Genre : Video Game
Developer: Midway
Players: 1-2
Retail Price: $60
Availability: Xbox 360, Playstation 3
I periodically go through a phase where I want to get into fighting games. ‘I’ll get (new fighting game X)’ I’ll say, ‘and pick a character and get really good!’ Then, sooner or later, I’m faced with the sad truth that I suck at fighting games. I button mash my way through the story mode, maybe play with my friends a bit and then forget about the game.
This isn’t the case with Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe. I’m still not a master of the game, by any means, so no worries about it being ‘easy.’ But it definitely is the most accessible fighting game I’ve played in years: within a match or two I’d be familiar with any character’s combos, as almost all are of the form (forward/down/back) (forward/down/back) (face button). The most complicated it really gets is something like Liu Kang’s bicycle kick (back back forward B/circle). When I got into the groove, I felt like I was beating the everliving crap out of my opponent, and it was because I was executing combos, not just because I was pounding on buttons as fast as I could.
I’m still not entirely sure how Mortal Kombat and DC came to be together. In the story mode I’m set: Superman heat visioned Darkseid while he was going through a portal at the same time Raiden sent lightening at Shao Khan, who was also in a portal. This somehow combined the universes and created Dark Khan, while also unleashing the Rage, which for proper effect should be pronounced ‘Raaaaaaage!’ There’s a story mode for each universe, where instead of choosing a character you’re cycled through them in various chapters. You don’t play as everyone, though, as there are only eight DC chapters and seven Mortal Kombat. The story itself doesn’t particularly make sense, but I’m not sure why you’d expect it to: you get to play Batman vs Scorpion! Don’t ask questions!
The story mode confused me at first, as I won but wasn’t able to do a fatality. I eventually realized that the characters in the story need to stick around until the end, and since you’re, y’know, killing the person that doesn’t exactly work out. If you want an old school Mortal Kombat experience, though, you can play the Arcade mode. This has all the trappings of Kombats past: you choose your character and progress up a ladder (comprised of characters from MK, DC or both), doing fatalities all the way. Beating Dark Khan gives you a screen with a few sentences about what the character did after winning, which especially for DC characters shows that continuity and canon has gone right out of the window.
The fatalities themselves have been the target of much derision, as they’ve been toned down for the T rating the game received. This is really indicative of the only real flaw the game has: if you’re expecting an over the top gorefest, you’ll probably be disappointed. While I understand that this has been at the heart of what Mortal Kombat is for quite some time, I don’t think that the lack of decapitations means the game should be dismissed out of hand. If you do, well, then you should probably wait until the next ‘pure’ MK game.
There’s still plenty of blood to be found, of course. By the end of fights, both sides will generally have ripped clothing, black eyes, their skull showing (in Scorpion’s case) and have lost a few pints of AB negative along the way. That’s because they take quite a beating: in addition to the standard combos and special moves you can be thrown into a wall and run through a building while pounding on the four face buttons in a Test Your Might challenge (with the attacker trying to increase the damage meter while the defender reduces it). There’s also Klose Kombat and Free Fall, where both players press one of the face buttons: if the defender matches the attacker then Klose Kombat is over or they switch to being the one delivering the pummeling on the way down. During a Free Fall, once a significant amount of damage has been dealt the attacker can do a special move to cap off the beating. It feels visceral, especially when you’re on the receiving end of a bicycle kick into Test Your Might.
In addition to story, arcade and multiplayer modes there’s also the Kombo Challenge, which gives a series of attacks to be performed on an idle victim. This mode showcased that, while I felt quite at home with the game, I was nowhere near a master. The instructions were vague, though, which made many of the moves inaccessible: there would be a note that an attack ‘requires specific timing,’ but gave no feedback on how to perfect the timing. Instead of allowing me to improve it seemed to reinforce that I didn’t know how to play, and so wound up being frustrating instead.
One last bit of complaint: the women in the game are… busty. Overly, impossibly so. I suppose that’s become one of the hallmarks of fighting games now, but it’s an unfortunate one. There aren’t even degrees of endowment: it’s as though the designers just turned the bosometer to 11 and went to lunch. I’d like to think that we’re past the days when all women need to have unrealistically large breasts barely covered by their tight outfits (Catwoman, I’m looking at you).
All this aside, though, Mortal Kombat vs DC is a damn good fighting game. It’s let me see what people find appealing about the genre, because it’s easy to do combos, but has enough depth to where I know I’m nowhere near a master of its mechanics (and, in case that wasn’t perfectly clear, there’s also online play for that). When I win, it’s because I feel as though I was smacking the tar out of my opponent, and when I lost it was because they were repaying the favor. The lack of, or more correctly toned down nature of, violence will probably be a turn off to some people, but if you can live without exposed rib cages then you’ll find a game that may be ushering in the second golden age of fighters.
