Reviews// Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe

Posted 24 Nov 2008 18:00 by
When you think of mashups, Mortal Kombat and DC Comics doesn’t really stick out as the most obvious pairing. I guess that’s why they call them mashups. Questions were asked regardless – how would the two universes work together? what characters would best represent each side? how the hell would you be able to beat Superman? Playing Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe to find out, I discovered, isn’t as much of a chore as I initially thought.

Gone are the increasingly ridiculous martial arts styles and multiple combos from recent Mortal Kombat games; the huge character list has been whittled down to the bare essentials and the emphasis is back on simply being an accessible, fun brawler. As much as this game is notable for its introduction of DC characters, it’s more important for the fact that it’s a ‘reboot’ of the MK series.

The story is quite straightforward and cheesy, but done with a creative flair that was enjoyable to get stuck into. Basically, each universe has just trounced its respective dark overlord: Shao Khan on the Mortal Kombat side, and Darkseid (boss of the bad New Gods, according to Mark SPOnG) in the DC world. During a freak incident, Shao Khan and Darkseid’s evil merge to become Dark Khan, with the power to not only incite rage within the characters of the game, but to merge the two universes together until they are destroyed.

So, it’s off to fight against each other in loads of fun and brutal ways. The character roster is split evenly between Mortal Kombat and the DC Universe and sticks to the well-known and classic favourites such as Batman, Sub Zero, The Flash, Kano, Wonder Woman and Liu Kang among others. Each character has been impressively modelled, with some awesome animations from Scorpion as he does some smooth ninja flips to The Joker bouncing around maniacally after landing a hit.

The arenas also look very well imagined, but you get the feeling that there’s not quite enough of them for some reason. They span from Scorpion’s Hell stage to Gotham City with loads in between, but as you’re frantically battling it out some areas can feel very similar to others. Otherwise - excepting two new gameplay mechanics to spice up the play - the levels don’t really provide anything other than platforms to fight on.

If you manage to throw your opponent to the edge of a specific stage, they sometimes break past the wall and fall off, leaving your character to leap after them and attempt to deal some more damage. It becomes a guessing game between you and your opponent as you press the face buttons to inflict more pain, but during the fall fortunes can change if the erstwhile victim presses the same button as you.

There’s also a fun return of the ‘Test Your Might’ from the original Mortal Kombat (and a lot less cheesy than ‘Test Your Sight’) where you can run enemies through walls, mashing all the face buttons to increase the pain inflicted. Aside from this, there is a ‘Klose Kombat’ mode that plays in a similar way to launching people off the side of the arena. Both are quick seamless distractions from the core fighting gameplay. They are both very enjoyable when playing with friends.

As for the main gameplay itself, it’s as Mortal Kombat should be. Midway has wisely realised that this series isn’t about how many combos you can remember, nor is it about stark realism. With these caveats in mind it's brought the fighting back to base level. Each character has a set of combo moves that consist of three buttons (or so, should you wish to use them), plus a list of ‘Super Moves’ which relate to the classic specials that you remember from the good old days: Liu Kang’s fireball, Sub Zero’s ice blast, Batman’s Batarang, Superman’s laser eye thingy. There are loads of easy commands that let you do the moves the characters are famous for.
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Comments

Steviepunk 25 Nov 2008 12:15
1/5
wow, it seems to have turned out a lot better than I was expecting, I'm actually quite interested in checking it out. Though probably will have a look for it after christmas
TimSpong 25 Nov 2008 12:20
2/5
Steviepunk wrote:
wow, it seems to have turned out a lot better than I was expecting, I'm actually quite interested in checking it out. Though probably will have a look for it after christmas


Cripes - a sub-90% review score and you don't think we are "all hating on it"? We'll have to review our review score reviewing process!

Am I to understand that you read the review rather than simply turning to last page and reading the score??? Back to Fanboy school with you!

;-)

Cheers

Tim
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Steviepunk 25 Nov 2008 12:28
3/5
Tim Smith wrote:
Steviepunk wrote:
wow, it seems to have turned out a lot better than I was expecting, I'm actually quite interested in checking it out. Though probably will have a look for it after christmas


Cripes - a sub-90% review score and you don't think we are "all hating on it"? We'll have to review our review score reviewing process!

Am I to understand that you read the review rather than simply turning to last page and reading the score??? Back to Fanboy school with you!

;-)

Cheers

Tim


I did skip a bit on the second page, but yes, I did read the review. A score means nothing if you don't know how the review got to it :)

Anyway, sorry, no one told me I had to be a fan boy to post here! ;) I'll sort that out now....

Must have been the xbox version you reviewed, 'cos the PS3 sucks so bad that my gran thought it was an Atari 2600...

hope that will do :)
TimSpong 25 Nov 2008 13:53
4/5
Steviepunk wrote:
I'll sort that out now....

Must have been the xbox version you reviewed, 'cos the PS3 sucks so bad that my gran thought it was an Atari 2600...

hope that will do :)


Phew. I was coming over all shaky and strange at the mere thought of being kicked out of the "Video Game Website Forum Decorum" secret conspiracy group down in that London.

Cheers

Tim
Hi 5 Jan 2009 10:12
5/5
I have the game for xbox 360 and it is gay because all of you like it, if you didnt i would love it. ps ur mom sucks cock
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