The Horsie Set

Not to slight the fine folks at the Saturn Junkyard, but I get a little irritated when I go to Blogger to update my page, only to have theirs come up first. I guess Blogger defaults to whatever's been updated most recently, but look... I'm only a contributor over there. I'm the editor here. Is there any way to force Blogger to default to Kiblitzing? If you've got an answer, please let me know. I thank you, and my OCD thanks you.

So anyway... I gave Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite another chance. I had to delete about 100GB of data from my hard drive to make it fit, but I guess it was worth the sacrifice to give the game a more thorough evaluation. (Mental note: get a bigger hard drive so I won't have to do that again.) Now that I've spent more time with the game, I can honestly say... I'm still not satisfied with it. After you've tasted the fruits of Injustice 2, it's hard to settle for anything less, and Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite is a whole lot less.

I've heard people say that once you get past the ugly exterior, you'll find great gameplay at the core of Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite. That lets the game off too easily, though. You can't build a solid game engine, then wrap it in a bundle of damp, week-old newspapers and send it out the door. This isn't 1983 anymore... video game technology has evolved in the thirty five years since, and the market has gotten fiercely competitive. If your game plays well, that's a great start, but you're only half finished.

Past that, MvCI isn't that great of a game. It's button mashy even by the standards of previous Capcom and Marvel crossovers... you can perform five hit combos, pop your opponent into the air, then tack on an extra four hits just by flailing on light punch. I found myself relying on this auto-combo way too often in fights, because it's less risky and does more damage than other attacks. Why attempt a dragon punch the computer is likely to block and counter when you can just get in its face and jab away? Once the CPU is locked in a hit stun, THEN you can bring out the heavy artillery of special moves and hyper combos. Auto-combos are also the safest way to tag in your partner, making them all the more tempting to abuse.

I'm still not a fan of the infinity stones. Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite players have been exploiting the reality stone since the game was launched, but I personally find the soul stone to be the most broken of the six. Not only can it be used to sap health from your opponent and refill your own life bar, but when fully powered up, it will allow you to fight in tandem with your partner, doubling your damage. Oh, was your partner already knocked out? No biggie, it'll revive them too! They only get a fraction of their health back, but by the time you've played long enough to trigger the soul stone's infinity surge, the match will already be half finished. Your opponent will likely be almost out of energy too, and unless they've got a soul stone of their own, they won't be getting it back.

Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite is better than I thought it was, but my unflattering first impression wasn't that far off base. Frankly, I enjoyed the previous games in the series more, even Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, which frustrated me with its redesigned controls but has sweetened with age. Compared to Injustice 2, well... if it's not as good as the original Marvel vs. Capcom from twenty years ago, it sure as hell ain't going to compete with that!

Speaking of fighting games... if you didn't know already, allow me to be the first to tell you. Them's Fightin' Herds, the long-awaited PC title with artwork from My Little Pony showrunner Lauren Faust, is out of beta and currently available on Steam for fifteen dollars. It's got only six characters, but unless I miss my guess, you're probably not going to find too many games in the genre that let you play as reindeer, dairy cows, and hyperactive alpacas.