2009 belongs to the Beat‘em Up genre. It started in fantastic style with Street Fighter IV, has continued with a number of low key fighter revivals on Xbox Live Arcade and the lucky Americans already have Blazblue whilst we have to wait until 2010. Comic book movies are also all the rage right now, making this the perfect time to resurrect fan favourite Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

For the uninitiated, MvsC2 was released back in 2000 and features a roster of some 56 characters chosen from each universe. There is no story mode, no elaborate scheme to bring them all together. Just one question; who would win in a fight between Resident Evil’s Jill Valentine and the Incredible Hulk.

MvsC2 dispatches with the usual “best of 3 rounds” approach, instead requiring each player to select a team of 3 fighters for a “last man standing” style beat down. With such a huge roster to draw from the possible combinations boggle the mind and Capcom chose to include a number of more obscure characters on both sides, to compliment obvious choices like Ken, Ryu, Spiderman and Wolverine.

It may sound cliché but MvsC2 really encapsulates what it means to be “easy to pick up and difficult to master.” This game is incredibly easy to get to grips with thanks to intuitive button inputs and a generous window of opportunity. New players will be pulling off fairly elaborate looking combos in no time, even if they are in fact very slight by MvsC2 standards.

As you’d expect, gameplay is relatively straightforward on the face of it. You select your fighters and beat on the other guys until either a team has been fully defeated or the timer runs out. It’s never that simple for long though when you take into account all of the sub systems, team combos and the designation of character “types.”

Upon selection you’re asked to assign a role to that character. Some are specific to character weight class, Hulk and Juggernaught are massive for example, whilst most are shared and the game will inform you of the logical choices, but doesn’t force them upon you. These roles are fairly self explanatory and make thematic sense. For example, Iron Man is best suited for projectiles, with his laser beams, whilst Spiderman is best suited for capturing your opponents, with his webbing.

Once in combat, you can switch between your 3 fighters in an instant, using them to combine their attacks and combos into longer, more powerful chains. As these brawls play out a meter fills at the bottom of the screen and will charge up 4 times. Upon completion, the entirety of the meter can be used to perform an epic team special combo that’ll deal a huge amount of damage to whoever gets in the way. More skilled players though will use this meter to unleash each characters special combo in sequence, resulting in impressive juggles.

There are a ton of little things going on behind the scenes too, like regenerating health, assist characters doing double damage and a neat trick called the “Snapback”, which results in the character on the receiving end being knocked out of play and replaced by another team member. It might not sound so bad but if you’re up against a skilled opponent who can constantly keep you guessing as to whom you’ll have available it’s a real game changer.

MvsC2 on Xbox Live Arcade is a port of the Dreamcast version of the game and features all of the same modes, characters, stages and colours. However, there is no longer a process to unlock anything as all the content has been made available from the start, much like the Arcade version of Soul Calibur. Online multiplayer has been added though and runs on the same Net code as Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. The results are super fluid and arguably lag free.

The only other changes made to the game are presentational. Whilst purists can still play the game with a 4:3 display with the original sprite artwork, the game now supports a stretched backdrop option that runs at 16:9 and also features some new filters to smooth out the jagged edges on the sprites. The new widescreen mode is flawed though as the gameplay still runs at 4:3. This means that the screen filling special attacks still take place in that central square window and don’t stretch beyond 4:3. As you can imagine this looks pretty strange.

The addition of filters and a partial widescreen mode only draws attention to what could be interpreted as a lack of effort. Considering the lavish upgrade received by Street Fighter II you’d expect the same treatment here. With new, HD artwork MvsC2 could have looked incredible. Don’t get me wrong, this is still a great looking game with wonderful animation but a visual upgrade would still have been welcome.

Even after 9 years MvsC2 still holds its own. It’s one of the best 2D fighters ever made and, almost by default, one of the best fighters on Xbox 360. The only barrier here is the price, weighing in a 1200 Microsoft Points and the adherence to the original release. Capcom actually chose to leave in all the imbalances and glitches to maintain the purity of the original experience, a divisive decision to be sure.

Xbox Live has seen a number of great releases this summer but, for my money, MvsC2 comes out on top. It’s a classic game that has lost none of its appeal. The lack special treatment from Capcom, with regard to the visuals, is a disappointment and the score below reflects that but fight fans shouldn’t hesitate. As ever, it’s worth taking for a ride.