The game's controls are pretty tight and very similar to previous 3-D Mortal Kombat titles, especially Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Having liked Armageddon, though, I can't say I am displeased that the controls haven't changed much. MK vs. DC is definitely a game that anyone can pick up and play, but has enough technique to it for core gamers to master.
Running on the Unreal 3 engine, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe looks great on the visual end of things. The DC characters feel like a natural fit in the environments of the game, almost as if they had always been a part of the Mortal Kombat universe. It's especially fantastic news for me, as that had been one of my personal concerns about the game.
All in all, MK vs. DC appears to be everything you'd hoped for when the game was first announced. It will easily be Midway's biggest title in years and will likely be getting a lot of praise in the weeks to come. Don't sleep on this game at all.
TNA Impact! (Release date: Sept. 9, 2008)
Started up to counter the might WWE, Total Non-Stop Action (TNA) Wrestling has had its share of good times, bad times, and downright awful times. However, when I heard Midway had acquired the rights to make a TNA game and saw the first videos of it, I was generally excited. Midway has actively worked with TNA talent like Samoa Joe and A.J. Styles to help make the game as good as possible. That hard work seems to have paid off, because in some areas, TNA Impact! is great. In others ... not so much.
To start out, TNA Impact! looks fantastic. Wrestlers look like their real-life counterparts and the animations are fluid. The game play mechanic and grappling system is reminiscent of the old school THQ games on the Nintendo 64, and once you learn the controls, it's pretty easy to pick up and play.
But there are some huge issues here, things missing from the game that are a direct result of Midway's LA development team. There are no rope breaks in the game, reportedly because they did not know what they were. Figure 4 Wrestling, a wrestling news Web site, also reported that there are also no refs and a maximum of four wrestlers in the ring at the same time because the development team could not do more than four animations simultaneously. The latter issue is unconfirmed, but playing TNA Impact!, I did find that there were no rope breaks in the game, which takes away from the realism.
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