Sometimes it’s friggin’ creepy how things click together. A couple weeks ago I had attempted to play my Dreamcast version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 when I realized that the disk had gotten a bit too scratched over the years and was rendered unplayable. A few days went by and I remembered the old ‘toothpaste trick’ and fixed the disk enough to play it. And hot damn I had forgotten how awesome this game was.

Then Matt tells me that the Dreamcast/ NAIOMI code of MvC2 was being brought to the 360 and PS3. The game doesn’t come out for a few more months, but the demo came out on Thursday. So being a huge fighting game junkie (especially so for Capcom fighting games), I downloaded the demo and went to town.

Wanna know how cool it was? Click the link and I’ll tells ya.

First off, I’m glad it was released for the PS3 version for the obvious controller advantages – but a third party controller will make the Xbox version way more tolerable (which you should have done for Street Fighter 4 any-damn-ways). There were only six characters available for the demo, but with characters like Wolverine, Iron Man, Ryu, Strider, Chun Li and Spiderman being the choices, I wasn’t too bummed. For those of you not in the know, this game houses the largest roster for a Capcom game (or most fighting games for that matter) – 56 characters from all over the Capcom/Marvel universe grace us with there presence. You can literally spend weeks trying out the various 3 on 3 character combination’s. And as your skill level increases, so will you taste in team members. So make sure you’re in for the long haul when you download this. Although you may not have a choice when you get into the games modes – not that there are a huge set of options but for those who love this game, the online options alone should be boner-inducing. We’ll get the usual suspects of the Arcade, Training, local multiplayer (which is the only option in the demo) and score attack modes. But Capcom has also announced two online modes Scoreboard – which is ranked and Friendly – which isn’t. Basic but effective, I think.

And that’s not even the best part. Capcom has gone to great lengths to please its rabid hardcore fans. So they have implemented an input delay option to let the player tweak the sensitivity of the button presses – so now you can maximize your personal playing style just a little bit further. That alone will take most people a day or more. But you know, it’ll be well worth it.

And for those of you who focus on the graphical aspects of a game (and we all do to one degree or another, don’t we?) there are widescreen gameplay options available for those with a nice TV. But you probably won’t give a shit about that when you discover the three-tiered graphic options that you’ve been given. ‘Classic’ keeps it at the old-school level, offering the original sprites. ‘Crisp’ cleans the sprites up a bit but still keeps that old-school feeling. Finally, ‘Smooth’ enhances those 2D sprites and those 3D backgrounds to something a little more fitting for an HDTV.

So now it’s just a matter of waiting things out. It was a smart move putting the demo out so early just in case people have forgotten how intense, crazy and over-the-top the matches can get. I can’t wait to see the matches online for the main game – because you know the rooms are gonna be packed with people using demo characters because that’s all that’s been available. Once again it’s a good thing the demo roster is so tight.

Thank god I have that Dreamcast disk working again. That’ll make the wait a lot easier. And yes, I know I’m a dick. Go me.