The Mortal Kombat series is easily linkable to Sonic the Hedgehog. Both were huge hits and massive fan favourite’s back in the early nineties, but no games since then (with the possible exception here and there) has been able to capture the magic of those original experiences. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe has once again been built up as the saving grace of the MK series. With a smaller, more concise roster of MK fighters, Ed Boon and his Midway team are looking once again, to revive this age old franchise.Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
Developer: Midway Games
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 (reviewed)
Xbox 360, PS3: November 16, 2008 
Xbox 360, PS3: November 21, 2008
And by all means, they have done just that. With a brand new fighting system that incorporates 3D graphics but manages to make the game look and play like it’s 2D predecessors which somehow does not completely break the game. It may not be as detailed or in depth as Soulcalibur IV was, but it’s so much more fun. The attacks look brutal, the combos are rewarding and satisfying to look at and it is a strangely fascinating feeling to punch Wonder Woman in the face at close range.
The game still plays like most fighting games in which you have two kick attack buttons and two punch attack buttons. These can of course be linked together with movement and jumping in order to unleash combos upon your opponent. The combos can be incredibly daunting, whether you are trying to pull of some 16-button attack or you are on the receiving end of one. For the most part the combos look great, and when performed perfectly they look pretty spectacular and very fluid. The simple attacks look great as well, with some pretty visceral sound effects backing up the equally visceral visual effects of smacking some dude in the face.
The fights are also broken up well with the use of various mini games including Klose Kombat and Test your Might. Klose Kombat pulls your opponent in close and you get four moves on the opponent whilst he has to try and guess which move you are going to use in order to counter it. The same mechanism is used when you knock an opponent over the edge of a level and you battle to the ground Dragonball Z style. Test your Might is essentially a button mashing game in which a player rams another through a wall and each player will button mash in order to determine how much / little damage is done. It is these semi-sadistic feats that really go towards re-iterating what Mortal Kombat was and what it will hopefully be in the future. Characters will also work up a RAGE bar by taking damage or hitting an opponent who is blocking. When this bar is half full, activating it will stop any opponents combo dead, and when it is full you can unleash RAGE which, for six seconds, which makes all of your attacks unblockable. This gives rookies to fighting games a bit more of a chance against tougher CPU and multiplayer opponents.
As I said earlier, the character models all look pretty good but are not nearly as detailed as other fighting games but it works in MK’s favour because it brings back the old memories of the simpler looking graphics and without a crazy amount of intricate detail which would have been a bit of a waste of time and resources in a game like MK vs. DC. The MK characters all look very much how you would expect them to look on current gen engines, and the DC characters’ comic book forms are well represented in their video game form with the slight exception of that they all look like they have injecting gross amounts of steroids and they look more like professional wrestlers than Superheroes but that’s more of a negligible point rather than a foremost problem. Oh, and the female characters all have massive breasts. Because it’s a fighting game and we are all obviously thirteen years old.
The MK vs. DC roster is a straight 11 on 11 split with one character from each side as an unlockable bonus for completing that sides storyline. The characters from the Mortal Kombat side come from no later than Mortal Kombat 2 which will really please the die-hard MK fans. The DC side however is a little more diverse as it has the most obvious choices such as Batman and Superman, but it also has some fairly obscure characters such as Deathstroke and the Green Lantern as they are very suited to fighting Mortal Kombat style. A few of the DC characters do feel a bit overpowered which can lead to some very frustrating matches in both multiplayer and single player as even the CPU will sometimes spam attacks which is really infuriating. Despite these few flaws, the rosters are well sized and you will want to try out all of the characters at least once to see how their move sets fare against other fighters.
The story mode is also just as rudimentary as fighting games of old with increasingly melodramatic dialogue and cheesy loud voices and it is unintentionally hilarious at times. That said it does do a pretty decent job of explaining why it’s possible for The Joker to go toe-to-toe with Superman and winning. The player can partake in the story fighting as characters from the MK series or the DC series with seven chapters for each story. The player will play as a pre-set character for four fights in each chapter before as the story progresses and if nothing else it serves as a good excuse to make Kitana fight Catwoman. The story is based around the MK and DC Universes colliding due to Shao Kahn and Darkseid being thrust into portals simultaneously in each of the worlds which causes them to merge into one entity (Dark Kahn.) The story then follows the various characters trying to figure out why the hell Scorpion is hanging around Gotham City etc.
As well as Story mode, there is the classic Arcade mode in which you choose your character and fight ten other characters in succession to be crowned the Champion of Mortal Kombat. A nice touch for this mode is you are able to choose opponents made up entirely of MK opponents, DC opponents or a five and five mixture of both. These modes are succeeded by a short narrative along with some still shots of what would happen if that character defeated all others and reigned supreme. These narratives are disappointing at best but the real incentive for playing the Arcade mode is to practice for online.
The multiplayer aspect of MK vs. DC is where most of the longevity of the game rests, and is where you will probably spend most of your time is you enjoy the game. The only problem with this is that the vast majority of online players are really, really good at Mortal Kombat games, so you can easily get tired of losing quickly. Even more annoyingly, there are a small proportion of players who will spam unblockable attacks until you lose which is even more aggravating than losing to a skilled opponent. Even if you happen to be good at MK games, the amount of people actually playing this game may diminish with the recent release of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix and Street Fighter IV just a few months away, but if you can get into some good matches it is very rewarding and lag is seldom a major issue.
The Final Word
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe does a great job of rebuilding the Mortal Kombat franchise with an excellent new fighting system and a good range of characters that are interesting to fight both with and against. However, there lacks a real hook game mode that really brings you back for more, the story is uninteresting the second time around and Arcade mode grows stale quickly, which only leaves multiplayer which needs a lot of practice.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
