Tetsuo Time

So this is the next Unreal Engine 3 powered Mortal Kombat game they are working on. I find this interesting even though I'll probably never play it and it also wont have blood or fatalities they said:

However, I kind of agree with this person: "This game pretty much defines what it means to sellout. They are going to give up on something thats been in every Mortal Kombat game to make DC happy and try to make more money.

Why go after one market (MK Fans) when you can go after two with one game (MK and DC Fans), I personally don't believe I will be buying this game.

Although I'm sure it'll be just as good as when Marvel fought all those EA comic book characters."

But it may be amusing anyway I mean that fight on the trailer looked pretty good.

I can see it working best if they stick to the dark characters. Too bad Blade isn't a DC Comics character. I hope they choose wisely, Batman was a good first choice. Swamp Thing would make a good MK character. I'm sure there are others too.. but I almost feel like they may just go for the most popular characters whether they fit or not.

One genre that the computer is lacking right now is fighting games. There are a lot of people out there that say that computers just aren't good for fighting games. But I believe this is based upon things like:

Ancient History: In the past a most of the fighting games that have come to the PC came to the PC when there weren't very many options for controllers on the PC. Today though most if not all the same controllers that can be used on a console can also be used on a PC. All the accessories for the Xbox360 can be used on the PC too. There's no excuse for controls now except the fact that some people don't have a gamepad controller or are allergic to them. Right now Microsof is trying to push the "Games For Windows" certification program and one of the requirements is to be compatible with the Xbox360 controller. I think that's a good excuse to bring some games that generally are gamepad friendly like fighting games back to the PC. The PC has such a wide range of controllers available for it that you should be able to find a controller to control just about any kind of game that you can think of. Heck some companies make authentic arcade fighter sticks for the PC that can be used for native fighting games too. At one time you couldn't hook up two gamepads to the PC to play a fighting game.. so one player had a gamepad and the other was stuck on the keyboard. This is no longer the case with USB gamepads.

Some people say another reason is because PCs generally have small screens and they think that's not good for fighting games. Well I just have to say that screens on the PC are getting bigger all the time and also there are ways to hook up PCs to large HDTVs and there are Home Theater PCs. Besides.. some people like me don't mind playing any game on a smaller screen.

Shoddy Ports:Most of the games that soured peoples perceptions to fighting games on the PC where rushed ports and or done on systems that didn't have the right technology to support the games like DOS. One of the last 3D fighting games to come to the PC, MK4 didn't even take advantage of the power the PC had to offer over the N64 and PSX. So then the game ended up only requiring a P133 when the Pentium 2 was the current PC system. It could have been an exact copy of the arcade version... and if it had online play (which could only be found on the PC back then) people would have seen it as what it should have been. The best version of that game for the home.

Just the fact that there aren't really any fighting games for the PC coming out right now: Some people don't even have the experience that I outlined above and simply base their assumption on the fact that there are no PC fighting games coming out right now. Just like some people assume that since the 360 has a lot of FPS games then that means that's what it's best suited for. Others assume that since most games on Nintendo are family friendly then that's all the Nintendo system is capable of.

Right now that is practically the only real reason that consoles are better for fighting games than a PC.. simply because they have more fighting games. Most of the fighting games I've played on the PC lately are through emulation and those work great with my PC gamepads. I've also played a native version of Guilty Gear X2 for the PC recently which works just as good as on any console when you use a gamepad with it and just about any PC has enough power to play it nowadays even PCs with integrated graphics. Gametap has put a lot of Neo Geo fighting games on their service and they are doing well with the subscribers there so I think it's about time that we had a fighting game Renaissance on the PC. Capcom is putting Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix edition on Steam for the PC and wikipedia also lists Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix so hopefully this will be the start of it. We just need to start seeing more 3D fighting games come out for the PC again.

What some people don't realize is that some fighting games like Virtua Fighter 5 have been using PC hardware and even PC OS' (Linux in this case) at the arcade for their latest versions.. including a Pentium 4 and a GeForce 6800 which is old by todays standards.

One genre that the computer is lacking right now is fighting games. There are a lot of people out there that say that computers just aren't good for fighting games. But I believe this is based upon things like:

Ancient History: In the past a most of the fighting games that have come to the PC came to the PC when there weren't very many options for controllers on the PC. Today though most if not all the same controllers that can be used on a console can also be used on a PC. All the accessories for the Xbox360 can be used on the PC too. There's no excuse for controls now except the fact that some people don't have a gamepad controller or are allergic to them. Right now Microsof is trying to push the "Games For Windows" certification program and one of the requirements is to be compatible with the Xbox360 controller. I think that's a good excuse to bring some games that generally are gamepad friendly like fighting games back to the PC. The PC has such a wide range of controllers available for it that you should be able to find a controller to control just about any kind of game that you can think of. Heck some companies make authentic arcade fighter sticks for the PC that can be used for native fighting games too. At one time you couldn't hook up two gamepads to the PC to play a fighting game.. so one player had a gamepad and the other was stuck on the keyboard. This is no longer the case with USB gamepads.

Some people say another reason is because PCs generally have small screens and they think that's not good for fighting games. Well I just have to say that screens on the PC are getting bigger all the time and also there are ways to hook up PCs to large HDTVs and there are Home Theater PCs. Besides.. some people like me don't mind playing any game on a smaller screen.

Shoddy Ports:Most of the games that soured peoples perceptions to fighting games on the PC where rushed ports and or done on systems that didn't have the right technology to support the games like DOS. One of the last 3D fighting games to come to the PC, MK4 didn't even take advantage of the power the PC had to offer over the N64 and PSX. So then the game ended up only requiring a P133 when the Pentium 2 was the current PC system. It could have been an exact copy of the arcade version... and if it had online play (which could only be found on the PC back then) people would have seen it as what it should have been. The best version of that game for the home.

Just the fact that there aren't really any fighting games for the PC coming out right now: Some people don't even have the experience that I outlined above and simply base their assumption on the fact that there are no PC fighting games coming out right now. Just like some people assume that since the 360 has a lot of FPS games then that means that's what it's best suited for. Others assume that since most games on Nintendo are family friendly then that's all the Nintendo system is capable of.

Right now that is practically the only real reason that consoles are better for fighting games than a PC.. simply because they have more fighting games. Most of the fighting games I've played on the PC lately are through emulation and those work great with my PC gamepads. I've also played a native version of Guilty Gear X2 for the PC recently which works just as good as on any console when you use a gamepad with it and just about any PC has enough power to play it nowadays even PCs with integrated graphics. Gametap has put a lot of Neo Geo fighting games on their service and they are doing well with the subscribers there so I think it's about time that we had a fighting game Renaissance on the PC. Capcom is putting Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix edition on Steam for the PC and wikipedia also lists Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix so hopefully this will be the start of it. We just need to start seeing more 3D fighting games come out for the PC again.

What some people don't realize is that some fighting games like Virtua Fighter 5 have been using PC hardware and even PC OS' (Linux in this case) at the arcade for their latest versions.. including a Pentium 4 and a GeForce 6800 which is old by todays standards.

This article has a video that talks about Killer Instinct. The thing I take exception to is how they say the SNES version only was missing FMV and "a few sprites". They hardly even showed the arcade version at all in the video there. It was almost like they where trying to play off the differences doing that. The game was a ~90MB game and it was cut down to fit a 4MB cartridge... and a system that had much more limited resources than the arcade cabinet did.

The SNES version wasn't just missing a few sprites and FMV. The arcade version was head and shoulders above the SNES version in every way. First off all they halved or more the resolution of the arcade version the arcade version ran at at least 512x384.. the SNES version ran at 320x240 or below. Saying it was missing a few sprites is an understatement.

The sprites where at least twice as big\detailed in the arcade version with more colors on each sprite. The game had more colors\detail in the arcade in general. Then to add insult to injury to that they cut out a lot of frames of animation especially in their victory poses. Because of the reduction of frames the action isn't as smooth as the arcade version. It's just "good enough" which is "good enough" for some people. The backgrounds where also severly cut down most of the animation, 3D effects, etc. of the arcade version where cut out. The backgrounds in the arcade version where actually FMV with full 3D effects in them. When you where at a certain part of the level you where actually at a certain frame in the FMV. Then some backgrounds where even in 3D which where also severely cut down to fit on the SNES. FMV is actually a larger percentage of the game than might meet the eye. They also removed things like the characters spinning on the character select screen and ladder.

Then we get to the sound. The music in the arcade version sounded more like the soundtrack CD that came with the SNES version minus most of the vocals they added to the CD. The SNES version had SNES MIDI versions of those songs which where OK sounding but not nearly as good as the music in the arcade version which was more like an MP3 soundtrack with the DCS sound system they used (first used in Mortal Kombat II for the arcade). The sound effects also had to be downsampled to fit the SNES cartridge and also some sound effects had to be left out and some of them where even changed. Like, Glacius had a nice rarrrr sound when he won in the arcade but on the SNES they changed it to some kind of squeaky yow sound.

They even "fixed" some things in the SNES version which prevents me from doing for example Glacius' 32+hit ultra combo or possibly doing Cinder or Eyedol's 80hit infinite ultra combos.

To be honest I was dissapointed in the SNES version and coming in a black cart was not enough to make up for its shortcomings. But I played it anyway because I didn't have any other choice back then for playing KI at home. Now I do and I play the arcade version and play the game as it was meant to be. Same thing with all other games ported from the arcade to the home from back then. None of them where as good as the arcade.

If they do bring it to xbox live arcade they better bring the arcade version or else I would say don't waste your money on it. Also you can't bring the SNES version and have it be HD it has to be based on the arcade version or else you will still be missing a whole lot. The SNES version of KI didn't even look as good as Donkey Kong Country in my opinion.

Would it take them seeing the arcade and SNES versions in action side by side to see the difference?

BTW, KI Gold for the N64 was closer to the arcade version of KI2 and in some ways it was better because it had more 3D backgrounds. But the sprites still weren't the same quality as the arcade version which then I would say it still wasn't equal.