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Fighting game fans can generally fit into one of two groups - those who love Capcom, and those who love SNK. Both groups of fans are equally passionate in their love of their favourite developer's games and have broken into fiery arguments online, and even occasionally in real life, over which company's games were greater. Thankfully, Capcom and SNK noticed this ongoing war between their fans, and decided to finally end the fist fights and verbal feuds and allow their fans to settle their differences in a more civilised manner - through video gaming. SNK thus created a number of crossover games for their sadly ill-fated Neo Geo Pocket Colour handheld, and Capcom went about designing a crossover for their most recent development platform of choice - the NAOMI arcade board.

Capcom's crossover game, imaginatively titled Capcom vs SNK, pitted the characters of SNK's popular King of Fighters and Capcom's seminal Street Fighter in a 2D team-based fighting game, and was greeted with both respectable financial success and mild criticism by fans and the press. Although it was well presented, had a good character roster and solid gameplay, it wasn't without some tragic shortcomings. The two in-game fighting styles (Capcom and SNK) were rather hastily conceived and thus rather unbalanced in relation to each other. The character power allocation system (Ratio system) made team construction far too rigid for most folks'liking. And finally, virtually all of the SNK characters in the game were stripped of moves and had their special move motions altered, which upset SNK fans. Capcom vs SNK was basically a case of "close, but no cigar" when it came to utilising the corporate crossover's true gameplay potential.

Given Capcom's track record for producing large amounts of game sequels, it should come as no surprise that Capcom decided to release a sequel to Capcom vs SNK. That sequel is Capcom vs SNK 2, and has recently been released in the arcades, as well as on the Dreamcast and Playstation 2. As I'm a major 2D fighting game fan and proud owner of a Dreamcast, I recently imported Capcom vs SNK 2. Having spent a lot of time playing it. I'm happy to say that Capcom vs SNK 2 is a massive improvement on its predecessor, and truly takes the Capcom vs SNK franchise to a new level of excellence and sheer playability.

Capcom vs SNK 2 has a much larger character roster than its predecessor - 44 characters are now available for use. The cast includes characters from virtually all of Capcom and SNK's major fighting games, which is nice to see. The original Capcom vs SNK could have well been labelled "Street Fighter vs King of Fighters", as SF and KOF characters made up practically all of the cast. That's no longer the case, though, and fighting game nuts can finally play as folks like Kyosuke (Rival Schools) and Rock (Garou: Mark of the Wolves). Previously unseen SF and KOF characters like Yun and Athena are also now avail able. As a result, the cast is well-rounded, with virtually all of your favourite characters and fighting games from Capcom and SNK present and accounted for. I'd have liked to see Eiji, Hyo, Guy and Leona playable in the game, but I guess you can't have everything, can you? ;)

In terms of graphics, this game won't fail to please. All of SNK's characters have been redrawn for a fresh look, and many have never looked better. I love Athena, Haohmaru, Iori and King's new looks - they look brilliant in a new, anime style with vibrant colours, especially after having their sprites recycled for so many years on SNK's ageing MVS hardware. Unfortunately, although SNK's characters look great, Capcom's don't fare so well. For whatever the reason, most of the Capcom cast have had their sprites recycled from their older CPS2 game appearances, and look rather embarrassingly dated as a result. A few Capcom characters have been redrawn, but not nearly enough. I wish Capcom had taken the time to give their characters a revamp as major as the SNK characters' is... sigh. Still, even with a few recycled sprites involved, the sprites found here look pretty damned good.

Quick reference should be made to the 3D backdrops found in Capcom vs SNK 2. Gone are the 2D backdrops of the original Capcom vs SNK, and in their place are colourful, smoothly animated and lushly detailed 3D environs. They're actually a large step up from Marvel vs Capcom 2's 3D backdrops, and really boost the atmosphere and visual appeal of Capcom vs SNK 2. The mixture of sprites and polygons in Capcom vs SNK 2's graphics can seem a little odd at first, but it works surprisingly well overall, and will grow on you after half an hour of play time. Unless you totally despise 3D graphics - I'm talking to you, Mr Old School. (who, me? Hey, they have their place, but I don't despise them completely - ed.)

I've gone on for an eternity about characters and graphics, so how does Capcom vs SNK 2 play? Extremely well. There are now six grooves to experiment with and master, and they're thankfully much better balanced than Capcom vs SNK's two grooves ever were. The ratio system is now much more flexible - rather than each character being stuck with a set power rating, you get to decide how you'd like to allocate the four ratio points available to your team of up to three characters. There are also now alternative forms of play outside of ratio mode - three on three or one on one bouts, which some may find fairer than ratio matches. Cheap characters are fairly rare now, too - so with the exception of the bosses (Shin Gouki and God Rugal), it's fairly hard for certain characters to dominate a bout like they oncedid. This all adds up to a well-balanced, deep and highly enjoyable fighting game experience.

If you're a fan of Capcom or SNK, or just a fighting game fan in general, you're bound to love this game. Seeing Kyo lay the smack down on Ryu or Ken flatten Terry is a sheer joy for hardcore fighting game fans, and when such dream matches take place in a game as well-rounded and enjoyable as this, it's hard to pass up on playing it. Whilst by no means perfect or an all-time classic, Capcom vs SNK 2 is still a great game well worth buying. Just make sure you have a fighting pad to get the most out of the game - it's a little hard to play well with the standard DC pad, thanks to the six button control scheme.

- Luke O'Sullivan