Recent reviews by joeyboyjoeyboy3

this one's a sorta serious, accessible, action-packed space flight shooter. highly recommended.

GO BUY IT.

in the first few minutes of playing it, i knew i had to see it through the end. it completeley hooked me from start to end, i didn't want to take a break from playing it. combat makes the game very replayable. art direction is superb, soundtrack is great. this is one of the most immersive games i've played in a while. at the price it's going at right now this summer sale, it's a steal.

the witch was topless on almost all her scenes

10/10

i was wanting to have a fighting game that would replace the street fighter iv series as my most played since street fighter ii. sad to say, street fighter v is not it.

for starters, the mechanics have been, shall we say, streamlined. i understand their intention here, to ease more players into the game, to have beginners have a much better fighting chance against veteran players. downside is that it makes a lot of the characters, for the bread-and-butter combos at least, handle similarly. i can say that there's more than a handful characters where you can use the medium punch > medium punch > special move string very often and effectively.

but the thing is, they have indirectly drove players away from getting this. why? you've heard it - the lack of content.

i've been a long-time fighting game fan. i may not be as good as the pros, but i can say i'm an average to an above average player who can still rack up a decent win streak any time of day. i never thought this lack of content would affect me as much, because i only care about playing with human opponents. but then again, you can have the tightest gameplay and prettiest graphics (which this game both has), but if you can't bring in people to play your intentions for the game are moot.

the game is not a total wreck. it's netcode is better than ultra sf iv and the patches have made noticeable improvements (i can get opponents faster now). but i think it has suffered enough setbacks for it to not succeed. it did not make the splash it was supposed to do, and it was overshadowed by its well-documented issues. you also have to figure in the other current and upcoming fighting games (guilty gear xrd, kof xiv) that get a huge chunk of the attention pie. at this point, even if they manage to cram in more characters and an arcade or a proper story mode in there, it wouldn't do much. people may have already moved on. and we probably will be stuck by the same people that we get to play with online.

it's a game that is letdown by it's publisher's strategy rather than it's quality.

6.0/10

here is a game that respects the player's abilities and intellect. you may die over and over, but the tight mechanics will keep you coming back. you know that you'll eventually nail that tough battle.

9.4/10

Imagine 2011's MK reboot in a greatly refined form, and you get MK X. You have to accept the fact that it plays how it does (a bit clunky) - that's Mortal Kombat for you. It's a game that's more accessible to newbies than Street Fighter, but it has enough depth for those looking for their competitive streak. There's a smoother transition now between animations - characters don't look as herky jerky anymore. There are also small touches that show the amount of care put into this game, like Erron's twitchy fingers. The fighting also gets the same smoother treatment. Linking combos to special moves feels less detached now. It still can't compete with the fluidity of Street Fighter, but here you would be more inclined to discover the combos yourself without looking at the move list. I love how they made those dialled-in combos short. It eliminates the memorization-heavy problems that plagued the series since they were introduced in MK3. And finally - they've created a final boss that is not cheap as hell. Bravo. If you've played MK9, you'll immediately feel right at home here. These refinements would be noticeable to you but you'll adapt in a few minutes.

It's great that online is not limited to VS battles. There's something for everyone in here. Don't want to get your a-s-s handed to you by more experienced players? Hang out by the Towers or try to fulfill your Faction goals. Heck, there's even the excellent tile-based, FPS RPG-like Krypt too (and, lest we forget to mention, the copious amount of unlockables). Else, if you're the competitive type, there's always the various VS modes. I haven't gone into an online match yet as I have also been plagued by the game's launch woes. Just see my warning at the end of this review. And as before, Story mode is excellent. I wish it had less family drama and more of the big picture stuff though.

Graphical fidelity is sublime. Beads of sweat, skin pores, cloth textures are all seen crystal clear. There also is a way, way better display of damage. Unlike the previous MK, which had what I would say are set orders of damage textures, this one has me looking very closely at my screen to see if it would repeat any blood or damage textures. Zero repeats so far. Either they have much more sets of textures, or the damage modelling is done in real time. Either way, it rocks.

Sound effects are bone-crunchingly impactful, while music is just adequate. Everything is wrapped up in a more elegant and minimalistic interface. I absolutely love how they frame the the end of each round. And the art direction, top notch. It's safe to say that no one will make palette swap jokes this time around, but to replace them would be the next-generation bloodline of some of the human characters (i.e cassie plays like her daddy, johnny). They actually are the ones who are more generic in design, but they're still nice to look at (i owe that to great detail rendering).

As a fighting game fan, this will be another game that I will play for months to come.

CAVEAT EMPTOR: As of now, the game still has bugs that need to be ironed out. I run a rig with an i5-3470 that I overclock at 3.8 ghz, 8GB of RAM, and an AMD R9 290 GPU. The most glaring glitch is that from the Dead Woods stage - it's currently a pixelated, artifact-y mess after the recent 15GB update.

All things considered, if you loved MK9, this is a no brainer. If you want to get into figthing games, this would be a great starting point. It's a complete package that has something for everyone, already content packed even in single player mode.

9/10

About me:
- I consider the Street Fighter 4 series as probably my most played game from the past generation of consoles. Still playing it here on Steam (Ultra SF4)
- Played MK 1, 2, 3, Trilogy a lot. Interest started to wane by MK4. Skipped the PS2-era MKs. Played a LOT of MK9 on PS3.
- I never got into 3D fighters like Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Dead or Alive, etc. Tried them but they never could capture my attention

UPDATE (June 22, 2015):
netcode is still c-r-a-p. buy this mainly for its single player content. if you have friends who own this who are within the same country as you are, then you can consider getting it for the online VS component.

UPDATE (November 24, 2016)
updated to MK XL. this promised improved netcode, but i don't have a way to test it since no one is playing online.

this is probably my most played title this generation, and now that i;ve switched to PC i knew i had to get this. yes, the netcode is still a work in progress, but i'll be patient while capcom is fixing it. i never get tired of playing even single player (good practice) on the hardest level. of course, the fun comes from playing with others online. thank god i have this now, it's going to save me a lot of money since i used to play it a LOT at the arcades and i always get beaten up by the expert players.

if you're one who cracks those lame super duper hyper ultra jokes, this is not for you. this is for those who appreciate 2d fighting games, and this is a further refinement of arguably the best fighter right now.