Without a doubt, Mortal Kombat’s heyday was the mid ‘90s, a time when it and Street Fighter ruled not just arcades, but home consoles as well. It enjoyed a brief resurgence in the mid 2000s with sequels like Deadly Alliance and Deception, but with each new game came more goofy finishing moves, uninspired character designs and a needlessly complex plot. These were followed by MK vs DC Universe, which neutered the violence and fatalities that made the series a success in the first place.
With so many missteps since the last major hit, what could the franchise do to regain its former glory? Ignore all the mediocre stuff and take things back to the original three games that started it all.
When you consider Scorpion’s penchant for peeling the skin off his victims’ faces and Superman’s long history of do-gooding, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe isn’t such an obvious pairing – less a deadly alliance than it is a marriage of unlikely convenience – but the contrived set-up does create some undeniably daft, grin-making matchups. Jax vs Superman, anyone?
Accessible sports games have become the staple launch app for motion-sensing hardware. Nintendo and Sony introduced their arm-waving tech with Wii Sports and Sports Champions, respectively, and now Kinect has hopped onto the virtual ball-tossing bandwagon with Kinect Sports and MotionSports. While we had mixed feelings about the former’s sometimes wonky controls and me-too minigames, it shines like a true Hall-of-Famer next to the latter’s frustration-over-fun gameplay...
Considering how many times it’s changed hands, we’re quite surprised there’s another MotoGP game at all. First it was with Namco, then THQ, and now, finally, Capcom has secured it – and asked Milestone to take on dev duties for all formats.
Officially licensed racers are great for the chance to race around real circuits and compete using proper vehicles against the best the motorsport has to offer. MotoGP 09/10 is different, though, because it allows you to create your own rider, name your own team and see how you fare against the professionals.
It’s been a fairly long time coming, but Mr. Driller has finally arrived at the next generation, burrowing his way through your Ethernet cable and finally landing on your Xbox 360 hard drive. Mr. Driller is one of the most popular puzzle games you’ve probably never played. And while it looks rather complicated at first, its complexity really resides just a bit above something like Tetris. All you really need are quick reflexes and a good understanding of how different geometrical shapes will interact with each other when one of them is removed.
Back in 2009, Splosion Man was a surprisingly fresh downloadable that harkened back to a simpler time of 2D platforming. It mixed retro style with an irreverent, meat-based sense of humor to make it one of the year's best on XBLA. Now the sequel, the cleverly titled Ms Splosion Man, is here, and while it improves and expands on the original in many ways, at times it grows a little too big and leaves behind some of the simple joy of the first game...
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