Early Impressions: Mortal Kombat’s Fighting Game Mechanics

When you think about Mortal Kombat as a series, you think about blood and fatalities. Do you think about it’s rich and deep fighting game engines? Probably not. Mortal Kombat has traditionally, been a fighting game series built primarily on style over substance. For Midway/Warner Brothers, this lead to consistently good sales throughout the series history among more casual fighting game fans, but the hardcore have pretty much shunned it. Case in point: Super Street Fighter II Turbo is still being played at major fighting game tournaments this year, while the entire Mortal Kombat scene has virtually never had any sort of tournament scene to speak of.

I loved Mortal Kombat I-III, but having grown into a hardcore fighting game player these last few years has really coloured my perspective on those games in hindsight. I can still have a ton of fun playing the Street Fighter II series games of the same era, but those early Mortal Kombat games just don’t have the depth of gameplay to hold my attention nowadays. With that said, Ed Boon, the creator of Mortal Kombat, said this new one was aiming to cater to the hardcore crowd. I’ve only spent a few hours with it playing the story mode, tutorial and some versus matches with my coworkers, so it wouldn’t be fair for me to pass final judgment about the game now. But what I can tell you about are my experiences with the game so far, is that from a gameplay systems perspective, this is probably the deepest Mortal Kombat ever.

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How To Beat Phoenix in Marvel vs. Capcom 3

In a post-Sentinel patch world, there aren’t any characters in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 that induce more anger in the community than Phoenix. Having been specifically designed to be the ultimate glass cannon, she completely changes the dynamics of the game in ways that a lot of people do not like. Once her team has 5 hyper bars stored up, you are in for a world of hurt.

As much as I hate Phoenix with a passion and feel that she deserves some sort of nerf, she’s beatable. Phoenix teams have to make a number of concessions to make her work, and there are ways to exploit those concessions and weaknesses. To me, there’s nothing more satisfying in the game than beating someone who is running a Phoenix team, as Phoenix players always seem to think they’re invincible with Jean Grey on their side. Even if you are not an expert player, the tactics and strategies I’ve listed below are sure to help you in your quest to control Phoenix and her Dark Phoenix mutation!

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Out Now: Mortal Kombat


Yesterday, the highly-anticipated reboot of the Mortal Kombat franchise hit stores. From what I’ve been seeing on Metacritic, it’s being received really well from the gaming press. Up until I played the demo a while back, I had plans to buy this on day one. However, here I am blogging from the outside, looking in. I didn’t buy it on day one, nor do I feel the urge to have this in my collection immediately. What happened?

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Capcom Unveils New Street Fighter X Tekken 3 Trailer

 

Yesterday, Capcom lifted its embargo on the media coverage done for Captivate 2011, which is Capcom’s big press event used to promote its upcoming games. To be honest, I didn’t really care for anything Capcom presented. Sure, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition news is nice, but nothing at that event got me genuinely excited for Capcom’s lineup. Well, almost nothing.

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Super Street Fighter IV Announcement Trailer Leaked

 

Ninjas have hijacked Capcom’s secrets yet again. Though it should come as no surprise to anyone who knows anything about Street Fighter, an announcement trailer for Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition coming to consoles hit the internet earlier today.

While the original YouTube video has since been pulled, there are other places where you can find the actual video. Or you can click through to see what the trailer revealed!

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Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Patch Nerfs Sentinel and Makes Yesterday’s Post Irrelevant*

*Not fully irrelevant, but almost

Yesterday, Capcom released a patch for Marvel vs. Capcom 3, which they said would activate Event Mode within the game. What they didn’t tell us was that the patch included a number of balance changes and bug fixes as well.

While most of the changes will be glossed over, the news of Sentinel being nerfed has made quite the splash within the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 community.

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How-To Beat Sentinel in Marvel vs. Capcom 3

Sentinel is arguably the most divisive character in the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 roster. Though he’s wildly popular nowadays, many people consider him to be extremely overpowered. As a Sentinel player myself, I love the fact that he his damage output is insane for the amount of work you have to do (which is not much).

However, Sentinel is not perfect. Though you can’t deny his damage output, he also has holes in his game, which many players are starting to find every day. I actually get excited when I play against a Sentinel player, because in most cases, I can exploit Sentinel’s weaknesses with my own team. It also doesn’t hurt that the majority of Sentinel players I run into have no idea how to use him to his full potential, simply because they’re Sentinel bandwagon jumpers. I’m no pro at Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but here are some words of wisdom for how to beat the machine based on my own experience and information I’ve learned elsewhere.

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Pick-Up Post: Jill and Shuma Gorath in Marvel vs Capcom 3

Though we’ve known about these characters for months (probably earlier than Capcom intended), Jill and Shuma Gorath are finally available as DLC on XBOX Live and PSN. At $5 each, they might be a bit pricey if you’re not interested in either character, but they’re available if you want them. I bought both of them mainly because I’ve been taking this game very seriously of late, and I’d like to get the full character experience out of it.

Having spent a bit of time with both characters in training mode and online, I thought it’d be cool to talk about my early impressions with them. I’m no expert at this game (and definitely not with these characters), but an amateur perspective may still be of value to you. If you’re considering picking these two up (or just want to read about the latest additions to the roster) check out the rest of this post.

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The Team Mechanics of Marvel vs. Capcom 3

Over the past few weeks, I have grown rather fond of Marvel vs. Capcom 3. While I still play Super Street Fighter IV with my coworkers when they are online, Marvel has (for now) taken over as my go-to fighting game of choice.

What I’m enjoying most about the game is the team element of the experience. In other vs. games, I would choose my team simply based on who I liked and/or who I was good with. Once in battle, I wouldn’t pay any mind in regards to who my opponent’s team was, either. I was just looking to beat people up for the win. But now that I’ve actually taken some time to learn this game, I’m realizing that there’s so much more to the team-based gameplay than that if you want to go far with the game.

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Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Learning How to Not Suck

Being good at fighting games is hard. Due to my recent success at Super Street Fighter IV, I’ve sort of taken that fact for granted. However, I got better at Street Fighter through hundreds of hours of practice, tournament experience and absorbing anything and everything I could online in regards to making myself a better player. Before I went through all of that, I spent dozens of hours playing the game online; losing almost every single one of those matches.

Though I was able to coast through the bottom tier of ranked Marvel vs. Capcom 3 matches, my winning percentage has taken a serious dip. I know enough about the game to recognize that I’m losing to people who suck at the game, but I don’t have the skills and know-how myself to beat them. Am I willing to put in the time and effort to not suck?

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