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When talking about how the Mortal Kombat series has evolved over the years, even the most retro of gamers will, more likely than not, pass some sort of snide, overly-sarcastic remark. Not that other series haven’t been a victim of this either, especially if your name is Jean Claude Van Damme. But I digress. When Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe (MKDC) was first revealed to the world, it was hard not to giggle a little. While Capcom had done a similar idea roughly ten years ago when pitting the likes of their Street Fighters against the Uncanny X-Men, neither party had the entire internet Nelson Muntz population laughing derisively into their electronic inboxes. And yeah, we had our fair share of stabs at it too.
What it all ultimately comes down to is this: Can folks other than both Mortal Kombat and DC comic book fans find it in themselves to look past MKDC’s theatrics and come across an enjoyable fighting game without tripping over its gimmicks. Frankly speaking, yes. What it lacks though, is the interesting modes found in previous iterations and the story, while wildly entertaining, doesn’t exactly stretch itself for too long.
Yes, you read that correctly. I said the game has a story, with the emphasis on “wildly” and “entertaining”. Compared to most fighting games, an oddly-constructed throwaway plot is understandably expected in the most of circumstances. That’s where a lot of the prior Mortal Kombats differ. Ed Boon and his crew are known to invest serious time into their outwardly lore, while the concept of merging universes isn’t anything new if you’ve ever read any of the DC’s Crisis arcs. By no means does MKDC’s tale even try its best to be original, but what does stand out is a solid cast of voice actors and DC writer Jimmy Palmiotti’s weird voodoo to make it all seem reasonable. It’s just a shame that the one of the more appealing aspects that brought everyone’s attention here in the first place, ends in not more than a few hours of play time.
Not much has changed in terms of actual komba- er, combat. Gone are the interchangeable fighting styles from Deadly Alliance as well as the customizable “have-it-your-way” fatalities briefly introduced in Armageddon. Much like their earlier arcade ancestors, all characters in MKDC handle vastly the same (be it speed or have the same default punch/kick animations), with the only differences found in special moves and, of course, fatalities (or in the case of playing a DC good-guy, “heroic brutalities”).
Fatalities in particular, have one noticeable and controversial change: how they look. They’re much less violent in contrast to their predecessors, but arguably; don’t take away the satisfaction of performing one successfully. Let’s face it, if gamers were complaining about their edgy violence in their edgy video games, we wouldn’t have stuff like Gears of War or Dead Space loitering on store shelves. MKDC may have taken certain liberties in order to appease followers of both source materials, but by no means does it compromise on its overall enjoyment. Besides, I’ll gladly take MKDC’s finishers over Armageddon’s one-button-per-dismemberment retreads any time.
While the removal of different fighting styles is a slight bummer, there are three new in-game mechanics added to keep the momentum in matches going. Pressing both trigger buttons will enable your character to go into Rage Mode, once you’ve filled all three yellow bars below your health meter; overall damage and invulnerability gets an increase for a limited period of time. Then you have Free-Fall and Klose Kombat, the former allowing you clash with an opponent while descending from a high platform in mid-air, while the latter lets you initiate a series of attacks that can be successfully stringed together – provided your enemy doesn’t get in the first counter. Both these systems rely heavily on context-sensitive button-presses, similar to the ones used in Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3 or any of the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja games. They may not be nearly as glitzy, but they’re quick, dirty to use, and immensely comical to pull off when you consider the amount of effort involved, further condoning the Mortal Kombat series’ philosophy of fun over complexity.
You might not realize without looking at the box cover, but MKDC utilizes the Unreal 3 engine for its rendering needs. To what extent does it actually make a world of a difference, is anyone’s guess. Character models, while bulky and detailed, don’t exactly shatter the polygon-count when compared to its competition. The same can be said about the game’s environments. Other than smashing an adversary through a triggered Free-Fall sequence, MKDC’s surroundings doesn’t offer much interactivity and remain largely static. Special Moves and Fatality/Brutality Animations, however, rule the roster all around… and how! Deceiving a foe into attacking a Sub-Zero clone has never been more pleasant to watch, as are the many nicely-done finishing moves.
Probably the most unsatisfactory of all, is the sheer lack of playable modes and unlockables. Granted, I don’t think anyone in their right mind would hold it against the developers for not including reinterpretations of kart racing, chess, or Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. But it doesn’t excuse excluding the other noteworthy additions from previous games, particularly the Shaolin Monks-inspired Konquest, custom-character creation, or even experimenting with newer ones (to Mortal Kombat, at least) such as a Tag-Team mode. That, and there are only a measly two secret characters to unlock and no alternative costumes. Even Sega’s fowl movie-to-game adaptations of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk had a healthier array of cool trinkets for die-hard followers to snag while coping through their sheer mediocrity. MKDC, by no means, needs to dangle carrots for people to get interested in it, but its complete absentmindedness in rewarding the player is somewhat mystifying given its known pedigree. At this point, it’s merely “DLC or bust”.
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is an undeniable guilty pleasure. It doesn’t stack with the more serious fighters in the market, but it doesn’t have to. Regrettably, the price of admission makes little sense for those who can pick-up any of the previously released entries at the cheap, while the amount of content included may not justify long-time devotees investing their time’s worth if they can enjoy everything the game has to offer with a simple rental.
6.5 / 10
Review Copy Courtesy:
Price: INR 2899 (Playstation 3) / 2499 (Xbox 360)
Distributor: Milestone Interactive
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| By N2H | |||||||||
December 22nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Hi
My view on Mortal Combat VS DC to give a proper rating of this game i must explore my view of the previous MK,
I feel that there are lots of features missing it could of been a great game don’t get me wrong its a good game but not great they holding back on certain areas which i believe was great, for example if you look at mortal combat deception this concept was brilliant as there was a story mode work around theme and the action in game and the training was brilliant, to rate mortal combat you have to give it 3 types of ratings 1 is the arcade normal game rating the story mode rating and the other special features rating.
Mortal Combat Deception Arcade mode was brilliant this is (every player had 3 different types of fighting styles where’s as in Armageddon they had 2 and MK VS DC they went back to the normal way of fighting which is bad fo this i rate the Fighting styles in deception the best of the lost which is a 10 not only that the amount of combat you could do was the best i have ever seen, In Armageddon there is only 2 fighting styles (rating 7) the combos is not as good as in deception but its still Ok in MK Vs DC there is only the normal way of fighting (rating 5) it looks like they went back to the beginning they should of stuck to the format of deception. Now for the Story line mode in deception the story line was ok but not great the walk around was also fun and the same time to long and no action and in game storyline play was the same as arcade mode (rating 7) , Armageddon storyline was the best as it was action packed fun and it was almost a extra adventure game you were playing (rating 10) , in MK VS DC the story is ok but its not like a adventure its still the same arcade in game play. If Mortal Combat should ever be a great game they should look at the Arcade game play of deception and the story mode of Armageddon and combine the 2 that’s what’s they should of done, instead they went back to the normal game play of part 4 deadly alliance which was very poor, not only that with the technology of today there could be much more real life movie clips in between to make it more realistic and exciting to watch.
December 23rd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
als je nou eerst eens een beetje nederlands zou leren… voordat je hele teksten op internet zet..