Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe review

April 27, 3:18 PMWilmington Video Game ExaminerJonathan Burkhardt

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The Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe logo.

It almost seems like a joke, doesn't it? Perhaps a fan made retaliation to the much older Marvel vs. Street Fighter (later Marvel vs. Capcom) game? I think the reaction was the same all around when this game was announced. So much about it didn't make sense.

However, unlike the many skeptics out there, this game does at least manage to pull off the mashing of two drastically different franchises. (At least there were Marvel based fighting games made by Capcom before MvSF.) So how exactly does it pull this off?

By making DC more like MK, and making MK more family friendly... to an extent. For the first time since the ESRB's inception, a Mortal Kombat game has a "Teen" rating. This is quite the shocker when you consider that MK is more or less responsible for the inception of the ESRB.

The game is a decent fighter. If you're used to the original Mortal Kombat games, this game is easily a 3D throwback to Mortal Kombat 3, and its many incarnations. There are no longer weapons for each character (MK4) or multiple fighting styles that can be switched on the fly (MK: Deadly Alliance and onward.) The control simply goes back to the days of High and Low punches and kicks, and a Block button. Combos are "button link" style, and must be entered in a specific order to work. Special moves and fatalities still require a sequence of button presses to pull off.

A new gameplay feature that echoes the storyline is the "Rage" meter, where players can store energy when attacked or attacking. This energy can be used as series previous "Breaker" moves, or stored until the meter is full to enter "Rage" mode. Once enraged, the character becomes nearly unstoppable, and immune to any attacks that would ensnare them (Like Sub-Zero's ice), their attacks cannot be blocked, but the character will still take normal damage. It lasts for a few seconds.

Mortal Kombat characters still fight as brutal as ever, but the fatalities and blood effects have been toned down severely. Characters still lodge knives in each others chests, but there are no limbs removed, no body parts covering the screen after an explosion. They toned down quite a bit from the original MK days, and you can tell a lot was removed to accomplish the Teen rating. There were even two fatalities edited in the North American release of the game. (Both consisted of a character holding a pistol to their opponents head and firing. The shots now take place off-screen. Besides the standard blood effect, it wasn't any more gory than other fatalities.)

So how about the DC characters? Well, long time players of the MK franchise will find they are a lot like old MK fighters that weren't included in the game. The Flash has moves strikingly similar to Kabal. (Kano even makes this observation in Story Mode). Green Lantern has a few moves that take a page from MK's Ermac. Superman's "Up Up and Away" move works almost exactly like Sindel's "Float" Still, their moves do stick true to their characters, but you can't help but wonder if this had any influence on the roster.

Another interesting but expected aspect of MK vs. DC is the fact that the DC heroes do not have fatalities. They have moves that are entered like fatalities, and do the exact same thing, but instead are labeled "Heroic Brutalities" Since many DC comic heroes (especially the very well known ones) do not kill people, the Heroic Brutalities merely pummel the opponent into helplessness. The game even takes special care to let you know the opponent is still alive by having them twist about in agony.

For those of you who need simplistic fighting games to have a story explaining everything, or if you're just a comic book fan who cannot fathom how Liu Kang could stand toe-to-toe with Superman, MK vs. DC does a passable job giving you something to make sense of it all.

Basically, Shao Kahn was defeated in the MK dimension at the same time Darkseid was defeated in the DC dimension. An anomaly involving dimensional gates causes the souls of these two evil overlords to combine into one being known as "Dark Kahn", and in turn ends up causing the two dimensions to merge together. Battles take place on both Mortal Kombat's Earthrealm and Outworld, DC's Metropolis and Gotham City, as well as merging areas like Dark Kahn's throne room, or Shang Tsung's Island merging with Wonder Woman's home island of Themyscira.

The weak become stronger, the strong become weaker, and the balance of power shifts wildly among heroes and villains alike, placing everyone from both dimensions on equal ground.

It's hokey, but it's a fighting game, so it works well enough for a game that pits Sub-Zero against Batman.

Graphically, while not bad at all, the game almost seems as if it was built for the original Xbox, but was later "dressed up" for the 360. The overall look and actions of the characters are reminiscent of the earlier titles. This is also one of the few games where the animated cutscenes actually look less refined than the gameplay graphics.

Voice acting is decent to passable (with the exception of Shang Tsung, who sounds very forced.), and music is what you'd expect from an MK game.

Overall, the game is a solid rental. It's not nearly as deep in content as the latest Mortal Kombat games, but should entice fans who were hoping for a return to a more traditional form.