MK meets DC meets GH meets DS.

In case you can't see who's on that picture, it's Sub-Zero and Batman. You read it, Mortal Kombat is going to do the old mixaroo with the DC universe in the upcoming game Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. My original thoughts about this was skepticism, skepticism, skepticism. Since I've kind of been longing for some news about the new Mortal Kombat game ever since I heard it was going to be using the Unreal 3 engine. Well I got what I wanted I guess, but this was not what I expected, and I don't think anyone else did either. However, after reading up on the game, watching interviews and getting a glimpse of the in-game action from the trailers that are out there, I've gone from skepticism to optimism with a hint of worry. Can they pull this merger off? I mean, how on earth is Batman going to be able to do any damage to any of the characters of the MK universe? He doesn't have any powers, he's just rich and has a lot of gadgets. In my eyes, it seems like he'd get obliterated by just looking at Sub-Zero for example.

So far they've only announced 4 characters; Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Batman and Superman, which brings me to ask the same question as with Batman, but in reverse. How is anyone from the MK universe going to be able to hurt Superman? Do they have Kryptonite in Outworld? Because I don't see anything that could stop him otherwise. Luckilly, those questions were answered to some degree by Ed Boon in an interview about the game, but he didn't really go in to specifics, just saying that superstrong characters like Superman were going to be countered by an "elevated" use of magic in some of the more human characters of the MK universe. Other than that, he said that to make some of the characters not seem as 'boring' they would have "big massive events" instead of the old punch n' jab. So I'm hoping that means a lot of face-melting with Superman´s eye laser thingy. All in all, though, it actually looks good, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it.



While I'm on the subject of skepticism, there's a little (haha) game called Guitar Hero: On Tour, which is coming to your favourite handheld console, the Nintendo DS, this summer. This doesn't really come as a surprise to me, what with the popularity of the Guitar Hero franchise and all. Combine popular game with popular console and you get popular sales numbers, simple as that really.

Well then, on to the skepticism I guess; Can this stripped down version of a well known game series be any match for it´s big boy counterparts? I mean, how are they going to recreate that silly rock star dream if we don't even have a guitar to hold? Can they give us the same feel as if we were holding a plastic guitar? I doubt it, but I'm optimistic about it, probably because I'm a big fan of the Guitar Hero series, so I'm hoping for the best. With that said though, how are they going to do it? I mean there's no way the sound can come anywhere near the sound of a 5.1 speaker system, there's only 4 fret buttons and I wouldn't be surprised if the sequel would be called Eye-strain Hero or something, with screens that small. Speaking of screens, apparently you're going to be tapping the touch-sensitive screen to simulate the strumming, which just worries me even more, since it doesn't seem sensitive enough to handle something like that.

Then again, maybe they're tweaking the difficulty to match that. It's probably the only way to do it too, because I don't see anyone playing Anything from GH3 at the expert difficulty on the DS. I guess we'll see how things work out in the end, and being the sucker that I am, I'll probably buy it myself. You've got to live that rock star dream you know.