The Mortal Kombat series has had its share of ups and downs. This time, Midway plans on turning some heads with its latest title, Mortal Kombat Vs. DC. While it certainly has garnered plenty of media attention the question on our minds is this, “Can Midway pull it off?”
They started off with a huge bang when they released Mortal Kombat, and its sequel, MK II. The shock value of ripping a head off with a spine grabbed the attention of many parent groups, and it,along with a few other games like Night Trap, Doom, and Splatterhouse, are heavily responsible for the creation of the ESRB rating system we know today. The series success continued with part 3 and Ultimate Kombat, but afterwards, it spiraled downward. A large part of that may be attributed to the downfall of arcades and shift from quick twitch play to more immersive games. With consoles becoming more powerful and involved, arcades became more irrelevant, which were where the Mortal Kombat series had its stronghold.
It also doesn’t help that there were some serious blunders with games like MK Mythologies, and MK Special Forces. MK 4 was also a disappointment for many fans.
Fortunately, Midway patched things up when they released Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. The new, revamped fighting system was solid, and the game turned out very well. The next two iterations were solid, too…but not entirely standout. That is where the series fault lies. It is good, but not great. They also fall prey to bugs and cheesy animations. They always had a strange mix of serious and just plain goofiness in their games that sometimes makes you wonder what they where thinking.
Hopefully, Midway can solve some issues still prevalent in their series (cheesiness, bad animation, focus on gameplay) and pull through. They already said they are scrapping the insane amount of modes that plagued the last three games, in favor of focusing on gameplay. That is a good sign. Time will tell if they put out a hit, or another dud. Here’s hoping for the best.
hey hans this hip. yeah, i think MK vs. DC is certainly an interesting idea, but i dont know about its execution. Kingdom Hearts is prob the only IP out there that combines two character worlds, except those are as big or bigger than MK vs DC. Plus, Square Enix makes decent RPGs. As you mentioned, Midway has potential to screw this up.
True, Square/Enix did a wonderful job with Kingdom Hearts, as did Capcom with Marvel Vs Capcom/Street Fighter series. The MK Vs DC still seems really iffy to me. The gameplay footage shown looks fun, but I will have a wait and see approach to this title. Unfortunately, Midway has a history of hokey and extremely buggy games. Some of the things I dislike about them is coming through on the gameplay videos, which isn’t a good sign.