I saw this done before much better, when it was called "Capcom vs. SNK 2".
User Rating: 4.6 | Capcom Fighting Evolution PS2
Throughout the years, we've seen some of Capcom's fighting game stars duke it out against the X-Men, Marvel comic super heroes, and even fighters from its friendly rivals at SNK. These games have proven to be popular among fighting game enthusiasts, and provided many arcades with hours of entertainment. Now, with arcades about to go the way of the dodo, Capcom once again tries to bring those thrills to home consoles with Capcom Fighting Evolution, a game in which a handful of Capcom's elite fighters square off against...each other. CFE features 20 fighters from some of Capcom's top fighting game franchises, including Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter III, Darkstalkers, and Red Earth (the last one was only released in Japan); plus an additional fighter named Ingrid, who was supposed to be featured in the ill-fated Capcom Fighting All-Stars. The game features traditional one-on-one fighting, but you select teams of two before each match, and you can choose to switch them between rounds (a la Rival Schools, another of Capcom's great fighting games). You'd like to think that this would be an easy recipe for success, but somehow CFE fails to deliver. By and large, the game seems unfinished, and is about as bare-bones a game as you'll find on the market. There are only three basic gameplay modes (Arcade, Versus, and Practice), and you never quite know how far you've progressed on the arcade ladder until you reach the boss of the game. The fighters' roster is a bit shallow, as well, with only four fighters representing each game (Ryu and Guile appear from Street Fighter II, but no Ken?), hardly making it seem like an all-star cast. You'll also absolutely HAVE to know the styles of each fighter when you play, because there's no way to look at a fighter's moves during a bout, even in Practice mode. Like Capcom vs. SNK 2 before it, CFE's graphics are a weird mix of two-dimensional sprites against three-dimensional rendered backgrounds. All of the characters retain their respective art styles from the games they were plucked out of, with little effort made to make their styles match. It looks strange to see an outlined Darkstalkers sprite standing elbow-to-elbow with a smoothly-drawn character from the Street Fighter III universe. At least the backgrounds look halfway decent, with most of them dotted with other characters from the featured fighting games who couldn't make the final cut. The audio doesn't fare much better, with some rather forgettable rock-techno background tunes, which are drowned out by the loud screaming and shouting of the characters as they fight, and a generally disinterested announcer. There is at least a little depth to CFE's fighting, as each character has his/her own set of special defenses and style of Super Meter, which is dictated by the game the character represents. For instance, if you pick Chun Li from Street Fighter III: Third Strike, you get to parry incoming attacks by hitting the D-Pad forward at just the right moment, and instead of only being able to use one Super Art at a time, you get access to all of them. The Darkstalkers fighters get a stackable Super Meter with accompanying super specials and enhanced special moves, and the Alpha fighters retain the V-ism Custom Combo meter that allows them to chain several quick hits together to devastating effect. For some reason, the game feels heavily unbalanced at times...you can still cream almost any opponent with not-so-clever use of Ryu or Zangief from Street Fighter II, or as one of the unfairly oversized Red Earth characters. Even at its starting price of $29.95, there isn't a whole lot of value in Capcom Fighting Evolution to keep even the most die-hard fans of Capcom's fighting games coming back for more. Those looking for an ensemble fighting game rubmle would be better served by playing the superior-by-comparison Capcom vs. SNK 2. 
