For the love of...Marvel VS Capcom 2

With all the complex scripts, phoned-in celebrity voice acting and the frankly stupid claim of ‘photo-realism' in games these days, it's utterly refreshing to return to the colourful world of abstract gaming every now and then and take a departure from the grit of the real world.

It's why we play games in the first place and the eye-meltingly chaotic Marvel VS Capcom 2 is as downright mental and out of this world as they come. To the excitement of beat-em-up fans the world over, Capcom recently announced it will release the game again on Playstation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, so we thought a look back at the original release was in order.

Forget about the plot as there isn't one really, something about an ancient evil called Abyss coming to our world and threatening to tear it a new arse, with all the Marvel and Capcom characters joining forces to fight it and each other. This works fine, while the dodgy 2008 rip-off Mortal Kombat VS DC Universe tried hard to think up a good reason for Superman, Batman and Sub Zero to get together for a brawl but this ended up being tenuous at best.

The game is a genius concept really, letting players lock horns with some of the most iconic gaming and comic book characters ever devised. From a roster of over 40 characters you have Street Fighter mainstays Ken, Ryu and Chun-Li, squaring off against Capcom legends, Mega Man, Strider Hiryu and Jill Valentine.

While on the Marvel side you have X-Men members Gambit, Cyclops and Wolverine battling Iron Man, Spider-Man and The Hulk. Throw in a slew of unlockable characters that are accessed by performing well in arcade mode and you have many styles of play catering to the preferences of fighting fans.

Well, that's not entirely true, as you don't just fight with one character. Instead, you fight with three at once using a neat tag-in, tag-out system and a range of double and even triple combo super attacks. The wealth of moves on offer makes the labyrinthine command lists of Sega's Virtua Fighter appear small by comparison and, as a result, it will take you time to figure out what character combinations suit you best, but the experimentation is half the fun.

When you pick a character, you can also set what sort of attack they use when you call them into battle. Rather than swapping characters by tagging out, you can have them jump and do one attack. For example, if you are about to be pummelled by Wolverine's devastating Berserker Barrage attack, you can call in Cyclops to fire off a quick laser blast to break his attack before he has a chance to hit you. There's a great tactical edge buried under the game's seemingly chaotic veneer despite how mental it can look.

Much like Nintendo's brawler Super Smash Bros, to the untrained eye the game may appear to be a button-bashing scrap, but getting inside its intricacies is very rewarding and makes the difference between a good player and a great one. Even the screen filling, 100-hit combos can be avoided if you know what to expect.

These are activated in the same way Street Fighter combos, transferring damage or special attacks to your combo gauge. Perhaps the sweetest part of the combo system is the ability to catch your opponent with all three of your character's super combos at once, resulting in the ultimate smackdown.

The game feels like a Street Fighter title, retaining all the familiar d-pad rolls and nuances veterans will be accustomed to. However, there are many additions and tweaks that make this a much more fast paced and technical affair. The key difference is how wide and tall each stage is.

By quickly flicking down then up, players can jump twice the usual height, sometimes off the screen to get the drop on enemies such as The Hulk's brutal super combo that sees the jolly green giant leap INTO SPACE, grab a meteorite and ram it into you, still piping hot from re-entry. Like we said, this game is mental.

Fighters can also block while in the air, cancel throws and dash across the ground to gain the advantage. It may not have the technical depth of Street Fighter III, but this is certainly no button basher, but it's accessible for the casual player who just wants to see their heroes pummel ten shades out of one another.

It's big, it's loud and it's completely off the hook. Marvel VS Capcom 2 is a superb scrapper that breaks convention and offers fans of both stables to chance to step up to the plate as their favourite heroes. We can't wait to do it all over again when the new version lands on Xbox 360 and PS3 soon and take the fight online.