R.I.P. Mortal Kombat 1992 - 2008
In my entire life of playing video games, I have always had just one mark of shame, and that was beating Kingdom Hearts, including completing all the side-quests. Well, now I have two. Ever thinking of buying this abortion of fighting game. I curse PSN forever for not coming out with a demo, I could've ended up with LittleBigPlanet instead.
I have been a fan of MK ever since is inception, even when I was never allowed to play it because of the violence. I snuck in games at the arcade in Vegas whenever I could, and somehow was able to get the SNES version of MK2, and got every game after that. I have fond memories of every title...every single one of them, even Deadly Alliance, which wasn't bad, but definitely not in the top five of the series. But in the case of MK vs DC (which I seriously hope isn't actually MK8), the only thing close to fond memory will be trading it in and hopefully getting the MK three-pack, which has great MK titles such as Deception and Armageddon, and even the one good spin-off Shaolin Monks, something that really deserves a sequel.
So why am I so offended by MK vs DC? Because this is no way a Mortal Kombat game. Now, you're probably thinking one of two things, or both; a) Sure it is, it has Scorpion and Sub-Zero and other MK characters, or b) yes it is so! It has fatalities! Well, is response to the former: so what? It has Batman in it, does that make it a Batman game? No. And to the latter, what they have in this fecal waste are not fatalities...I don't really know what they are. Maybe some kind of cruel joke, like this entire 'game' is. What kind of a slap in the face is this??? Their first next-gen title and they fuck it up like this?
*Ahem...*
Let me break down the many, many things wrong with this...'game'.
First and foremost, the fatalities. Well, that's not a good word for them, but for lack of a better one, I'll just go with that for now. The game has blood, yes, but do the fatalities? I really don't know, because I haven't seen them all, but the very few I did see did not. And what is with the 'heroic brutalities'? I get the idea that heroes can't kill or whatever, but the way they went about it is just stupid. I only have seen two in the game, Batman's and Wonder Woman's, and they were just ridiculous. Why bother doing that? Either they kill the person or they don't; don't take away what little dignity these characters have by giving them these silly finishers. Back to the MK side of the equation, I'll say it here and now: No gore = no Mortal Kombat. Why do you think the movie was so despised, it lacked the trademark gore of the series, what made it famous in the first place. They even managed to castrate one of the most iconic characters in video game history (Scorpion) by dumbing down his trademark finisher. I for one will not tolerate a PG-13 MK game, and them giving this game an M rating is a joke in itself.
Secondly, the characters. I know that this story doesn't fit into the canon of either the MK or DC sides (thank god for that), but even with that in mind, what they did to some of my favorite characters in video game history was just embarrassing. The dialogue, to the best of my understanding, was written in part by a writer from DC comics, and it definitely shows. The character interactions are cheesy, full of the worst one-liners I have ever heard ('You should've finished him!'), and in terms of character work, they take some deep, interesting personalities and flattened them into a two-dimensional mess. They even managed to make the Joker annoying, I almost couldn't tolerate seeing him on the screen for too long. As for some of the characters, I don't even know why they made it in here. Captain Marvel? I seriously had no idea who that was until this game, but then again, I don't really read that many comic books. Either way, he's the biggest nerd in comic book history. I mean, he actually says 'Shazam!'. Who the fuck says that?
Third in my line of complaints would be the overall gameplay. Its not at all improvement over the gameplay in Armageddon; in fact, in a lot of ways it's a lot worse. The new elements are where the gameplay takes some serious blows. There's the Rage system, and the Close-combat and free-fall combat. First off, the Rage system is probably the worst idea ever. 'Hey, let's put in a move that makes you completely impervious to pain, and also increases your damage and speed a bit. Good?'. This thing is so broken, and the CPU will use it every chance they get, adding to the already frustrating difficulty of the game. As for the close-combat and free-fall thing, the close-combat is just weird and hard to get used to. Most the time, it seems completely random to me. The free-falling is similar, but the thing that makes it worse is that fact that you can pummel your opponent for the entire fall, but if they flip you around and manage to get you to land first, not only do they not get hurt at all, but all the damage you racked up gets used against you, regardless if they even hit you or not. The thing I found most disappointing is the fact that they did away with the fighting styles and weapons. This seriously hurt the combo system, I think anyway. Also, the combo challenges are ridiculous and sometimes seem either broken or just impossible. I know there are some people who have gotten all of these, but I just couldn't do it. Maybe it's because I just suck, but either way, its a lot of hard work only for a trophy, you don't unlock anything for doing them. There are only two secret characters (unlocked by completing the story modes), no extra arenas (that I know of, but who really cares anyway?), and no alternate costumes. So unless you're a trophy/achievement fiend, there's really no point in doing these.
Oh, and let me tell you real quick about the story modes. I've already mentioned that the dialogue is crap, so I won't again (but it really is crap), aside from that, the story is probably one of the worst features about this game. Again, non-canon, but they could've seriously come up with something a lot better. For starters, not including the DC Universe. Maybe picking up where Armageddon left off? You know, like everyone was expecting them to do??? But that's beside the point, the story modes are long. Well, they're probably not that long, but they seem like they are. And you can't save, can't turn it off and pick up where you left off (actually, I might not be sure about that, but I'm definitely not gonna find out). You can't skip any of the cut-scenes either, so if you're like me and don't give a shit about the story, too bad; you're gonna watch every goddamn scene in the story mode. Now, both story modes are different, but end the same, forcing you to fight the last boss with either Superman for the DC side, or Raiden for the MK team. But the problem is both are equally as lame and tedious. Its almost painful to watch them try to piece some kind of story out of this mess. Its like someone putting a nice dress on a platypus and taking it to the prom, hoping that no one will notice. Dark Khan? Come on...
A big part of me died today...something will forever be missing...I don't think I'll ever recover from what has been done to me. I feel as if I've been betrayed, somehow, stabbed in the back by Midway. Like, all the joy they had been giving me with Mortal Kombat was just a long practical joke and this was the punchline.
Mortal Kombat 9? I won't be holding my breath. I heard somewhere that Midway was either going bankrupt or going to be bought out soon. After this, I think they deserve it. They deserve worse, the rotten bastards. This is like some kind of drawn-out, 16 year-long form of torture. Thankfully I've got my plenty-gory Call of Duty 5 and Resistance 2 to cleanse my mind with. But some wounds can never be healed...