The video game industry sprouts up with the darnest ideas to keep its flow of franchises running like nose in midst of a dastardly cold. They either manage to come up with ridiculous off-shoots of fan favorite franchises as in the case of Mario and his incessant appearances in a Nintendo game or the Star Wars franchise, which tries its hand at every possible videogame genre that has ever been created.
The lucrative Mortal Kombat series is also known to push into such oddities and clichés with ‘special forces’ and ‘Shaolin Monks’. But when they announced that the entire cast was going to take on the DC universe in Kombat, Midway seemed to have pushed all their faith into an inevitable doom.
The funny bit was that such a precarious step had been taken before with the Marvel franchise taking on Capcom’s All Stars and resulted in a jingle of coins and green on the Saturn (X-Men Vs Street Fighter), Dreamcast and the arcade.
Skepticism is a quality that reviewers are born with, if they feel a game is not upto their levels of satisfactions they often used this terminology in their work. But I would be honest enough to admit that I not only found the title ridiculous but given Midway’s recent track record in shelling out one averageware after another, the only path Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe treaded in my books was on the oft forgotten Star Wars combat game “Teras Kasi”.
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, however, proved the crusty saying of “First Impressions not being the last impressions” correct by inviting a mediocre player such as me into a universe which takes a step back into the days of the old school genre of fighting games which relied heavily on adrenaline, thoughtful button mashing and the second dimension.
The game pits 22 fighters (with two hidden) into a universe, which is unique in its own right. The story mode tells of a mysterious porting of different characters in their alternate universes and the only logical way to decode this mysterious transportation is to engage in Mortal Kombat with your opponent.
One of the few interesting twists that the game sees is that the player is not restricted to a single character chosen in the beginning of the game throughout the story mode, instead he fights as one of the characters that appear in the cutscenes after each match thus giving a holistic view of the entire roster that is at hand.
The game also combines a lot of already seen twists in a rather interesting manner. These include the Klose Kombat Challenge, Freefall Kombat and Test Your Might. Most of these are timed sequences that occur when the player either performs a smashing blow in a particular part of the screen or grabs his opponents by his might and enters into a mini-game.
Klose Kombat follows the latter and the player enters into the button mashing experience grabbing his opponent, if timed correctly the player can inflict a sustainable amount of damage to his opponent. Free Fall Kombat induces a significant amount of damage to your opponent when they jump through the entire premise of the multi-tiered setting and boils down to button mashing once again.
The Test Your Might feature seems to have been implemented in the wake of all the destruction seen in most action lunging games this generation. Here the player smashes his opponents through a bunch of walls and tries to inflict maximum damage to his opponent in the process.
Moving onto the story, which is pretty good given the mystical and clichéd roots of the mortal Kombat franchise. But since the current story has been crafted by professional DC writers, they have managed to flesh out a relatively enjoyable campaign for casual and the hardcore alike.
The game’s visuals are powered by the Unreal Technology which is quite apparent when witnessing the characters models that look bulky and supercharged, but the environments on the other hand seems to have been picked off from a stale last generation fighter.
The texture work on certain characters also does not seem to be upto the mark who looking duller and a bit bland than what they are portrayed in the comic books. Fatality fiends will find a huge disappointment when they witness some of their old time favorite finishers being reduced to a wussy non violent execution.
The gore effects on screen are also limited and confined to bruises and costumes tearing for characters but these modes will already be familiar to individuals who have experienced Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance where the gore seemed to be just the right amount.
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe does support an online mode which is very basic and does have bits of lag induced into them. The best bits in the game are reflected in the nature of Combat which will please the veterans of the original arcade. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe relies extensively on the basics of two dimensional combat which had a bit of button mashing and strategy.
The D-pad controls basic movement and the analog stick are exclusively used for 3D movement across the environment. The A.I. is smart enough to push the player to utilize almost every sphere of his space in defeating his opponent and hence every battle with a new opponent feels fresh and satisfying.
The Final Word: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is a absolute blast of a fighter that is fun to push and play in a world where action, surrealism and RPG’s dominate too much. But given the lack of modes as present in the previous version and a bit bland visuals of the game scores a bit off the mark but the entire experience strays boundaries from my initial impressions of Star Wars: Teras Kasi. Hardcore Mortal Komabtants, however, will find this iteration a welcome change with its slim and trim fighters and a coherent storyline.
Graphics: 7/10.
Gameplay: 8.5/10.
Sound: 8/10.
Budget Pocket: 8/10.
Overall (Not on an average): 8/10.
Indian Distributor: Milestone Interactive (PS3, Xbox 360).
Review Platform: PS3.
Price: Rs. 2899 (PS3), Rs. 2499 (Xbox 360).
- By Neelesh Mukherjee