Has the disappointment of MK vs DC kicked in yet?

Oh what a bore!

This thread reminds me of the problems of the internet...

Everyone's got opinions and no ones got any fun. T_T

Quaser said:

The part I disagree on is whether someone can make a educated guess on how it plays based on previous experience playing of MK , numerous views of videos and comprehensive reviews on the game. There reviews especially gave some hints that clarified my initial suspicions. I also may have not made clear that my main gripe is that it does not “appear” that different from MK:A which I have played recently. These are some of the things that I know about the fighting experience without having played the game:

More open combo system allowing for more unique combos.
No more different stances (weapon or fighting styles)
Standard grapple replaced by Klose Kombat that allows increased damage and opportunity for a reversal.
Addition of freefall kombat (with added cinematic experience) for increased damage and opportunity for reversal.
Test your might (running through walls) for added damage.
More individual special moves for each character.
Rage meter allow for a period of increased damage and invulnerability to opponents attacks.
Looking at videos, MK appears to have a quicker pace to the combat.

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Reading reviews is all well and good, but it is no substitute for some hands on experience. You could read reviews all day that say "That sucks" or "This rocks", but you'll never know for sure if you like the game or not if you don't play it yourself. What your going on here is second hand information, other peoples views on the game.

Have you ever really enjoyed a movie, and after the credits roll up you say to yourself "Wow, that was great, although I read in a magazine that it was supposed to suck."? Well, that goes for games too. At least if you play it and still dislike it, then you'll know it sucks, but you've got to bring bring it out for a test drive yourself to know.

Quaser said:

TRZA ,

First off, I will say that you are completely right that I can't say that I have a good feel of how the game plays. The part I disagree on is whether someone can make a educated guess on how it plays based on previous experience playing of MK , numerous views of videos and comprehensive reviews on the game. There reviews especially gave some hints that clarified my initial suspicions. I also may have not made clear that my main gripe is that it does not “appear” that different from MK:A which I have played recently. These are some of the things that I know about the fighting experience without having played the game:

More open combo system allowing for more unique combos.
No more different stances (weapon or fighting styles)
Standard grapple replaced by Klose Kombat that allows increased damage and opportunity for a reversal.
Addition of freefall kombat (with added cinematic experience) for increased damage and opportunity for reversal.
Test your might (running through walls) for added damage.
More individual special moves for each character.
Rage meter allow for a period of increased damage and invulnerability to opponents attacks.
Looking at videos, MK appears to have a quicker pace to the combat.

I am not sure if I have missed anything. I have read that the mini games get old quickly after seeing them for the umpteen time, I guess that is a matter of opinion. I think that we just had different interpretations of what constitutes the new fighting mechanic that Ed Boon had put forward initially and thats okay.

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From the review:

"Where Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe fails miserably, in this reviewer's opinion, is the total lack of depth and replay ability the game offers. You are offered a Story Mode, an Arcade Mode where you can play single or multiplayer, or the Online Mode. That's it. Yes there is a practice and Kombo Mode option, but they are just habitual control modes that are pointless. No real unlockables, no crypt, no cool extra modes, no online tourneys, not even a way to replay movies you've viewed throughout the game. I know the developers want to call this game 'a rebranding of the franchise', but at least give gamers something to keep coming back for."

To me, none of this is really pertinent to how much I enjoy the game. Sure, unlockables are nice, but in my opinion, it's just a cheap and lazy way of extending the value of a product. I really couldn't care less about story boards or "Motor Kombat." Additional costumes and characters would've been nice, but I have full confidence that we'll see those soon enough.

When you compare MK to most fighters on the market, it has a comparable amount of content. Hell, the PS3 port of VF5 didn't even support online play, and fighting games in general tend to be pretty bare-bones in regards to features.

Many will immediately point out that games like VF or SF don't need gimmicks because of how solid the fighting engines are. To them I reply, yes, MK might never be a technical tournament fighter. But the fighting, at least in this latest iteration, is undeniably fun. You really can't enjoy a story mode but so many times, but I can enjoy the pure fighting element of the game theoretically forever.

In the end, since MK is a fighting game, that's all that really matters.

And again to that end, I urge you to try the game before you criticize the fighting mechanics.

konasumatra@gmail.com, do you still think I have not ruffled feathers ? Deathrider, you make a lot of sense about how much of a role a review should make on any decision. I still believe that they can have an influence on ones final decision. It appears that the length of my previous posts have deterred people from reading them fully or at all. The term “test drive” is appropriately used in this discussion. I will say again, I live in a part of Africa where I am not able to rent the game first. So other that spending £29.99 (ordered from the UK) on it how else can I test drive it. I think if I had played the game I may not have posted here at all. The main reason I have posted is to get MK users views on what I don't like about the game, which is what I am getting.

TRZA, I think you pulled out the wrong part of the review if we are discussing the fighting aspect of the game. I agree with the statement “none of this is really pertinent to how much I enjoy the game”. They are all superficial but nice extras, in my opinion. I have discussed storyline aspect with konasumatra@gmail.com , we both agreed that it's a fighting game (which don't generally lend themselves to solid storylines) and if I wanted a decent storyline I would play a adventure or rpg game. Owning MKA, MK and MK:A on the Xbox, I know what I will get with regards storyline and I would not expect anything more. TRZA, I am willing to retract any statement that you feel is criticism of the games fighting mechanics because I need to have played the game to have a view on it, in your eyes.

The way this debate is going we could be going round in circles forever. So I will try and bring some sort of closure from my end. I feel that there is not enough substance to the whole experience for me to part with my money and that's my opinion. I will say this if I have not said it already, I am not here to bash anyone who likes the game or who has a different view from mine. Different things appeal to different people. The funny thing is that although it may seem like the only purpose of my posts were to criticize MK vs DCU. I was actually looking to be convinced that I was missing out by not buying this game. But I am still not convinced. It may just be that I started to become indifferent to the MK series with the help of MK vs DCU's release.

Quaser:
I can't speak for the other members of TRMK's forums, but I can tell you my feathers remain unruffled.

I do agree with the point made that reviews are all well, good, and fine but they still are only someone else's opinion. My library of games has more than its fair share of games that received atrocious reviews, yet I still bought and, more often than not, really enjoyed them. That definitely doesn't mean that every game I've bought fell into that category - I also own games that, upon playing, I found myself thinking, "That review was dead-on." It depends on the game, the person playing the game, the gaming history of the person playing the game, etc.

All that said, if you don't want to invest in MK V. DC, you have every right to. You don't have to give anyone your reasons - if you're not going to buy it and no one's opinion is going to sway you otherwise, then so be it.

On a digressing note, I do have to agree that most of the content unlocked in The Krypt (MKDA, MKD, MKA) left me underwhelmed. I found the character and kombat zone concept art to be worth a glance or two, but I hated having to unlock characters; most specifically, I hated having to unlock characters for use in multiplayer. As an artificial way to extend the single player experience, fine - I don't mind *too much* having to unlock the roster. It gives me a reason to keep playing. But when I invite people over for some one-on-one fighting, I despised being punished for not playing single player enough. Ditto for alternate costumes - maybe if Midway had included two or three actual alternate costumes (i.e. not just palette swaps), then I'd feel differently. But giving me palette swaps for default and making me work for an alternate skin of Cyrax where the only difference is his *helmet* is off? That's cheap.

Alright, I'm rambling. Whatever.

to me it look good but then my cousin told me that the fatalities were water'd down and it didnt seem like a true MK game.

Quaser said:

TRZA, I think you pulled out the wrong part of the review if we are discussing the fighting aspect of the game. I agree with the statement “none of this is really pertinent to how much I enjoy the game”. They are all superficial but nice extras, in my opinion. I have discussed storyline aspect with konasumatra@gmail.com , we both agreed that it's a fighting game (which don't generally lend themselves to solid storylines) and if I wanted a decent storyline I would play a adventure or rpg game. Owning MKA, MK and MK:A on the Xbox, I know what I will get with regards storyline and I would not expect anything more. TRZA, I am willing to retract any statement that you feel is criticism of the games fighting mechanics because I need to have played the game to have a view on it, in your eyes.

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The point of that part of the review was to illustrate how most of these reviewers have missed the point of reviewing a fighting game: judging the worth of the fighting engine. The author deems it the worst failure of the game that there are no additional features. If that is the game's worst failing, then it really hasn't failed at all.

You shouldn't retract anything. Just give the game a chance.

My nephew rented it and brought it over for an hour or so. I thought it was an okay game, i want to play it more. But the fighting felt like a button mashers dream come true. More often than not my nephew beat me, and he was just pressing anything. While i was trying to pull actual moves and combos out. It just seems like once you get a flurry of moves going, its hard to counter, they just keep coming. I did beat him a number of times, but i felt like it was no where near some of the other fighting games out there. I did get a chance to mess with the free fall fighting and close kombat, those were alright. Did a few fatalities, at first i was having problems doing them. Then i started to use my SFIV fightpad and moves + fatalities were way easier to do consistantly. I also beat the tower once. I was using batman but couldnt beat the final boss with him so i used sub zero and kept freezing him and i won on the first try. LOL. Ill probably buy it eventually once its cheap, like 20-30 bucks.

I personally don't care if it's a "true" MK game as you pingases call them, so long as they have SOME form of fatalities, keep good characters, and keep the fighting mechanics great, then I couldn't care less about the rest and I will still buy it. Also, gore doesn't really entice me all that much, granted it made MK what it is today, but now EVERY game out there has gore in it and sometimes I look at other people's posts and feel like there's something wrong with their minds. I'm not saying I'm against gore, but I think it's rediculous that people were against MK vs DCU because of the lack of gore.

Aside from the story mode, which I adored in its every facet, I thought MKvDC was a huge disappointment. Though not as much as MKA. It felt a lot like MK2, which is good. But MKII is a classic, I forgive its many flaws because its so dear to me. But I played MK2 when I was in grade school and I've matured as a gamer. MKvDC has OK fighting. But the fighting is nowhere NEAR good enough to excuse the COMPLETE lack of stuff to do. Once you beat story mode there's NOTHING.

Bottom line, I didn't like the fighting enough to want to play it more after I beat it once.

I keep saying great games have to have the total package, graphics, gameplay, and story/content (not all games have story, but substitute extras). MKvDC had great graphics. It's gameplay continued in MK tradition to be "meh". And while its story was very entertaining, it was over before it started. 6 hours. How long did it take me to get 100% of everything in SCIV? 82 hours playing casually. How long did it take me to do the same for MKD? Well I don't remember, but it was about 2 weeks real time so it must have been pretty damn long.