Marvel vs EA ... wtf?

http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6087557.html

Does this seem wrong to anyone else? EA has no experience in fighting games, as far as I know…

I liked Marvel vs Capcom 1 and 2 as much as the next Capcom fighting game junkie but this just sits strangely with me.

The other question in my mind is who would be an “EA hero”…?

“SPIDERMAN VERSUS JOHN MADDEN!!”

I’m sure the “EA heroes” will be characters from NBA Street, SSX, etc.

Or maybe Ty the Tazmanian Tiger :)

If Madden is an unlockable character wearing spandex, I might gouge my own eyes out.

Bad idea though, this is not a good opportunity for EA to develop franchise characters. Shouldn’t the franchise characters come first?

“This is a tremendous opportunity for EA to create new characters for fighting games that can be exploited through our global merchandise licensing machine to fuel sales in many other product categories,” said Allen Lipson, president and CEO of Marvel Enterprises.

Geez, how blunt can you get? Mr. Lipson needs a marketing guru to speak for him. When talking about a new game, I’d probably avoid words like “exploit”. Unless it’s a shareholder meeting, then its fair game, I suppose.

I’d rent the game if they have a John Madden character with a Turducken super move though.

You know, it says right in the bold text above the article that they’re new characters.

Yet clearly it would be sweet if you could unleash a multi-hit combo with John Madden. “Boom!”

Blatant attempts at character-based brand-forming suck, especially when they span mediums in a kind of assault-on-all-fronts barrage of crappiness.
You can’t tell people what to like by shoving it down their throat. It’s just annoying.
The really dumb part of this is that the Marvel properties are going to totally overshadow the new characters. Unless the Marvel guys are Dazzler and Quasar or something. They’re clearly meant to be a crutch, to ease the newbies into popular awareness, but that’s not how it’s going to pan out.

I thought Fido Dido was cool when I was little, though.

It’s typical of EA these days. They’re often very reluctant to make and market a game that isn’t somehow already using licensed characters or one of their longtime franchises.

Instead of letting a team go wild and create the next great fighting game, maybe even going head to head with Sega and Namco, they have to get Marvel involved to guarantee a certain amount of sales.

I really do wonder where this will be developed, though?

Games like this are why people love Sega and hate EA.

–Dave

Don’t ruin the fun, man. Tiger Woods vs. Tiger Wylde! Madden vs. The Thing! This is a photoshop extravaganza waiting to happen.

EA has been gunshy about characters or character-based games that aren’t licensed for quite awhile. That being said, I really don’t think that blending their original IP with somebody else’s is the answer. I mean, EA is big enough that they could sell something of their own – they have the cash to advertise.

Why they let Freedom Fighters wither on the vine is anyone’s guess, though.

Yay for Marvel. They get more blandness injected into their universe.

It almost makes you wonder if they let stuff like that fail to prove to their shareholders that licensed games are the only way to go. After all, if the shine were to wear off of licenses, EA wouldn’t have a whole lot left these days.

–Dave

I can just see the announcer quotes now…

[b]“Spider-Man versus…the guy from Medal of Honor!”

“Female Sim versus…Captain America!”

“Doctor Doom versus…Elise!”

“The Punisher versus…plane camper!”[/b]

How do you do a fighter using a company that’s based entirely on character and a company that has no characters worth remembering?

EA published Freedom Force. But they don’t own it, so no dice.

Publishing usually involves advertising. :)

But yeah, point taken in that they wouldn’t own the characters anyway. This just raises the possibility that EA wouldn’t know what to do with their own characters even if they did have some.

So, back to Freedom Fighters for a minute. I didn’t play it but heard some good things. Worth getting it now? I imagine it’s cheap.

–Dave

I got a little worn out on the single player campaign, Dave, but the character creation feature alone would make it worth the $10 it’d cost now.

But, back to the campaign: I don’t know why I got burned out on it - I just lost interest when I had to start punching out velociraptors. it’s hard to complain TOO much… after all, it’s the first superhero game that was worth playing at all in the last, oh, decade or so.

Are we talking about Freedom Fighters or Freedom Force?

heh…we’re talking about two different games. Freedom Fighters is a run and gun action game from EA and IO Interactive while Freedom Force is the superhero strategy game from EA and Irrational Games.

I’ve played Freedom Force… a lot. Great game. I heard good things about Freedom Fighters though…

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/freedomthebattleforli/review.html

I’d probably get the Gamecube version…seems more like a TV game to me.

–Dave

Actually, it would be really cool if they could get John Madden to do the color commentary while you’re fighting…

“Ok, now here’s Chun Li. She’s a real contender - quick on her feet, has one heck of a juggle, and that helicopter kick is darn near unstoppable in the right situation. Yeah, I’d put good odds on this being a pretty tight matchup. She’s going to want to stay low, avoid some blows and then just break loose with a real powerhouse move. In a pinch, she could just play a keep-away game and let the timer run out if she’s ahead.”