Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection Review

This is Kollection value for money?

Mortal Kombat’s debut on Xbox 360 and PS3 is a fantastic fighting game which gave the franchise a well needed reboot and overall one of my favourite games of the year. Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection is a package which composes of the old school Mortal Kombat games, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. For those curious for a taste of these games, prepare to embark on a difficult, frustrating experience as the original MK games are some of the most difficult fighting games available. If you thought Gill & Seth from Street Fighter and several SNK bosses frustrated you in the past, Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection’s difficulty will frustrate and anger many like myself and you’ll experience this after you’ve started climbing the Battle Plan ladder.

With Mortal Kombat and MK2, most of your fighters have around 2-5 special attacks at your arsenal dependent on Kombatant but the AI is cheap. Your opponents will predict what moves your going to execute, reward you by punishing your Kombatant with cheap maneuvers & ridiculous attacks to the point where you’ll projectile profanities and explode in anger. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 isn’t too bad, I found it easier than the two previous titles but Shao Kahn will be waiting to piss you off and taunt you every time he hands your ass on a plate.

I hate this character

Reviewing the overall package, it is pretty much barebones content in comparison to the recently released Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition. You are getting three arcade perfect games straight from the cabinet but unfortunately lacks a practice mode which other fighters in its market have. Online Modes are available for all three games but through my initial sessions, lag occurred which hinders playing the game properly against fresh competition but depending on the ability of your opponent, this can bring a less daunting experience than playing the CPU gifting you with a fair chance at murdering your opponents or you can grab a friend and play locally. Your Leaderboards are basic with  just Kombat Points to accumulate from victories. You also have variety of graphic filters allowing to intimidate playing Mortal Kombat on an Arcade Cabinet by curving the picture and with scanlines giving MK a better look on newer displays.

Better value and less frustrating than MKAK

Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection is not an easy game either if your hunting for trophies/achievements but overall, it is difficult to recommend purchasing MKAK with the fantastic 2011 version available for £19.99 for Xbox 360 and PS3. If your new to Mortal Kombat, pick up the recent version but if you have friends who wish to revive the infamous classic Kombat games for the occasional night in, you have 3 arcade perfect games for fatality nostalgia.

Poor Poor 3DS

After the news that the troubled handheld is getting a new analog in the form of an ugly accessory and according to Kotaku, it also brings new L2, R2 buttons for the device. This wouldn’t be such a predicament if this was a similar situation with the original PlayStation which eventually got two analogs, but the 3DS has been out for a while now and going to such measures is just going to piss early adopters off.

The 3DS Expansion Slide Pad covers the cartridge slot rendering the device to a similar design to Nokia’s N-Gage which will be irritating to remove the slide pad every time you wish to change games. This apparently also covers the wireless switch allowing your handheld to die quicker providing you don’t turn off the console’s selling point via the 3D Slider. Thankfully, if you decide to purchase this ugly accessory, it doesn’t cover the headphone port for those considerate on public transport or the battery port because you can’t deny the 3DS of its much-needed juice.

This announcement has put me off the 3DS even more and got me leaning towards a Vita instead. The price drop was nice, better in some retailers making it cheaper than the DSi XL. The 3DS was released way too early with little content, software which at the time had very little interest to me and with smartphones providing essential necessities via their hardware specs and with their more established online infrastructure such as App Store, Android Market and Windows Marketplace, it becomes difficult to justify parting with the money for the 3DS . Super Street Fighter IV 3D providing a much better Street Fighter experience than the iOS version was tempting but months after the 3DS launch, the console counterparts got the Arcade Edition DLC which thankfully saved me £200.

I am hoping from this announcement that eventually Nintendo announce a 3DS revision for the platform because right now, I am not sold on how the 3DS has turned out. It now looks ridiculous with the Expansion Slide Pad and its online infrastructure is lagging behind the competition.

 

3DS’ ugly solution to 2nd Analog

The vast majority of PSP owners have demanded one essential revision to the PSP hardware and that request was a second analog stick which has now been embedded in the design of it’s upcoming successor, the PS Vita. Gamers have been used to having a second analog controller for years provided mainly by the Dual Shock series and Xbox controllers. Sadly, the 3DS hasn’t done well as expected and also lacks this gameplay mechanic…until now.

Leaked in the latest Famitsu magazine, the Nintendo 3DS is to get a new circle pad in the form of this ugly contraption in solution to the lack of the 2nd analog. This new accessory supposedly isn’t a grip but connects to the device like a cradle.

It hasn’t been confirmed if this is an official accessory for the device or a third party device for Monster Hunter 3G as Capcom have made accessories in the past to combat the vanilla PSP’s D-Pad in order to making the experience of retro and fighting games a lot easier. If this will benefit the 3DS in the slightest is a big question. The 3DS now looks stupid and I certainly wouldn’t wish to carry that around. However, could this addition lead to a new revised hardware model for the platform? Regardless, the second analog stick should have been implemented in the original hardware prior to it’s announcement last year.

Source: Siliconera

Hands On: Sonic Generations

Sonic is officially 20 years old, Sonic has come a long way since 1991. Whilst the first ten years of Sonic games have been great, sadly the latter has composed of mainly forgettable titles which have devalued the brand but Sonic’s recent outings in Colours and 4 Episode 1 have brought a much needed positive reception to the Sonic brand. To celebrate Sonic’s 20th Anniversary, Sonic Generations is coming to consoles in November and incorporates two different game play styles of Sonic. Modern Sonic which utilizes game play of the 3D games such as Sonic Colours, Unleashed and Adventure and Classic Sonic which brings back the 2D nostalgic fast speed platform game play of the Mega Drive games. The demo released last week focuses on classic Sonic in a re imagined version of Green Hill Zone.

Green Hill Zone looks vivid, it’s colourful, blessed with an arrange of the original music and beautiful surroundings which pay a great homage to the original Green Hill Zone. As for Classic Sonic himself, his return brings back his renowned attitude crossing his arms when your not moving as well as keeping faithful to his appearance with his pot belly and lighter shade of blue. This also leaves out the Homing Attack rubbish from the recent games and giving him just the Jump and Spin Dash in his arsenal. Sadly, I can’t say the same about the controls.

Just like Sonic 4, Classic Sonic in Generations still doesn’t quite have that same feel as the Mega Drive games. Sonic Generation’s runs at 30fps which right there lacks the smooth feel. The controls feel stiff which doesn’t replicate the physics and controls of the Classic Sonic games. There is also no indication wherever Special Stages will be accessible within the levels which if not will be very disappointing and will definitely feel like a crap linear experience as I felt with the demo. Thankfully, there is platform game mechanics with Classic Sonic level but with the vast majority of the demo, I found myself running from A to B and managing to complete the level in 1 minute and 21 seconds.

The demo doesn’t sell the game to me despite being able to play classic Sonic levels in HD. The demo only gives you the Classic Sonic experience which is one part of the game. This demo was released to coincide with Sonic’s 20th but other than being less than 2 minutes long, there isn’t much to comment on other than hoping that isn’t all that Generations has to offer with regards to Classic Sonic. There isn’t much details available on Generations but I hope Sonic Team has much more up their sleeves for this game than the demo does come it’s November release.

Special Stages need to come back desperately. I am sick of having to find Super Sonic make a late appearance in previous games in order to save the day as a result of Dr.Eggman’s screw ups. Acquiring Super Sonic during a play through of Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 & Knuckles are sorely missed and earning all the Chaos Emerald would reward you with extra content such as Doomsday Zone in Sonic and Knuckles. I find this a lot better than Super Sonic at the end of the game because your rewarded with extra content relating to the game’s story for meeting criteria rather than in recent games being rewarded with story progression.

If the controls are fixed and the final game offers a competent volume of content, this could be a game both old and new Sonic fans can enjoy. Sonic Generations will be released this November on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Nintendo 3DS.

Duke Nukem Forever – early impressions

So Duke Nukem has finally returned after a 13 year absence from gaming in the long awaited Duke Nukem Forever. After finally releasing in the shops, it was time to kick ass but as I got into the game, I had very little positive things to say about the game but after playing Duke Nukem Forever, there was a sense of nostalgia but all for the wrong reasons.

Problems with the game include clunky controls which give the impression that I am playing an FPS from over a decade ago and with this generation’s gaming library known for the amount of critically acclaimed shooters released, Duke Nukem Forever’s controls doesn’t do Duke or the player any favours. Graphics are not impressive either, the visuals compared to today’s games are weak, the game looks upscaled to HD for your HDTV’s sake but it is apparent with the animation, level design and overall presentation of Duke Nukem Forever shows it’s age. For a game that is retailing for £39.99, I feel so far that it hasn’t been worth the expenditure.

The main thing that royally angers me about Duke Nukem Forever is the Ego health bar and the weapon system. Duke Nukem 3D was old school cool! You had tons of awesome weapons at your disposal allowing you to carry them all at once and you can change your weapon with a press of a key. If you lost health, you’d hunt for health packs to ensure you weren’t going to be killed. Forever sadly goes into Halo territory [lame] which limits Duke to carrying two weapons at once, also Duke has regenerative health which leaves Duke in some messed up space time continuum bollocks gracing the game with poor controls and Halo game play mechanics.

Just to clarify, I liked shooters when you had no regenerating health, this meant you had no room to piss around with wasting ammo and allowed you to use your head before making unwise decisions which would inevitably lead you to your death. If you wanted health back, you had to find health packs but in recent times, everyone in first person shooter land clearly applied for the Weapon X program in Canada and acquired regenerative health just like everybody’s favourite mutant, Wolverine.

One final criticism for Duke’s return is the loading times. They are FOREVER or they seem like it to me. Why the loading times are this long are beyond my knowledge! The loading times should be shorter on PS3 considering you sacrifice Hard Drive space in order to play this game. 30 to 45 seconds of waiting times after completing part of a level or unfortunately dying can be especially frustrating or if you wish to be blunt, takes the piss. The last game I recall that had painful loading screens was the 2006 release of Sonic the Hedgehog, this game seriously took loading times to a new level and like Forever it technically wasn’t good.

I hope the game’s comedy value does a good job of preventing me from turning it off. Gearbox when they bought the rights to Duke Nukem should have scrapped the game and started fresh, they could have joked about the game being delayed and pissed off more people (the recent delay video was funny) and brought back Duke Nukem in style. On the plus side, I got a free Keyring.

PS Vita to be region free

Sony’s upcoming handheld the PlayStation Vita is rumored to be region free according to Michael Denny, Vice President of Sony Worldwide Studios speaking at E3 2011 which if that is the case, it will have a 1up over the Nintendo 3DS which is region locked. It is one of the many reasons I can’t justify parting with my money for a Nintendo 3DS.

If you can use multiple PSN accounts on Vita, then that would kick unaccountable amounts of ass and would justify buying one.

Source

Dear Basement Jaxx, please release this remix