CRG Reviews: Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe


 * Name: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
 * Publisher: Midway
 * Developer: NetherRealm Studios
 * Platform: PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360
 * Released: November 16, 2009
 * Genre: Fighting
 * Players: 1-2
 * ESRB: M

Review
As you know, Mortal Kombat is one of my all-time favorite fighting game series of all time, and is my favorite franchice altogether. What I love best about MK is it's blood and gore. I admit it, I'm a sucker for violence, but that doesn't mean I'll grow up to be violent.

To be honest, I've played the 3-D MK games. They were cool, but not as good as the original 2-D games. My favorite 3-D MK that I've played is Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe.

To start, the main theme is pretty catchy and dark (for a T rated game). The rest of the music is cool too, but not nearly as good as the main theme. The voice acting is also good, though I wish that most of the DC characters were done by their animated series voice actors.

The graphics are very good, but there are noticeable flaws, like the faces of Sonya and Liu Kang. Also noticeable is wear and tear damage to characters' clothing and skin, but this not a flaw; rather a clever move by Midway.

Now to the main gameplay; the fighting isn't awful, but some controls do feel awkward, like holding L2 in order to move around without jumping or crouching. The new fight mechanics, Klose Kombat and Free Fall Kombat, are satisfying at first, but tend to grow old real fast.

There are a few single player modes to choose from, like an arcade ladder and a story mode. The former is like previous entrys' arcade mode. Upon defeating the final boss, you get an ending consisting of a lonely piece of (well done) artwork and a narrator reading subtitles. The endings aren't bad, but I would've preferred them to be animated.

The story mode is actually pretty awesome. Playing from two perspectives seems repetitive to others, but is a blast to me.

Online matchmaking is actually pretty decent, but you'll notice that the frame rate drops dramatically on your end, which is (not gonna lie) very annoying!!

Since Midway was on verge of bankruptcy, they must've cut a deal with DC to make enough money to staty alive, which made the made the game feel a bit rushed and have a T rating. Because of that, my favorite part about Mortal Kombat, the Fatalities, are toned down. I was disappointed at first, but they look just as dangerous. Even the DC heroes' Heroic Brutalities look like they hurt.

Speaking of, the character roster is a fan-approved, yet obvious roster. I recognized all the MK characters, but had to think about some on the DC side. For instance, I never knew who Deathstroke was, but then I remembered Slade's design from the Teen Titans cartoon. I did some diggng, then I found out that not only Slade and Deathstroke are the same person, Slade is Deathstroke's first name.

Key components

 * Graphics- 7.9
 * Gameplay- 8.5
 * Contols- 7.5
 * Sound- 8.4
 * Entertainment- 8.1
 * Replay Value- 7.5

Final Score and Final Words
And the results are...

7.9 (Decent)

While not a pure Mortal Kombat game with censored Fatalities (Curse you!), this is an MK game you might wanna check out.

-Joshua Garriga (a.k.a ComicReadingGamer)