Mortal Kombat Review

"Finish Him!", "Get Over Here!", "Toasty!". Memorable quotes The moves look and feel brutal, from simple punches and kicks to mental x-ray attacksfrom a classic and well-beloved franchise. Now, some franchises go from strength-to-strength with every game, innovating as they go to stay relevant and still maintaining a very high quality (Zelda, Mario) and other franchises stay to the same tired formulas, making the only slightest adjustments to the gameplay, often taking the game in the wrong direction and lowering the overall quality of the experience as a result (Sonic, Fable). Mortal Kombat was one of the latter.

The first 2 games are considered classics by many old-hands in the gaming industry, with some also hailing the 3rd game as a success. but after that, the franchise took a U-turn. Mortal Kombat 4 changed the flow of gameplay by adding weapons and side-stepping which wasn't a big success. The series also ushered in a few spin-off games that were very badly received. Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe was the last game that held the Mortal Kombat name and whilst doing well, wasn't quite the fully-blown MK sequel fans were hoping for.

Mortal Kombat is definitely a return to form for the series. The graphics are great, some of the character's teleports emit a smoke effect that looks fantastic for the fraction of a second it's on the screen. The injuries your character takes on during the course of the fights look horrific and painful, and everything moves at a silky-smooth  frame rate, in fact, I don't remember the game dropping a frame throughout my experiences with it.

Some might call Baraka's X-ray "excessive"...The mechanics at work here are solid. Blocking is effective enough that if you don't do it you'll definitely lose, Powerful moves have a long enough cool down to make them risky enough not to abuse, and throws are effective. The game is also good for beginners, being very button-basher friendly. A big part of it's beginner-friendliness is the new X-Ray system, meaning that once your X-ray meter has built up a simple squeeze of both triggers lets your fighter do a super move that can really turn the tide of any fight.

The game is loaded with the usual modes you expect from fighting games nowadays, with versus, arcade and challenge modes, but what MK does differently is that it throws a long and well thought out story mode into the mix. The story (which essentially re-writes the Mortal Kombat cannon) is extremely well told and sets a new standard for storytelling in fighting games. The game transitions from cutscenes to fights seemlessly and without a single loading screen. It's really pretty impressive.

The game's other features are well fleshed-out too, with your No head mode means punching the head wont work... obviouslytypical arcade mode consisting of fight after fight against the game's tough AI, and the challenge tower which throws loads of tough mini-games in with the fighting. A mode called "Test Your Luck" has a roulette wheel being spun before the match and a selection of weird match modifiers get picked at random, like no head mode, no arm mode or even infinite X-ray meter. It adds an element of randomness sure but it also smothers the fight in fun.

The game's not perfect though. The game's bosses are ridiculous, choosing to randomly not flinch after getting hit and doing stupid amounts of damage with every Fatalities are DEFINITELY still hereattack, the only way to beat them is to be ridiculously cheap. Difficulty is a problem which plagues every single-player mode in the game, although it does seem that losing at a fight 3 times in a row automatically lowers the difficulty of the fight. I also ran into a problem with performing moves as it seems the sensitivity of the left stick is far too high. I tested it out with multiple controllers, even trying it with friend's controllers and still the problem persisted. Any kind of downwards flick of the stick meant that when the stick pinged up to the neutral position it resulted in a jump. In such a fast-paced fighting game, imprecision of any kind is murder. Imagine going for a teleport and instead jumping right into the path of an attack. all too frequent an occurrence for me.

So what we have here is a success! Mortal Kombat does enough new that it can be enjoyed without feeling outdated but also packs in enough old stuff to please the die-hard fans of the series. There's tonnes to do between the challenge tower, fun online and abundance of ways to play, not to mention the ability to unlock extras using currency you've earnt by playing the single-player modes. While I had some problems with the game, overall I had a blast playing it! And if you can find some like-minded friends to enjoy the absurd violence and Fatalities with, all the better.

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Portal 2 Review - Spoiler-Free

Aperture Science is pretty run down during the events of Portal 2Valve had a pretty big task ahead of them in making Portal 2. The original was short, completely original and a MASSIVE surprise to almost anyone who played it. How do you make a satisfactory sequel to one of the greatest games of all time? And better yet, how do you make it a product worthy of somebody's hard-earned £35, when the original came as 1 fifth of the best gaming bargain there's ever been?

To most companies, that sounds like a pretty much impossible task, but Valve aren't most companies. Valve eat challenges like this for breakfast. I'll admit that even with Valve at the helm I had huge doubts as to whether Portal 2 would deliver, but after playing the game for about 10 minutes, any worries I had were swiftly extinguished.

The opening of Portal 2 is attention-grabbing. You're introduced to a fantastic new character Wheatley (voiced by Stephen Merchant) who serves as your companion for  a lot of the game. Your immediate reaction is that too many character-cooks are going to spoil the game-broth, but the addition of a new character right from the start thrusts you into the new-yet-old world of Portal 2 flawlessly, doesn't hurt that Wheatley is one of the best things in the game either.

The gameplay is the same: Solve complex puzzles using justThe game's puzzles are as mind-bending as you'd have come to expect by now your wits and your trusty portal gun. One portal leads to the other, and not every surface can hold a portal on it. It's a mind-bending concept if you're not used to it, but once you start thinking with portals, there really aren't many more satisfying feelings in gaming.

The difficulty of the puzzles is perfectly weighted. Any times I was stuck, I simply walked away from the game for a while and my brain would do the rest sub-consciously. It meant I never got frustrated or had to resort to reading a FAQ, it gave me a great sense of accomplishment after almost every challenge as the game went on. Obviously play Portal before you play Portal 2, but if you absolutely must play Portal 2 before the original, you wont have trouble adapting to the unorthodox game play style.

Wheatley may not look like much but he delivers fantastically

The story to the original Portal is one of the most beloved in gaming, and it's a thrill to see the adventures of Chell (the player's character) continue to play out amidst Aperture Science's fiendish maze-like complex. The story follows on directly from the first game, and answers a lot of questions about the mysterious Aperture Science. Most games would hit you over the head with back story, but the way Portal 2 gives you these answers is both inventive and much more satisfying.

Portal's strongest asset is it's writing. It's characters, though few in number, are memorable, believable and intensely quotable, with strong performances throughout. Stephen Merchant, for a first credit in a video game, gives an outstanding performance filled with improvisation, British charm and British wit. He's a peculiar choice of voice actor for a character in an American video game but he really knocks it out of the park.

I suppose the main question I should be answering in all thisThe co-op campaign should take you and your friend about 6 hours is, does Portal 2 justify it's full-game price tag? The answer is unequivocally yes. The game sheds the 4 hour length of the original and trades it in for a meaty 12(ish) hours and brings with it a full co-op campaign complete with online and some free downloadable content on the way that will add challenge rooms and leaderboards. It's a pretty robust package for a game with such humble origins.

Portal 2 is a rarity in games, in that it does absolutely nothing wrong. I literally can't find fault with any part of it (and I can do that for almost anything!). If you loved the original you'll love this, and if you never played the original then go buy Orange Box RIGHT NOW! (it's £15!!!)

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Pokemon: White Review

I'm a proper Pokemon fan.

As pretentious as that may sound, it's true. I've played a game from each generation (Yellow, Gold, Sapphire, Pearl and now White), and I played Pokemon Pearl for 350 hours... So when it comes to Pokemon, I like to think I know what I'm talking about.

Doesn't really work on anything but a DS screen...

Which makes reviewing the game all the harder. I can't look at the game objectively, I have to compare it to the games that came before. There's no way I can look at a Pokemon game from a neutral perspective, it would be like looking at your mum objectively. Is she fit? Yeah, see, you can't do it (hopefully).

The differences between Pokemon White (and Black) and the previous installments (Diamond and Pearl) don't seem very dramatic at first: Aesthetically it's more or less the same, the story progresses in the exact same way as all the other games (Collect Gym Badges, get to Pokemon League etc.) and you start out in a tiny village with a professor named after a tree giving you your first Pokemon. It's not until a few hours in that you realise the game is starting to challenge some of these concepts. Some unsuccessfully, some very successfully.

The core story is what you would typically expect from a Pokemon game, a 10 year old boy gets his first Pokemon and goes off on an adventure to be the Pokemon champion. Short, sweet and simple. Only in this installment they've tweaked a few of the more nuanced story beats, for example, instead of having 1 rival, you now start out in your home town in a threesome (calm down) of best friends, all eager to start your journeys. Obviously after you've selected your Pokemon, they share the remaining 2 between them. You'll fight against and alongside them throughout the course of the game, and actually by the end, I really felt like it had been a 3 person story, which in my opinion, was a small triumph... for a Pokemon game at least.

Oh no! Not... Team Rock- I mean Plasma!!!As with any good (or bad) Pokemon game there's an evil team at work, setting off evil plans, stealing Pokemon, kidnapping people etc. In Pokemon White & Black that team is Team Plasma. On the surface if it they're your typical Team Rocketesque bad guys, but in actuality, they're whole shtick is that they believe Pokemon trapped inside Pokeballs are essentially slaves. This resonates instantly with anyone over the age of 12, and even had me questioning whether I should be catching so many Pokemon. I mean I've got my 6 I travel round with... but I've also got boxes full in the PC, just rotting away. Really it's a pretty abrasive direction to take the evil Team at first, but ultimately, aside from some banter between you and them, they do the same stuff the other evil teams did: Set off evil plans, steal Pokemon and do a spot of kidnapping. They're just controversial enough, but also just enough like the old baddies to be memorable.

The way you interact with the story is also... I'm gonna say, improved. Most towns you go to will have a sort of mini-quest you need to attend to before the gym leader will appear. What makes these cool however, is that often times on these missions you'll be fighting alongside the gym leaders themselves. This helps makes the gym leaders seem like actual presences in the communities, but does little else except delay your inevitable gym badge.

Colourful bunch, those gym leadersThe classic Pokemon battle system remains intact. Fire beats Grass, Grass beats Water, Water beats Fire, and a whole mess of other elements and types in between. Pokemon White doesn't bring any new Pokemon types to the table but this is fine, as I think we've already reached saturation as far as that goes, but it does bring with it some mandatory new moves and items, although in my experience, most of these seemed incredibly superfluous. I mean, an item that makes your Pokemon float in the air until it's attacked once? I see its uses, but I also see Leftovers right next to it, so get it out of my face. Also seemingly intact (for all you fellow Pokemon mega-nerds out there) are IVs and EV training. If you have no idea what they are, it would take far too long to explain, but needless to say there's a lot of depth to Pokemon you may not have even realised was there.

Triple battles add much more to think about, though personally they weren't really my thingThe final big change I came across absolutely blew my mind. It completely transforms the entire game in many ways. It makes it more fun, more stress-free and in a way, easier. The ability to re-use TMs. For those not in the know TMs were a one-time use machine that let you teach a move to a Pokemon. These were important because for moves like Stealth Rock, or Roost you would only typically find 1 in the whole game and moves like this become very important in the professional scene. Having TMs be re-usable is a game changer. No longer do you have to debate about whether to use your 1 Thunderbolt TM because you were coming up to a water Pokemon heavy area, you won't have to hold back on teaching a Pokemon Ice-Beam just to see if it complimented your existing moveset, no more teaching a TM to a Pokemon only to realise 9 hours later that it would have learnt the move anyway. Literally, out of my current 75 hours playtime, this has been the change that has most convinced me that Pokemon White is a truly revolutionary step for the franchise.

And then, I realise I haven't mentioned the new Pokemon yet, and my mood changes.

What. The. FUCK.With the exception of maybe 7 or 8, every single one of the new Pokemon in the game are fucking terrible. They anger me. Their very existence feels like a thorn in my bellend. I mean look at that ice-cream cone thing. Either Nintendo are high as kites, or just stupid. You guys honestly think that this ice-cream monstrosity can grace the same screen as a gem like Gengar, or Vaporeon and not look like a practical joke you guys forgot to take out? It actually sickens me that some of these Pokemon made it through vindication. There's one of the new Pokemon that is actually just a dog. JUST a dog. Not a six-legged dog, or a dog with wings, just a regular dog that when it evolves, gets taller and grows more fur. Fucking bullshit.

These new Pokemon, while horrendous on the eyes and soul, are actually a necessary evil for the amount I liked the game. See, once you complete the game you open up some new areas, places where the trainers and wild Pokemon are all of a sufficient level that you're back having tough battles literally minutes after becoming the champ. While that's great and all, the beautiful twist is that all these trainers use the classic Pokemon we love to bits. There really is no word Aside from Blitzle, there is not a single one of these Pokemon whose throat I would not slitto describe that feeling you get, after watching these crappy Pokemon fanny around for 60 hours, coming across a trainer with a Rapidash. It feels something close to satisfying a craving you've held onto for a week. I imagine it has in common some of the same endorphine-releasing properties that sex does, or of a cigarette 6 months on nicotine patches. I never knew just feasting my eyes on a Golduck could be so more-ish. It really made my day.

So what we have here then is the "Greatest Hits" of Pokemon games. You get the obligatory new single, followed by all the old classics you know and love.

Pokemon White is the classic formula expanded upon, but more than that, it's a game that takes the franchise 1 step forward, and no steps back. A far cry from the massive overhaul some sceptics are waiting for, but just innovative enough to keep this old Pokemaniac happy.

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