Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects
Added June 9th, 2005 by Dakota Grabowski
If you couldn’t tell, EA modified the name of this title. They removed their name (thank you Lord!), which will actually help the game tremendously. Originally known as Marvel vs. EA, does the title survive the transition without the EA name attached? You can bet your bottom dollar it did.
Marvel Nemesis does a lot of necessary things that are essential for a successful fighter. Marvel characters will be available for your selection, although the range of different fighters was small at the time of my playing. From the looks of it, there will only be 18 characters to pick from and they will be divided up in two parts: half for Marvel characters and half for the original creations from EA. With only nine Marvel characters to select from, EA may be limiting themselves on which Marvel super heroes are represented in the game. I know of a few that weren’t playable on the demo, but are included on the roster of fighters such as Elektra and The Thing.
Visually the game is remarkable for this generation of fighters. All characters are beautifully detailed and have unique animations to separate them from one another. The playable characters were Johnny Ohm, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wolverine, and The Brigade. I used every single one of them and they are all distinctively different. The only one that didn’t impress me was The Brigade, and that was due to the spasms he performed upon my usage of his power. This allowed a cheap shot from the opposition to almost knock me out entirely. However, if you want to know, Spider-Man is amazing. He jets around the screen lightning fast with back flips, and strings out his spider webs to escape impending death.
The environments are entirely interactive. What’s truly interesting and should appeal to several comic book fans is that every character has different stats. This is easily discovered while playing as you attempt to pick up items located within the environment. Spider-Man, Johnny Ohm and Wolverine were unable to pick up the huge gas containers. The Brigade and Iron Man could lift them above their head and throw at the opponent. Also, included in the fighting engine is the ability to ring out your opponents. At times this could be random, as my opponent did, on occasion, ring out himself on accident.
The controls were easy to grasp ahold of. It only took a few matches to figure out what button does what. The Y button is attributed to picking up literally all the items in the area for your use. Pressing the L & R Triggers will allow you to change up the game a little with your special powers. To use your special powers, you’ll want to hold the right trigger down and press any of the face buttons. The L trigger allows you to jet out of a bind like I mentioned Spider-Man can do.
The environments are entirely interactive. What’s truly interesting and should appeal to several comic book fans is that every character has different stats. This is easily discovered while playing as you attempt to pick up items located within the environment. Spider-Man, Johnny Ohm and Wolverine were unable to pick up the huge gas containers. The Brigade and Iron Man could lift them above their head and throw at the opponent. Also, included in the fighting engine is the ability to ring out your opponents. At times this could be random, as my opponent did, on occasion, ring out himself on accident.
The controls were easy to grasp ahold of. It only took a few matches to figure out what button does what. The Y button is attributed to picking up literally all the items in the area for your use. Pressing the L & R Triggers will allow you to change up the game a little with your special powers. To use your special powers, you’ll want to hold the right trigger down and press any of the face buttons. The L trigger allows you to jet out of a bind like I mentioned Spider-Man can do.
What may be lacking is the fact that this has to stack up to the line-up Capcom put forth in their Marvel vs. Capcom series. With over 50 characters available in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, it’s easy to see that fan boys had their dreams coming true facing favorites against favorites. Maybe EA can throw in some hidden characters and reveal more as time passes. I am hoping some of my favorite heroes that have been on film such as the Hulk, Blade, Punisher, Daredevil, Nightcrawler, and Iceman will make it to the game. I am not sure if they will be picking any villains but maybe Sabretooth, The Russian, Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Kingpin, Bullseye, Lady Deathstrike or even Toad will make their appearance.
Overall I put in a good thirty minutes playing Marvel Nemesis and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s not like the old versus series represented by Capcom, but that’s 2D. This is a huge step for Marvel as it’s their first “real” step into a 3D fighter. You can easily dismiss X-Men: Next Generation and the other 3D fighters, as they were horrible. This could turn out to be a real beauty though, so be sure to watch out for maybe the best fighter this year if it releases as expected.
