Sneak King Nuts

2,706 copies of Sneak King. About the number
of calories in a Double Whopper meal, I think.
(image from Reddit)

Well, that was unexpected. Someone on Reddit proudly announced that he currently has over two thousand copies of Sneak King, the tactical fast food delivery game that was sold for the Xbox as part of a Burger King promotion years ago. You may remember Sneak King as the only game in this promotion that was worth anyone's time. The other two, Pocketbike Racer and Big Bumpin', were lackluster kart racing titles at a time when the market had plenty of better alternatives. As nutty as it is to own thousands of copies of Sneak King, this collector at least has enough of his sanity left to refrain from buying the other two games in bulk.

So. I've had Dead or Alive on my mind since the big backward compatibility update a few weeks ago, and decided to purchase the sixth game in the series from the Xbox Black Friday sale that started last week (and will be ending later this week, so I'd recommend picking up whatever interests you soon). It's still downloading so I've only been able to play a small sliver of the full game, but one thing I'm sure about even with such a limited taste is that I'm not fond of the new look for the characters. 

Break blows do more damage than standard
attacks, and may force your opponent to step
out of the ring for a minute to redo their
hair and makeup. Maybe I'm just spoiled by all
those Street Fighter IV supers which plaster
your opponent against an invisible wall, I dunno.
(image from YouTube/Kasumi Rina)

Koei-Tecmo is clearly aiming for a more realistic design, but what I'm seeing is way too much makeup on the eyes of the female characters, along with soft, supple skin that doesn't really fit the faces of fighters who have been trading blows for over twenty years. Sure, they can get a little bruised over the course of a fight (with much more damage happening to their outfits... heh), but characters like Kasumi look more like they're ready for a sassy march down a catwalk than a fist fight with assassins and professional wrestlers.

The game plays about as well as it ever has... maybe even slightly smoother than DOA had on previous systems. However, the main attraction is the break blow system. There's a super meter just under your life bar, and when it's filled, you can take advantage of a new special button, assigned to RB on an Xbox One controller. Four taps initiate a "fatal rush," back and special intercepts attacks with a "break hold," and "break blows" are triggered with forward and special. 

I'm normally a fan of super moves, but this new play mechanic doesn't add as much to the Dead or Alive experience as I hoped. Break blows hurt more than a regular attack, and they're more stylish, but they don't turn the tide of a desperate battle like the Fatal Blows in Mortal Kombat 11, and they're certainly not as visually arresting. You knock the sunglasses off Bass or put a cut on the too-perfect face of Kasumi, and that's the extent of the battle damage. I'm not asking for the ultra-violence of Mortal Kombat, but it would be nice if the designers could find some way to get me more invested in these not-so-super super moves.

Like I said, it's still early. I've only lapped a little of the cream from the top of this game, and once it's fully installed maybe I'll better understand its appeal. From what I can see right now, though, it's just more Dead or Alive. To its credit, it's one with difficulty settings below "sledgehammer to the windpipe," and without the minty fresh scourge of Aquafresh Kasumi.

One Last Trip Back

It's Microsoft's twentieth year as a console manufacturer, and they've celebrated the occasion with a backward compatibility update, the first they've done in years. Regrettably, it will also be the last... Matt Kim reports that the Xbox manufacturer has reached the limits of what it can do with the service, thanks to legal constraints and also the vast architectural chasm between the Xbox One and Series, which use x86 hardware, and the Xbox 360, which chugged along on the dated PowerPC standard. (The original Xbox also runs on x86 hardware, but it's really old hardware, and challenging enough that Xbox emulators have only recently started to surface on home computers.)

It's a bittersweet farewell to backward compatibility, but at least the games in this final update were well chosen. Verge has the entire list, and I'm both surprised and delighted by the selection, which finds a balance between the fondly remembered and the unjustly forgotten. Case in point: the two Otogi games. These lushly illustrated, bitterly difficult action titles were released in the lull between From Software's more successful Armored Core and Dark Souls series, but they're also worth your time. You can fling exploding spiders into each other and tear down two story pagodas with your bare hands... what's not to like?

Nothing to lose, especially for that price.

More predictable but nevertheless welcome are the additions of the Max Payne trilogy and the Dead or Alive, uh, sextology to Xbox backward compatibility. I bought games in both series for a pittance at thrift stores and pawn shops earlier in the year, and I'm itching to give them a spin on more modern hardware (read: I'm too lazy to blow the dust off my last two Xboxes and play them there). Dead or Alive 3 was a stone cold stunner on the original Xbox, far superior to its Xbox 360 sequel, and it should have come to later systems in the lineage a lot sooner. Max Payne I'm somewhat less excited about, but I logged some quality time into this gritty, time-bending third person action game on a PC years ago, and for the sack of pennies it cost me, I'm happy to get re-acquainted with it.

It's been ten years and Mortal Kombat 9 still
looks great. It's less realistic, but more stylized
than later entries in the series.

Some other highlights include Mortal Kombat 9 (finally!), TimeSplitters: Future Perfect, the peculiarly entertaining cover shooter 50 Cent: Blood in the Sand (you'd understand why I said it's peculiar that it's entertaining if you played the previous game, Bulletproof), and shockingly, Mini Ninjas. The game is a frustrating mess to install and run in Steam, and while I never would have guessed it would come to later Xbox consoles, I'm relieved that I can play this lighthearted action adventure without that Herculean struggle. Really. Mini Ninjas. If you had told me it would be in a backward compatibility update two days ago, I never would have believed it.

Games I don't care for but will have to grimly accept include Manhunt, a stealth action title that represents the nadir of Rockstar's poor taste, a handful of titles in the F.E.A.R. series of survival horror games, "Mass Effect if Mass Effect wasn't good" Advent Rising, and Binary Domain, which annoyed me to no end on Xbox 360 and won't be revisited on the Xbox One seven years later.

On the plus side, there are dozens more games
to play! On the down side... we all have to put up
with Aquafresh Kasumi again.

Overall, this is a pretty strong send-off for Microsoft's legacy consoles. Did I get everything I wanted from this update? Of course not. Darkstalkers Resurrection, Capcom vs SNK 2, and Blur are still off the table, and some of the games Microsoft did deem worthy of inclusion seem to have been picked out of a hat. Seriously, Cloning Clyde? Disney Universe? Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad? (Okay, I think we all know why they picked that one.) Still, we're getting Otogi and Timesplitters and Dead or Alive 3 and one of the best Mortal Kombat games in the whole damn series, and I can definitely live with that. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have games to install.

It Goes to Eleven

Been a while since I've posted, hasn't it? Let's talk Mortal Kombat 11.

I bought the Ultimate version for the Xbox One in a recent sale, and despite some grumblings I've heard elsewhere about its microtransactions and changes to the fighting system, I'm really happy with it. In fact, I think the decision to split the super meter into two separate gauges really adds to the gameplay. The first strengthens your special moves while the other lets you break combos and interact with background objects. Both gauges refill over time, preventing abuse but at the same time being less punitive than the old three segmented super meter. I rarely used enhanced special moves in the previous two Mortal Kombats, because doing so kept you from building enough power to perform the far more effective X-ray moves. Now, I'm cranking out enhanced specials as quickly as the game will allow me, because the two are no longer joined at the hip.

You already know where this is going.

Actually, there are no longer X-ray moves per se, but rather "Fatal Blows" which work like the desperation moves in SNK's South Town series. If your fighter's life dips to twenty percent, you can squeeze both triggers on the Xbox One controller to start this attack. If it lands, you'll perform a lengthy series of strikes, shown from dramatic camera angles and deadly enough to qualify as fatalities in their own right. If the first attack in the series is blocked, your Fatal Blow is wasted for that round, but if it lands, expect heavy damage... easily enough to take out an opponent whose own life bar has fallen into Fatal Blow territory. The trick is to make sure the other kombatant doesn't use his Fatal Blow on you first.

There are plenty of characters to select even in the vanilla version of the game, but there's plenty more in the Ultimate upgrade, including guest stars like the T-800, Rambo, and Robocop. (Apparently Mortal Kombat is migrating from the horror film icons from the past two games and settling into dumb action movies.) While the fighters in the original trilogy were a little samey, characters in MK11 are more distinct, with their own movement speeds, strategies, and attack ranges. Rambo stays low to the ground and sets hidden traps, while larger fighters like Geras and Robocop strike harder and feel heavier. Fan favorites from the first two games are familiar enough that old-school players can start using them with only minimal adjustments to their strategies... Scorpion still has his chain hook, and Sub-Zero still freezes foes in place with his ice ball.

You would not believe how many times I
had to rename this Sub-Zero variant before
I could get it past the censors. Decapitations
and disembowelments are fine, yet "I.C.
Wiener" is a bridge too far for Warner Bros.

Here's where things get interesting, though. As a logical progression of what Netherrealm had done with Mortal Kombat 10 and Injustice 2, players can customize each fighter with gear, augments, and even different moves, for a total of five different variants. Some special moves are baked into the character and can't be replaced, but if you wanted to swap Sub-Zero's slide for a shoulder tackle, or his axe swings for an ice wall and a shower of icicles, you have that option. Gear changes the look of your character, and augments provide inconsequential perks... maybe one of your fighter's attacks gets a little stronger, or you'll get more hearts for performing a fatality. Character customization wasn't strictly necessary, but it is nice for old-school fans to have the option to give their favorite kombatant the outfit he wore all the way back in 1993.

Konsumables offer the most significant change to the gameplay. These are earned in the Towers and the Krypt, and can either be used to strengthen your character, or provide a buddy who jumps in from the sidelines to attack. If you're thinking of the strikers from King of Fighters '99 or the special partners from Marvel vs. Capcom, it's pretty much that, but with a cooldown period limiting their use. Some of these konsumables are very handy (to the point of being easily exploited) and others are alarmingly useless, but they're all switched off during the final encounter with Kronika, a guardian of time described by one reader as "future Tilda Swinton" and nearly as infuriatingly cheap as Shao Khan and Motaro. She takes half the usual damage from your attacks, and some of your tried and true special moves won't work on her at all, which has been the frustrating status quo for Mortal Kombat since the beginning.

The orange of the fall leaves blend nicely with
the yellow flames and the red bloodshed.

The graphics in Mortal Kombat 11 are spectacular, which you've probably come to expect from the series since Midway was purchased by a cash-flush film studio ten years ago. Each fighter looks startlingly lifelike (or lifeless-like, in the case of Noob Saibot) and expresses themselves with fluid, natural gestures. This is a boon in the story mode where the Warner Bros. influence is most deeply felt, and the game is convinced that it really is a dumb action movie. The backgrounds aren't the best they've ever been, but there are a few highlights, like a serene temple partially obscured by autumn leaves and an arcade with scenes from the original three games projected onto a nearby wall. What's nifty is how organically the game folds these stages into the story mode, shifting from cinematics to fights and back without the player ever noticing the seams.

Regrettably, the sound isn't up to the same standards, with the cinematic flavor of the story mode leeching into the other styles of gameplay. The musical score consistently sets the wrong mood for combat and even skirts dangerously close to annoying, like when the game lets out a sympathetic wail after a fatality is performed. The voice acting is largely solid, with a few questionable changes to the cast. Ashley Burch is no longer smart-ass millennial Cassie Cage (c'mon, it was the role she was born to play!), and her mother Sonya Blade is now voiced by professional wrestler Ronda Rousey. Rousey can do rough and tough just fine, but that's about where her acting range ends. 

On the other hand, all the heroes from those dumb action movies who make cameo appearances are played by their original actors, even Peter Weller, who's steered clear of the Robocop series for nearly thirty years. Yep, that's Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, too. That's not Ahnuld as the Terminator, but the voice is so uncannily close you probably wouldn't know unless you were told beforehand. You've also got Spawn, played by Keith David, who sticks the landing in practically all of his voice roles. He's convincingly played everything from medieval stone guardians to devious newt kings... you'll have no trouble believing he's an inner city cop turned demonic soul hunter, and you'll even buy his howls of anguish when some other character tears out his heart.

Not a flawless victory, but a real treat
nevertheless.

The soundtrack is iffy, the final boss is cheaper than cheap, and the violence has gotten overly gratuitous as the result of thirty years of oneupsmanship, but beyond all that, it's hard to find fault with Mortal Kombat 11. The game is brimming with replay value thanks to the Towers of Time, which impede your progress up the chain of opponents with various nasty surprises, and the Krypt, which lets you spend all the currencies you've gathered on treasure chests full of additional content. It plays as well as it ever has; a rapid-fire rock paper scissors contest with the super meter system vastly improved over the last two installments. The guest characters are a little puzzling, but nevertheless welcome appeals to your childhood nostalgia. The Friendships are back, and are arguably better than the fatalities, shining a silly beam of light into the game's grim darkness. It all comes together beautifully, and for just a little over twenty dollars it would be hard not to recommend Mortal Kombat 11. Hats off to you for a quality product, Netherrealm. (Just try not to throw said hat at my neck.)

Special "no thanks" to Microsoft for making it a circuitous pain in the ass to gather all the images for this blog entry. You can't make this process any easier? Really?