Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe

I'd wager there aren't too many people who heard about Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe and thought to themselves, "finally, all my fan fiction fantasies have come true!"

And that isn't just because the rounds end in fatalities instead of spooning. It's because the game is a bat-guano crazy idea that could only have come from a company in dire financial straits that needed something, ANYTHING to get its biggest title some decent blog coverage. And it's perhaps testament to a culture that holds Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Spongebob Squarepants as creative trend setters that Midway decided to take this most bong headed of ideas and just run with it.

Now that I've played through the story and arcade modes and messed around with the few features, I can confirm that the new Ed Boon instalment is not the car crash that some thought it would be. Nor is it the sort of car crash that causes James Spader to develop a strange fetish and hump open wounds. But it is a crash of some sorts, and the most obvious starting point is the story.

Like a writing assignment torn straight from the dog eared journal of a Ritalin medicated schoolboy, the story is somewhat of an illogical mess. The initial concept revolves around Superman creating a dimensional rift by hitting Darkseid with heat vision while he's trying to escape through a warp tube, which is of course ridiculous, but not nearly as ridiculous as a game that has the Joker beating up Superman should be.

Surely they could have had something involving Unicron-sized god creatures or an amusing but calamitous space mission? Anyway, that's how it works for the DC version of the story, but it's no more plausible when you swap the characters for Raiden and Shao Kahn in the alternative Mortal Kombat campaign.

The story is broken into seven chapters, which give you a pretty even taste of every available character as they ham their way through a series of cut scenes that segue between the locations about as effectively as a Domino's commercial between a two part miniseries on extreme African hunger. Fans of fighting games will care to notice the rather ugly looking character models, slightly drab backgrounds and fairly low poly counts. But the questions won't end there.

Wondering how the story explains Sonja and Jax warping into the Green Lantern's Outer Space temple on a fact finding mission, or why Captain Marvel agrees to beat up Baraka and Scorpion to gain Shang Tsung's approval? The answer is inevitably something called rage, and it's not only a heavily used plot-hole filler, but one of the game's newest mechanics.



In the story, rage one of the side effects of the dimensional rift, but in game, it's a power up mode that allows your character to shrug off minor hits while doing combos and deal extra damage. Casting a yellow glow over your character, it's especially handy for dealing out big comebacks when you've just a toothpick of health left in your life bar. The more frequently you're hit, the more rage you'll have in store. It's just one of the concessions Midway has made to the casual gamer in this new instalment.

Pulling off combos has certainly become easier as well. Historically Mortal Kombat was never as mash friendly as a Soul Caliber or Tekken, but now I'd argue it's even more so. A quick peek at the special moves list also shows that most of the hairy button presses have been removed, replaced with simple forward, forward, hit techniques or the good old quarter circle. Most will be pleased to learn that those simple presses unleash some pretty cool new moves, such as Superman's aerial ground punch or Wonder Woman's lariat combo.

The other really new bits are the mini games that come up every so often during a fight. Yes, I know that you're specifically playing an Xbox because you think mini games are for Olivia Newton John and her airbrushed friends, but in the context of the fight they actually work well. First up, you have Klose Kombat, where one player initiates a grab, then performs a combo. Their opponent can see what buttons are being pushed for the combo and has to match them, otherwise they get their arm snapped backwards Seagal style.

A similar mechanic is used if an opponent falls off the edge of a stage. The camera shifts into a perspective behind the aggressor's head and the pounding continues as the ground hurtles up. The only difference here is the opportunity to finish off with a special move that buries the receiver in a pile of rubble on completion. Finally, there's a new variation on "Test Your Might," where one character smashes the other through wall after wall, as each player hammers the face buttons as fast as they can to decrease or increase their damage.

These new elements are certainly among the most successful and unique parts of Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, and they'll certainly leave newcomers happy. It's long time fans of the series who will look at the rubble and the "Brutalities" and wish that they were seeing fountains of gore and distended ribs. One of the biggest early appeals of Mortal Kombat was the forbidden factor, personified by that curtain that appeared around some of the earlier arcade cabinets to shield kiddies from the evisceration. In its quest for broader appeal, that element of MK is now dead and gone.