Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
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Genuine question for Midway. Whats the point of this crossover if most of the DC characters are heros who dont kill just for you to tone down the blood and gore to -11? | ||||||||||||||||||
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Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is a fighting game developed and published by Midway Games that came out for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on November 16, 2008.
It is a spin-off and unofficially the 8th installment of the Mortal Kombat franchise.
This was the last game to be made by Midway due to going defunct after being acquired by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, along with all the IPs, including Mortal Kombat, being sold to the publisher.
Bad Qualities
- Due to the use of DC characters, which were mostly promoted towards younger viewers at the time, the blood and gore was severely toned down, despite being the main aspect of the Mortal Kombat universe, and because of this, the game's ESRB rating system was reduced to T instead of M like every other game in the franchise.
- And on top of that, the fatalities were dumbed down to the point where they basically resemble special moves.
- Since most of the DC heroes like Batman and Superman don't kill, they instead have "Heroic Brutalities", which are interestingly creative, but poorly executed here because the opponent lives after being used on them, making them the least violent non-parody version of a Fatality in Mortal Kombat history.
- Some of the Heroic Brutalities are actually violent enough to kill an opponent, like Green Lantern's first and second ones.
- The Joker and Deathstroke's finishing moves where censored in the North American release to comply with the T-rating, while it remained uncut everywhere else.
- No unlockable content except for Shao Kahn and Darkseid as playable characters.
- Relatively small roster that only consists of the "super popular" characters from each side rather than any fan-favorite ones like Kenshi from the Mortal Kombat side or Harley Quinn from the DC side.
- The combat is rather slow and janky.
- The story mode is mostly unimpressive and the characters don't even have any story arcs.
- This game nearly killed the entire franchise since it was on a decline a decade after the first 4 entries, even though the later entries like “Deadly Alliance”, “Deception”, “Shaolin Monks” and “Armageddon” received good reviews.
- Awkward facial expressions at times, especially Wonder Woman's.
- Shao Kahn and Darkseid don't have any Fatalities. This is likely due to the fact they are both sub-bosses.
- The single-player content is bare-bones, besides Ladder, Story, Versus, and Online.
- Quan Chi has his design from Deadly Alliance used in the game for no reason, yet the other MK characters have new designs, and worse yet, this Quan Chi model is reused for MK9.
Good Qualities
- This game contributed to the DC Universe by spawning Injustice, a fighting game franchise by NetherRealm (successors of Midway Games). Additionally, Scorpion is the guest character of the first game, Raiden and Sub-Zero are in the second game, and The Joker is the second guest character in Mortal Kombat 11.
- As stated above, the concept of non-lethal finishing moves is creative and unique.
- They at least tried to make the Fatalities as gruesome as possible, but couldn't because of the game's T-rating.
- Even though it's slow, the gameplay is still enjoyable.
- The voice acting is pretty well-done. Plus, this is the debut role of Patrick Seitz as Scorpion, and Richard Epcar as Raiden and The Joker.
- The fighting sequence between Scorpion and Batman during the main menu is awesome.
- The graphics still hold up fairly well to this day.
- The stages are nice to look at and represent both the Mortal Kombat and DC universes.
- This game introduced some new fighting mechanics, one of them being "Free-Fall Kombat", where characters continue fighting each other while falling from a stage and onto the next. This idea was later reused in Injustice.
- The music is chilling and awesome, just like the rest of the Mortal Kombat games.
- Despite how less gruesome the game is compared to the previous game, it can still be enjoyable for some people.
Reception and Legacy
When it was released, it garnered a mixed-to-positive response from critics, but it was a major dissapointment for longtime fans of Mortal Kombat, due to the dumbed down Fatalities, the toned down violence, almost lack of unlockable content and many more. Despite the good sales it generated, it wasn't enough to save Midway as a whole, so as result, they filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. Fortunately, WB Games aquired almost all the IPs from Midway, Mortal Kombat included, leading to the foundation of NetherRealm Studios. Two years after Midway's death, NetherRealm hit the reset button with a 2011 soft-reboot, which was not only a commercial and critical success, but also reignited controversy surrounding the new Fatalities, thus the franchise was finally back to the spotlight once more.
Despite the uninteresting and unfocused story, the mode not only influenced future MK games, but the entire fighting game genre as a whole, as it came out the same year as the arcade version of Street Fighter IV.