Mortal Kombat 8 - Don’t Cross the Streams
When I think of crossover games, I think of Marvel vs Capcom. This game was pretty awesome. The cartoon-ness of the characters and the insanity of special moves worked really well together. When Capcom and SNK did games, damn they were sweet. Again, the King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, Darkstalkers and Streetfighter worlds blended perfectly. In these were a great balance of good guys and bad guys.
When I heard of the next MK game coming out I was a little less than excited. The last time it was revealed that they would add new styles of fighting, they took out fatalities and replaced it with the kreate a fatality system. With Mortal Kombat 8, I don’t know what to think. Oh actually, pure disgust pretty much sums it up. Crossing over franchises can be a great thing if done well. Crossing over the harpoon wielding, flaming skull-having, vengence machine from hell, Scorpion with say The Dark Knight, is NOT a good crossover. DC is not a good match for MK. I will admit I have never read a lot of comics and always preferred cartoons, after all if a picture tells 1000 words, then 25 frames per second must tell 25000 words. In the cartoons and movies, Batman does kick ass, but relies on cars, building edges and bat-branded tools to win. Scorpion relies on pure violence. The fact that DC actually convinced Midway to take out the fatalities so no one can dismember or bloody up Batman or…. ech, “Aquaman”, just tells me that their characters weren’t made to deal with the MK brand of aggression. So, they are essentially making a 3d fighter, with random characters, that isn’t Mortal Kombat. *slow clap*
Midway staff are mentioning a ‘whole new fighting system’. Looking back, hey have changed it every game since MK2, and even then, there were subtle changes for example, crouching punches, air throws and adding more fatalities. MK3 played the same, added a run button and a pile of other finishing moves. MK4 was essentially a 2D fighter in a 3D world, kinda like that Streetfighter game. MK5 was the big change up adding styles, weapons and really bringing 3D into it. 6 and Armageddon, well they arent too far apart. The funny thing is, Armageddon’s main appeal was to be able to play 60+ characters and the Fatality system(which flopped badly). Instead of learning from their mistakes Midway are throwing in a bunch of other “famous” characters and taking out the only thing that set it apart from other games of its time.
Midway, harden the fuck up.

June 23rd, 2008 at 9:44 am
I could not agree with you more! I wrote pretty much the same thing on my blog. ( http://www.digitalcontradiction.net/2008/04/desecration-of-franchise.html )