trying that out soon. Online lobbies have been revamped so you are now able to watch other players fight while you wait your turn to play.

Achievement wise you’re dealing with a lot of the same achievements you already collected in the initial game. Having to beat the game with all the characters to see all the alternate endings can be kind of repetitive, as is completing as many mission objectives as you can. I would have liked to have seen more achievements for playing with specific teams such as a New Avengers team, but those have been completely left out this time around. Instead, Capcom decided to reward players who put time into the game by offering individual achievements for spending 30 hours in either online mode or offline mode. 60 hours seems like a lot of time, and while I enjoy the game, I’m not sure if I’ll get to that point with the game this time out. 

Overall, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 is a great reason to dust off your arcade stick and jump back into the hectic comic book melee action. The new characters are enjoyable, but I am still waiting for them to provide me with my boy Cyclops or even a classic Spider-Man villain for him to face off against. So hopefully Capcom will plan to support this version of MvC3 with DLC beyond more alternate costumes. The pricetag of this upgrade is only 40 dollars, and while that still may seem a bit lofty, you can trade in your copy of the original MvC3 at your local Gamestop and get an additional 8 bucks off or so. I turned in three games so I only wound up paying 16 bucks for this game making the repackaging of a game I already bought earlier in the year a bit more tolerable. 

I’m thankful that I have a short week of work thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday, so I will be getting plenty of time to spend with this game. Anybody up for a challenge, hit me up on Xbox Live at HookrsAndSpdrMn or in the comments section below.

“Remember that one time during the fight when it looked like you might actually win? No? Me neither.” – Marvel vs. Capcom 3
“Did I mention I beat up Firelord once? No, seriously. Firelord.” – Ultimate Alliance 2