Mortal Kombat X has never had a great PC port. NetherRealm, the series’ long time developer, didn’t touch the PC port and Warner Bros, its publisher, shopped it out to someone else. Ever since the PC port has been treated more like an unwanted younger brother than a true sibling and Mortal Kombat family member. Now that younger brother is being cut out of all the family photos.

With the upcoming content pack, Kombat Pack 2, NetherRealm is adding in four new characters like Bo’ Rai Cho and the alien from Alien. This follows up news that Mortal Kombat X would be throwing out the old network code, known to be ass, and replacing it with the highly lauded GGPO. This means MKX’s online community would now have the arguably best online experience you can have in a fighting game. Unless you’re on PC. Both the Kombat Pack and this new net code will only be updated to the console versions, not the PC.

It’s a shame to see this done with a game many people enjoyed. Even worse is to see consumers who spend their money and get a worse experience than those who simply chose to play it somewhere else. PC gaming might seem like a far, far away island but in reality the world of video game isn’t that big. Disregarding a version of a game like this, without word or reason announced, is in poor form. And especially coming from NetherRealm. Perhaps this isn’t an Ed Boon call, perhaps Warner Bros. is still pulling all the wrong strings. Either way consumers deserve better.

The post Mortal Kombat X Abandoned PC Port appeared first on Gamesline.

10. Persona 4: Dancing All Night:

The final Persona 4 spin-off is also the strongest, and even though it was a blatant ploy to line Sega/Atlus’ pockets for Persona 5, I’ll gladly feed the Investigation Team beast so long as games as quality as Persona 4: Dancing All Night keep coming out. With a slick interface, responsive controls, and a rocking soundtrack, P4D is a perfectly good reason to extend Persona 4 just a bit longer.

9. Rocket League

PS+ gave us a gift this year. Rocket League is simple, smooth, and stunning, and nobody saw it coming. Sports games are a stagnant genre, but Rocket League gives it a kick in the pants it desperately needed. Blasting cars across a soccer field and knocking the oversized ball into the goal at the last second will never not be satisfying, and it’s adorable sticking hats on your car to personalize it. Rocket League isn’t my favorite surprise of the year, but it’s a damn great time to share with your friends.

8. Mortal Kombat X:

It’s easy to forget Mortal Kombat after Street Fighter V’s announcement earlier this year, but please don’t! Mortal Kombat X is a strong release in both the franchise’s history and fighting games in general, and even if the game’s community is waning, the rich story mode is worth visiting on its own merits. Cassie Cage and her group of younger, fresher Kombatants are some of my favorite characters from this year, but seeing Scorpion perform his classic “GET OVER HERE” in a bombastic fashion also won me over.

7. The first ten hours of MGSV:

MGSV didn’t exactly win me over. It quickly went from my easy pick for GOTY to a wishy-washy disappointment that I’d almost soon forget. But those early moments were magical. Climbing out of a hospital bed, running away from a flaming horse, building up your base and capturing enemy soldiers, it was all so fun! Eventually, the mission structure became less and less stellar, and I ended up losing interest in the game once I heard I’d have to replay some of the game’s shoddier missions in hard mode in order to proceed past a certain point. MGSV is somehow both too long and missing content…but when it worked, when it didn’t feel bloated, it was something. And I’ll appreciate those first few hours.

6. Xenoblade Chronicles X:

Xenoblade took an odd approach to open worlds, and at least in concept, pulled it off. Walking out of your home base and almost immediately seeing level 93 monsters co-exisiting with level 3 monsters was horrifying, but it also had the game lay its hand out for you in a unique way. I knew what was coming, and I wanted to build myself up to it. Most open worlds are cities or landscapes with definite paths to take. Xenoblade dumps you into a world and forces you to find your own path, both in the world and in your in-game career. You better yourself in the way you see fit, and working with others, create a richer experience for all.

5. Super Mario Maker:

*Dr. Steve Brule voice* You can make up your own levels….It’s not any more complicated than that. Just make up your own levels. Take a level you like from a game and chop it up into little pieces, then players won’t know how to put it back together! And it’s a homemade level of yours.

But really, Super Mario Maker has unleashed a new wave of creativity on the world, and I’m so happy about that. Seeing people craft classic levels from Mega Man games, cute auto-play levels, and torturous mindbenders has resulted in some of the most fun I’ve had in games, both on streams and otherwise. Sometimes you have to give props to a game even when your direct input isn’t what’s causing the fun.

4. Splatoon:

I talked up how much fun Rocket League was for multiplayer earlier, but hot damn does Splatoon take it to the next level. Splatoon has something that most other games lack, and that’s its character. There never has been a game with this amount of style, and not only does Splatoon know this, it revels in it. The outfits, music, and overall gameplay feed into its sense of self, proudly proclaiming “yeah, this is a game about squid kids that like to have fun battles, and we want you to have as much fun as they do!” Splatoon shows how great Nintendo is at personifying and welcoming you into their worlds, and it’s definitely my favorite Nintendo game this year.

3. The Witcher 3:

Dragging my feet playing The Witcher this year was a huge mistake. This was a year of open worlds, and Witcher knocked it out of the park. The best games this year felt lived in, invited you into their worlds in realistic ways. The Witcher did this like no other, allowing you to stumble upon quests organically, weaving stories together as different groups of people interacted, and humanized the inhuman Geralt by giving him a daughter-figure to worry about. Mind you, Ciri is not just a plot point for Geralt to dote over, and no matter how much “dad” protests, Ciri does what’s right for herself. Personally, I appreciated the attention to detail during monster fights. Each creature has weaknesses, and even if you’re leveled up enough, you’ll be destroyed by your foes if you don’t prepare ahead of time. All of these aspects meld together into a fantasy epic unlike any other. Living as Geralt is equal parts empowering and horrifying, and that’s why Witcher 3 is so good.

2. Tales from the Borderlands:

Telltale shut me up. I remember when Tales from the Borderlands was announced a while back, since I remember sighing and groaning at the thought of a good developer wasting their time on such a poorly written franchise. I’m so glad I was wrong. Tales from the Borderlands finds what worked in Gearbox’s shooter, ignored the bad, and fleshed out the world of Pandora in exciting ways. If you had told me I’d have a feeling over Scooter, the Catch-A-Ride guy, this year, I’d have told you to shove it. Almost every character in Tales is riveting, and Loader Bot steals the scene time and time again. Tales made me want to play other Borderlands games, which is quite the problem to have when none of them are anywhere near as well written as this one is.

1. Undertale:

Undertale does something wonderful, and I’m not talking about “turning RPG mechanics on their head!” or whatever most of the games press talks about when they praise this game. To me, Undertale is a story about kindness well told, and that’s its most important aspect. Sure, you can kill things, yes there is a genocide run, but the overall story arc is one of forgiveness, understanding, and companionship. If we all look into our hearts and act determined to understand others, we really all could be friends. Not only does Undertale tell this story beautifully, it compliments the moral with an engaging battle system, memorable characters, and one of the best video game soundtracks of all time. The number one thing to take from Undertale is that being kind brings us all together, and that’s why it’s my favorite game of 2015.

The post John’s Top 10 Games of 2015 appeared first on Gamesline.

Mortal Kombat X is MK for a new generation. I haven’t personally played the ninth installment, but X feels like Neatherrealm Studios realized that banking purely on nostalgia wasn’t going to cut it for their next release. To mix up the Kombat, each character has three variations, changing up their movesets and making them nearly entire new characters. For example, Johnny Cage’s variations include one with stronger fist attacks called Fisticuffs, one that allows him to unleash his attacks as a projectile called Stunt Double, and A-List, which lets Johnny charge his specials for extra damage. The roster feels three times as large with this inclusion, and if you’re not 100% gelling with a character, it’s easy to switch variations and find one that fits your playstyle to a T.

The best part of MKX is its story mode. Most of the main characters this time around are the children (or cousins) of past MK icons. For example, Cassie Cage, Sonya and Johnny’s cocky-cool daughter, and Kung Jin, Kung Lao’s archer cousin. Even outside the good-guy roster, new characters such as the bug queen D’Vorah and the Aztec emperor Kotal Kahn round out a solid cast of battlers. Old characters get interesting updates, such as a non-demon Scorpion, Empress Mileena, and a revived-through-necromancy Liu Kang.

Story mode is only one aspect of MKX. There is a multitude of online functions built into the game. Everything feels alive, with rotating challenge towers that swap out every day, week, etc. Towers are often themed, such as “if you duck, you lose health” or “fight with one health bar!”. Standard, consistent towers are built in to the game, and Arcade mode is played through the 9-fighter basic tower that you’d expect from a Mortal Kombat game. Online play works just fine on PS4, I never noticed any lag in my matches and the game matches you with fellow Kombatants smoothly.

The other big online function is factions. When you start the game for the first time, you’re tasked with joining a faction, such as Sub Zero’s Lin Kuei or Sonya Blade’s Special Forces. Completing any task in-game nets you points towards your faction’s strength, and whichever faction has the most points at the end of each week gets a koin currency bonus. Performing specific tasks gives you extra points, and running through faction towers or fighting an ultra-strong faction boss also throws more points into the pot. Initially, the mode was a bore as most players flocked to a single team and won multiple weeks in a row, but a few weeks out, teams have evened out and the functionality is passive yet rewarding. Every battle feels more important, even if you’re just playing a single match against a CPU offline.

Mortal Kombat X plays like a dream. I said previously that I had never played an MK game, but I did mess with Injustice a while back, and MKX improves on the foundation the DC fighter laid. Stage interactables return from Injustice, and MK9‘s three-pronged meter makes a come back, which allows for a devastating x-ray move when full. I took to MKX quickly, even with its dreaded block button. Even moving from Injustice to this made me a bit worried, but once blocking becomes a twitch-action, you’ll be uppercutting fools in no time. MKX as a fighter plays perfectly fine, but as a package, it feels gutted.

The Krypt returns in MKX, and is a bit more interactive than Mortal Kombat 9’s version. Walking around a graveyard, you come across kombatant’s signature items, solve puzzles, and spend koins you receive from winning battles or clearing challenges during tower runs. One piece of DLC is the ability to purchase everything in the Krypt for twenty dollars. This is a pricy option, especially considering that you can grind out every item in the Krypt by playing the game and customizing your player icon and banner to give koin bonuses. Other fighting games charge money to unlock costumes and the like, but most ask for challenges to be cleared to unlock the items without real money, not in-game currency that takes a long time to grind out. It feels like a free to play game’s strategy and it’s off-putting, but not game-breaking.

Other than the Krypt, the rest of MKX’s DLC is questionable at best. You can purchase Easy Fatalities, which lets you skip inputting a short code to perform a fatality at the end of a match. The Krypt spits these out at times, but you can pause and look at your move list to check what the fatality input is anyway, so these items are nearly worthless to begin with. DLC characters like Goro and Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees are fun additions, but feel sketchily removed from the base game. Goro was a pre-order bonus, and Jason was added just weeks after the game’s launch. Many future DLC characters are included in the main game’s story, such as Tanya, who is already confirmed for release in the coming weeks. The base game doesn’t include their variations, but it feels wrong seeing these character’s models in game and being told “you’ve gotta pay to play as them in a few months, see ya later!” Plus, paying for the season pass nets you characters a week early, which is somehow even grimier.

Speaking of grime, everything about MKX is suitably nasty. The classic Mortal Kombat gore-charm is here in full force, and if you can stomach it, the blood and guts explosions are just crazy enough to be inoffensive. Mortal Kombat prides itself in presenting a world that takes itself seriously and showing just how silly it can get. It’s an 80’s action movie and a grindhouse torture-porn flick, and MKX wants you to laugh along instead of shriek in fear. Comparisons to the Fast and Furious franchise and other self-aware movie series of late aren’t far off from the truth.

Mortal Kombat X is a hard game to recommend right now. If you’re going to get serious at the meta and attempt to dive into online play, I’d say go for it. If you’re interested in fighting games in general, I also recommend MKX there. There’s enough in the game to satiate diehard fans easily, but if you’re just itching to play through the story and mess with the characters, waiting for the eventual Game of the Year/all DLC included version would be your best bet. Most of this game’s problems can be lobbied at the publisher instead of the developer, which is a damn shame, since MKX could’ve easily been this year’s best fighting game otherwise.

The post Mortal Kombat X (PS4) Review appeared first on Gamesline.

• 0:26 – Introductions
• 5:30 – Mike’s games; Civ V, Cities in Motion, Minecraft
• 11:06 – Niall’s games; OlliOlli 2, SSX, Tony Hawk, Final Fantasy 8
• 22:15 – Lauren’s games; Hyperdevotion Noire, Civ V
• 32:27 – John’s games; Smash Bros., Guilty Gear Xrd, OlliOlli 2
• 42:30 – News; New Xbox lead, Mortal Kombat X, Street Fighter 5, Final Fantasy Type-0, Tales From the Borderlands, Metal Gear 5, Battletoads (yes, really, Battletoads), Danganronpa, Maxis, Rock Band 4
• 1:16:15 – Questions. I apologize on behalf of us all.

Get intimate with Video Game Choo Choo via iTunes, Hipcast, or Direct download.

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