The Mortal Kombat series started going downhill around the time of MK3, ever since then the franchise became bogged down with stances and complicated movesets. But, I am happy to announce that MK vs. DC Universe is a return to the 2D style control and feel of the old MK games. Done away are weapon stances and crappy characters.
The story is pretty good for an MK game, it is fairly intriguing and helps to explain the mash-up, as well as why the MK characters are able to injure people like Superman. The story also helps to explain why any DC characters(besides the villains) would be fighting each other. Due to either a lightning bolt from Raiden or a blast of Heat Vision from Superman, to a teleportation device, a rift opens in time-space and causes “Dcland” and “Mkland” to collide. The combatants are effected by something called “Kombat Rage” which causes them to blindly fight anyone in front of them, leading to some interesting face-offs in the story mode such as, Flash Vs. Batman. The way the story mode is put together is very cool too, at the beginning you pick which side you want to play on, and you see the story from that perspective. Also, the story is set up in chapters, where in each chapter you play as a certain character. This is a very nice move, as it allows you to get acclimated to every character in the game, although some characters will feel weak and be hard to use(damn you Wonder Woman!!!! I had to play your fights 1 million times).
The Graphics are very good, the DC characters are true to their comic form, and the models are as realistic as “Ice Ninja” “Lightning God” and “Overly Muscular Superhero” can look. The Levels are good, ranging from Raiden's Temple to Wonder Womans home island. Also, there is a point in the story mode where the places begin merging to become weird “line down the center” mash-ups.
The move sets are generally the same as the older MK2 style games, all of your favorites return, Sub-Zero's ice teleport, Raiden's fly across the screen, humorously called “The Superman”, and Scorpions famous “GET OVER HERE!!”. On the DC side, a lot of the characters take moves from MK characters not in the game, Lex Luthor's robot suit effectively makes him Sektor, and Joker's bomb moves make him like Cyrax. With that being said, the DC characters moves don't feel shoehorned, and they match really well with the rest of the characters moves.
This game adds in 2 new in-fight mini-games that are kind of hard to explain without text, so I will try to explain them as effectively as possible. The first is “Test Your Might” mode. On some of the levels, there are walls you can knock the opponent against, triggering a game where you are running your opponent through layers of walls, and you mash buttons to either increase or decrease the amount of damage done by the attack. The 2nd is “Free-Fall Kombat”, on other levels you can knock the other combatant off the edge and onto another platform. During this free-fall you hit buttons to attack or to try and reverse the attack.
Overall this is a very good fighting game, The DC characters and levels don't feel shoe-horned into the game, and it is a product of very high quality. Although, DC wanted this game to be rated T-for-Teen so the violence isn't as extreme as other MK games, it gets me excited for the next “Real” MK game. This fighting engine is solid enough for it to be made into the next MK game, If Midway can last that long. Now for my verdict, much like my last review it is going to be split. Everyone should play this game, DC fans should rent it and see if they like it, MK fans should buy it. Fans of fighting games in general should rent it at least. This is a strong fighter, with very good “pick-up-and-play” you don't need to be a crazy frame counter to play the game and be effective.
11/23/08
NCAA Basketball 09
As well as just general blogging i plan to do some video game reviews, so my first one will be NCAA Basketball 09. With the departure of 2K from the sports realm, we are once again left with one sports game in a sporting realm. In college basketball its EA's NCAA Basketball 09. They managed to improve on many of the issues of the past. This game uses the NBA Live engine this time around, which improves many things, character models, and ball physics mostly. The animations look smooth, and the graphics look great. All 328 Devision I teams are represented and MOST of the arenas look like good representations of their real-life counterparts. I found the game's version of the Peterson Events Center looked a little akward, but most of the other venues look pretty close.
(Generic UCLA player is guarded by generic Oregon player.)
The player models look amazing, even on a standard-def TV, the graphics are great. My only issue, is the generic models, they are good(for people who are new to NCAA or college basketball in general) but since its against NCAA rules, real college players are not in the game. Can we just start paying college players please, so we can get real players in the game, and real jerseys on the shelves?
Now to the atmosphere, if there is one thing this game gets down well, its the atmosphere of a college game. The crowd chants and waves arms to try and get the away team to miss free-throws. When a game gets out of hand, the crowd starts chanting "WARM UP THE BUS!". All the mascots are in the game, up to their usual mascot antics.
This leads me to the sound, the sound is pretty good, but as with most sports games, the announcers get very repetitive, very fast. I love Dick Vitale, but his announcing doesn't seem like him, he doesn't talk about how awesome Pitt is like he does in real life.
ITS AWESOME, BABY!
The game adds a feature called "game tempo" which is a meter that pops up at the bottom of the screen, with 2 areas on it that represent the tempo that each team likes to play at, my team Pitt, is a balanced team, which means they are adept at playing a fast game or a slow game. I have switched them to be a "Half-Court" game which means they take it slow, using a lot of the shot clock, and getting high-percentage shots. When you play in your tempo, you get a slightly higher chance to make hard shots, and when your not in your tempo is a little harder to make low-percentage shots.
Overall this is a very good game, a major improvement on the last few NCAA games. But, this is the hard part, I always have trouble recommending sports games to people because its hard to tell someone to buy a game that you know will have improvements next year. I would say that if you REALLLLY need to buy a college basketball game, you should buy it, otherwise rent it and see what improvements they make next season.
(Generic UCLA player is guarded by generic Oregon player.)
The player models look amazing, even on a standard-def TV, the graphics are great. My only issue, is the generic models, they are good(for people who are new to NCAA or college basketball in general) but since its against NCAA rules, real college players are not in the game. Can we just start paying college players please, so we can get real players in the game, and real jerseys on the shelves?
Now to the atmosphere, if there is one thing this game gets down well, its the atmosphere of a college game. The crowd chants and waves arms to try and get the away team to miss free-throws. When a game gets out of hand, the crowd starts chanting "WARM UP THE BUS!". All the mascots are in the game, up to their usual mascot antics.
This leads me to the sound, the sound is pretty good, but as with most sports games, the announcers get very repetitive, very fast. I love Dick Vitale, but his announcing doesn't seem like him, he doesn't talk about how awesome Pitt is like he does in real life.
ITS AWESOME, BABY!
The game adds a feature called "game tempo" which is a meter that pops up at the bottom of the screen, with 2 areas on it that represent the tempo that each team likes to play at, my team Pitt, is a balanced team, which means they are adept at playing a fast game or a slow game. I have switched them to be a "Half-Court" game which means they take it slow, using a lot of the shot clock, and getting high-percentage shots. When you play in your tempo, you get a slightly higher chance to make hard shots, and when your not in your tempo is a little harder to make low-percentage shots.
Overall this is a very good game, a major improvement on the last few NCAA games. But, this is the hard part, I always have trouble recommending sports games to people because its hard to tell someone to buy a game that you know will have improvements next year. I would say that if you REALLLLY need to buy a college basketball game, you should buy it, otherwise rent it and see what improvements they make next season.
11/22/08
Giantbomb.com
This is my first blog post, and I dont really know what to type about at this point in time. So my first post will be about one of my favorite websites, Giant Bomb. Giant Bomb is a website ran by Jeff Gerstmann, Ryan Davis, and a few othe ex-Gamespot editors. Obviously this game is about Videogames, but along with the editoral writing(reviews, news posts, etc.), there is a great gaming wiki-style encyclopedia. The encyclopedia contains everything from Hamburgers to Halo, anything that is even vaguely connected to Videogames. Also the website is very entertaining, their weekly Giantbomb-Cast is very funny, and delivers lots of video game news weekly, for the low, low price of NOTHING. In addition to the Bombcast they post many funny videos, one of my favorites is their preview of Age Of Booty which i wil insert here.
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