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If it is not already a part of your lexicon, I would like to respectfully add the term “dumb fun”. “Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe” is pretty much the textbook definition of dumb fun. If games like Virtua Fighter or Street Fighter epitomize the pinnacle of fighting game technical brilliance, MK vs DCU is like the less attractive friend of the really hot girl who is not that smart or pretty, but is actually a ton of fun to hang out with.

On paper, this game is a fanboy’s dream. You can beat the crap out of Superman with Sub-Zero or use Batman to dispense some justice in Lui Kang’s face. Although the character balance does feel a bit off, every character has at least a couple of brutally effective moves. I preferred using the DCU characters, partially because I think Batman and the Joker are a million times cooler than Scorpion and Sonya and partially because they felt new and different. I have thrown so many spears with Scorpion and frozen so many fools with Sub-Zero over the years that it was nice to check out nifty new characters.

One of the hallmarks of an elite fighting game is the character balance. Even if you can get past the fact that Superman’s punches aren’t going through Baraka’s head, the game balance feels off. Characters like the Flash and Captain Marvel feel way overpowered. Yes, Captain Marvel should be able to beat the poop out of Scorpion, but when you are Scorpion and you’re getting your poop beat out of you, it feels unfair.

The animation in the MK games has always felt a little awkward, and the tradition continues. Characters look as though they have strange spinal disorders that make them stand in a weird way. This causes punches and kicks to look a little off. It is not terrible, but it does make everything a little less fluid.

The story seems like a bad DC comic with universes colliding and destroying each other. Picture any one of the Crisis events written by the writers of the movie “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation”. In its defense, though, it provides enough to let you know some people need to get punched in the face, but fighting game stories are pretty much always terrible and this one is better than most.

A lot of people have complained about the toned down fatalities. There was no way that Warner Bros. and DC Comics were going to let people rip out Superman’s Super Spine™ or have Batman punching holes in people. I thought the developers did an excellent job of capturing the spirit of the characters while still keeping the game at a Teen rating. They are still violent, but no longer all bloody and gory.

All in all, the game is not going to make you put away “Soul Calibur” or “Dead or Alive 3″, but it will give you a couple solid nights of multiplayer fun. It will probably make you laugh a few times and complain a couple times, but in the end, you’ll have a fun time. Then you’ll put it back in your closet (next to your lite brite and that paint set from when you were totally going to learn how to paint) and forget about it.

Tags: DC Comics, Dead or Alive, fighting games, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, multiplayer, Soul Calibur IV, Street Fighter

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Game Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.