Combat Queer Online

Mortal Kombat vs. DC

So I had my first day off in the last fourteen yesterday.  Well, my first morning, at any rate.  We're working fairly crazy hours, so you take what you can get.  Being able to sleep in a little, not having to be anywhere until 1300(that's 1pm for you civs out there), it's a real joy.

I spent my free time calling folks back home, drinking soda, and playing the new Mortal Kombat game.

For those you who haven't played that game, it is pretty awesome.  It integrates the worlds of MK and of DC Comics, you know Batman, Superman and that crew.  The story of the game is a pretty standard super-crossover plot, but it's a whole lot of fun. It plays a lot like the earlier MK games, but you have to figure out how to do the DC characters signature moves.  It is amazingly cool to get the Flash to zoom around the screen or to get Batman to hit an opponent with an exploding bat-a-rang.

The thing about it is, I've normally been pretty disappointed with the quality of comic book based games.  Remember Marvel: Ultimate Alliance?  That is one of the single most boring dungeon runners I've ever seen. Even the cooperative nature of the game play can't redeem such an absolutely mediocre playing experience. Every character, no matter what powers or abilities that claim to have, every character functions exactly the same in the game. It comes across as being extremely lazy.

Mortal Kombat Vs DC, at least, recognizes that each character is special in someway, that each character is a unique and irreplaceable element. For such a simple format, it goes a long way.

My only real problem with the game is that it has relatively few characters. The characters it does have, it does an amazing amount with, but come on. Where's Reptil? Martian Manhunter? Smoke? Booster Gold? Both worlds seem to suffer a little without the B-Listers (Of course, the economy of characters does save us from an uncomfortable cameo by Dr. Manhattan, Roschach and the rest of the Watchmen gang).

Who Plays The Watchmen?

So, I just broke faith in a way I never thought I would. I feel, I just don't know what I've become. I don't know if I can shower any more, but fingers can't get, they, they can't get too much more pruney. 

*weeps*

And no Dear Reader, this doesn't mean that I worshiped Zeus or gave into temptation and let someone buy a couple of nachos on my Qudoba card, no, I mean I gave in and tried out some not cannon, Alan Moore un-approved Watchmen merchandise. And, lords help me, I loved it.

I'm talking about the Watchmen arcade game: http://www.minutemenarcade.com/uk/ 

Now, this game has everything I could want out of a game: It's free, it plays like an SNES Ninja Turtles game, you play as characters from Watchmen, the tougher bad guys are Irishmen, and it's free. It's just delightful.

Also, it has a lot of neat references to all of Watchmen, not just the graphic bits. It's really neat to see a video game based of the parts of Watchmen told in prose at the end of each issue. Those prose bits, the little counterfeit primary sources, are one of my favorite parts of the book. They give the world of Watchmen such a feeling of reality. One of the things that comics most often miss is that feel, so it's nice to see that they kept it in this little 8-bit game.

What I really like about this game, though, is that it doesn't try to add anything to the story. It doesn't try to add in extra pathos, Make The Point, or anything like that. It actually is just a fun little game which seems like something that could exist in the world of the comic. It's another counterfeit primary source. It feels like it might even be a sly reference to the bit in the comic about Veidt making toys based on himself and other masked adventurers.

Now, I haven't played all the way through the game yet, and I'm really hoping for a "Tales of the Black Freighter" level. 

EDIT: It turns out there's only one level, and that makes me a saaaad panda.