MKAK review: a fan of MK... just not a fan of the work done in MKAK
Backstory: I haven't played them since the arcades or when I had a dreamcast as a kid and found some emulators. I did own MK3 on PC and despite the controller weirdness it was a decent port for its time. I did get UMK3 on XBLA a couple years ago and it was a pretty serviceable port. The sound works, the controls can be remapped and the online play was fairly stable. I prefer playing people local so I honestly only touch it every 4 or 5 months mainly for nostalgia. Seeing all 3 together on the mainstream weblogs (joystiq) I was SUPER excited to play these and the price seemed too good to be true.
This changed after I read about the PS3 version over the last couple days on this forum. I decided to download the trial about 12 hours ago and spent 30min messing with it. I found a few issues.
-the sound is flaky (i don't know about faithful because i'm not that detailed, but it plays intermittent on some sound effects)
-the controls are flaky (this is playing locally based on how I remember the game to play. This could be partially due to the crappy xbox360 dpad but I compared it to the standalone UMK3. The weird thing is I was able to pull off a few more fatalities on MKAK trial, but the jumping and kicks and basic movement are much less responsive during the battle)
-pause lags control
+the new filters are kinda cool
-no way to adjust the brightness/contrast
-no way to stretch/resize the display (this isn't bad because the old way never maintained aspect ration in standalone UMK3)
Skip ahead 4 or 5 hours... I was playing the demo and I was just doing a few fatalities and playing around, when my roommate came home. My roommate who is not in school (and broke like me) threw 10 bucks at me and said he'd rather watch me try and beat MK1 than just play the first round over and over. I did buy it, and I can now confirm the goro music start-stop issues in addition to my previous issues.
I have yet to touch the online because:
1. it isn't usually my thing
2. the offline gave me an overall indication of what to expect
In summary it is probably worth $5 when it comes out on some XBLA sale in 6 months, just because there is no MK1 or MK2 available on XBLA and I don't have any prior systems in my house. If this is you (a fan, but without MAME or older systems with ports or arcade cabinets) this is definitely worth $5.
The funny thing is... if they were arcade perfect ports, I think many of us on here would pay $10 apiece for them. This money grab vs quality just seems so idiotic. I seriously mean it ($10 for MK1, $10 for MK2 and I already paid $10 for UMK3)... hey I would have even paid $15 for a MK3/UMK3 type of game with settings to play either or and all the options and fun that is in the recent SFIII port with dip settings and such. If the developers are reading this... I hope they realize they just left $25 ($35 for quality vs $10 for this) on the table because they chose a different "plan of attack" for the market. ... and to top it off... we as the community would singing their praises instead of dealing with the buyers remorse.
I'm not personally out any money, but the developers and producers have failed to do 1/2 of the fighting scene of the 1990's justice. As for that other 1/2 I paid $15 for SSFIITHDRemix whenever that came out, and I'm exceedingly happy I purchased it and still play it every few weeks. Further I bought MvC2 and SFII'HF when they came out and, while I don't play them that much, I don't feel ripped off or depressed when I see them in my XBLA listing. I know that won't be the way I feel about MKAK however.
I'll be buying SFIII tomorrow night to have a quality port to enjoy my labor day weekend and so I ensure that quality development is supported. Even if you aren't a SF fan, I suggest you at least do yourself a favor and check the trial out.
I doubt we'll get a patch, because there are just too many issues. If we ever get organized on who to contact, let me know. I'm fine with writing an intelligent well thought out response to the developer if it means getting a proper port.
