Metareview -- Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Xbox 360, PS3)

by Alexander Sliwinski on Nov 18th 2008 5:15PM

With Midway's holiday hopes (and financial future) pinned on Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, it appears the reviewers aren't going to help the company out. Barring major outlier Giant Bomb and its 5/5, most outlets appear to be sticking around 80 and below. If it does well at retail, MK vs. DC may help prevent the publisher from hearing an ominous voice-over: "Finish him!"

GamePro (80/100): "Though far from a technical fighting game, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe exceeds expectations by delivering a solidly enjoyable casual fighter. The Mature-rated gore is missed, but the core combat here feels more confident and energetic than it has in years."
IGN (75/100): "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is fun and a solid entry into the franchise, but I doubt many folks will find it entertaining past a rental. Casual players will punch through the storyline before burning out after getting stumped by one or two Kombo Challenges, while Mortal Kombat fans will have trouble accepting the toned down Fatalities and somewhat slower gameplay."
GameSpy (70/100): "Though MK vs. DC purports to shake up the franchise, the reality is that among the many new touches that the game adds it still lacks the depth of other fighters available today. Again, it doesn't feel dramatically different from its predecessors, save for new mini-game modes and a big facelift. The movesets are rather generic (most are a variation of "down, forward, button") and feel a tad antiquated. Its big hook (the crossover license) can't justify the relatively shallow fighting on hand."
1UP (B-): (Calculated as 67 on Metacritic) "MK vs. DCU is an oddly enjoyable distraction from "real" fighters. Its masher-friendly controls appeal to me in a casual-gamer way, and the midmatch minigames (damage-percentage tugs-of-war, airborne ass-kickings with the defender mirroring the aggressor's button-presses in a bid for dominance) give the fights a sort of party-game vibe."

Source

Tags: midway, mk-vs-dc, mortal-kombat, mortal-kombat-vs-dc-universe, PS3, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (56)

I'll get this game when the price drops a bit. I'm really excited to play it.

I posted it before but I'll post it again.

Giant Bomb's Jeff Gertman's review of MK v DC. 5/5 stars

http://www.giantbomb.com/mortal-kombat-vs-dc-universe/61-20449/reviews/

This guy knows what he's talking about when it comes to fighting games.

Yeah that was the first review I saw of the game. Giant Bomb is currently the most valued source of game reviews to me.
X-Play and Gamespot used to be very high in my opinion, but they've changed over the past few months.

5/5.. seriously? For an MK game?

Am I the only one seriously annoyed at the B- which translates to a 67 on metacritic? How is a B- (the B scale being 80-89 points) the equivalent of a 67? Is this an error, or is this just an example of the world we live in where if your game isn't an A, noone is buying it, and we adjust the number scale accordingly?

moral of the story: Don't trust Metacritic

Actually, it should translate to a 67 (I think). 1UP has always used 50/5.0 as their average, which is now represented by the C grade. So a B- would probably be around a 67.

The larger problem lies with metacritic. I would say a 67 is favorable, but apparently it's average.

That logic doesn't really hold. A B- should be a B- no matter what scale the publication is using. Then again...it does seem to hold...but only in this sort of bizarro world where EGM didn't intend for their F-A+ scale to coincide with the F-A+ scale in American schools (0-59 is an F,60 to 69 is some form of D,70 to 79 is some form of C, 80 to 89 is some form of B, 90-99 is some form of A). If it says somewhere in the magazine that this is the case, and they still want to attempt to apply a scale with 13 points (F to A+) to fit with their old 5 point scale, then I'll admit that Metacritic is wrong. Otherwise, Metacritic has serious problems with their score reporting.

I wouldn't say that it matters, except that jobs are lost based on Metacritic scores (Sad as that is). Not that I trust metacritic to tell me if a game is good.

Anyone buy this yet? what do you think of it?

I got it on release day and I absolutely love it! The story mode is awesome (for a fighting game), it's very balanced, and the online play is fun.

This is by far the best MK since MK2!

I don't think Metacritic ever went to grade school. The last time I got a 67 on something, it was not accompanied by a B-.

Seriously, WTF? If that's how they're calculating then their composite ratings are worthless. 67 at every school I went to was a D.

So how would Metacritic value an F? 0? 25? 42?

Who knows? That's sort of a pitfall of converting letter grades that don't have numerical scores to actual scores. But what I do know is B- is not a 67.

You're right, if you do the math to convert 1up's letter grades to a 100 point system, it's actually lower than that. About a 54 I think.

Does it really matter what numerical value they give an F? Review scores are generally in the same range, usually if a game sucks a game sucks and all the scores will show it. Anywhere in the 0-50 range isn't going to make much of a difference to a crappy games reviews.

Oops, got my math wrong, a B- is a 62. Silly grading systems.

CTC, that's sort of the problem with game reviews. 50/100 should be the mid range, not 75/100.

But then you have to get into the way the human psyche works. 50/100 doesn't sound good, even though it would mean the game is mediocre, but 75/100 sounds much more appealing, even though it essentially means the same thing.

@Zertoss

The problem with that math is that's not how a typical grade scale works. Yeah, you could call 50 "average" for in a 100 point scale, but virtually no one is going to equate 50 with a C.

And, honestly, that's not Metacritic's place to do that. If that's how 1UP intends their score to be taken, then fine... but if 1UP actually uses a normal grading scale then a B- is not 67. That would go against the intent of the letter grade and invalidates Metacritic's composites. In other words, if 1UP intends a B- to be an 80 and Metracritic assigns a 67 then Metracritic loses credibility.

Or its 1up's fault for using a ridiculous system that no one (except perhaps those who have read about 50 of there reviews to get a good sense of what they think in contrast to their grading system) really gets.

There is a reason metacritic standardises it to out of 100, because its accurate, and its numerical, therefore we can gauge a percentage. Someone should force the websties to all standardise to out of 100, because im sick of seeing 4 star reviews converted to 80 when they probably arent, and 5 stars converted to 100 when they most certainly arent.

clearly you dont go to a school where there is a curve and everyone with a 40% or above gets an A ^_^

Using a GPA 4.0 system:

B- = 2.7

2.7/4.0= 67.5

So it's by a 4.0 system that is used in college apparently, or so that is what my math has brought about.

FlamingEffigy, I'm fairly sure anyone who went to school "gets" 1up's scoring system. Or do you not understand what a B- represents? Or an F? Please.

The REAL POINT here is that 1up doesn't want anyone converting their letter grades to numbers, percentages, graphs, pie charts, thumbs up/down, apples or oranges. They were tired of people misinterpretting their number scores (instead of actually READING their reviews) so they switched to letters. Metacritic has NO BUSINESS trying to speak on behalf of 1up. Knock it off!

I actually really like 1up's scoring system. I think it's somewhat open ended (vague?) enough where I feel compelled to dig into the review and can realize and take into account the reviewer's own opinion to make my own decision on whether I think it's worth picking up.

I was told there would be no math.

Yeah, not really surprised. The MK games haven't fared well in the 3d era.

I think they should work on fixing the stiff gameplay instead of just tossing in new characters for each game. (maybe they have, I haven't been paying much attention recently)

Although "Its masher-friendly controls", did they totally revamp the controls? Because the couple games before this were anything but masher-friendly.

B- a 67? I still don't know if I should pick this up!!! =(

This game also got a 100 from Giant Bomb

Noted in the post.

While it's unrelated to the game, in what kind of fucked up world is a B- equal to a 67/100?

Grad school. A 'B' starts at 92% for me.

Uh, you've got it backwards. That would make a B- an even HIGHER score than the normal 80, not lower.

Unless you're saying that in your school an A is in the 93-100 range and a B is in the 67-92 range, which would just be all kinds of screwed up.

Wait, sorry, you are correct. Maybe the people who run Metacritic went to remedial school where a 'B' was 67? I dunno.

I really can't believe the game has been getting such high reviews.. Firstly, I have nothing against the idea of mergine the two universes, and I'm even quite a fan of MK.

But the gameplay featured here was outdated in the late 90's, I thought Deadly Alliance and Deception were pretty bad, but it's completely unacceptable for the 360/PS3.

It's stiff, slow, and still works with dial-a-combo. Compare it to the fluid fighting engines of things like Tekken, Soulcalibur or DoA and it looks like a complete joke.

ATTENTION MIDWAY: Want free money? Here's what you do: Re-release the SNES or Genesis version of NBA Jam with updated players and some new modes/features as NBA Jam 2008 on XBox Live and/or PSN! Retro graphics, modern players ... come on, how great would that be? 4-player action now that a lot of people actually have 4 controllers. I'd buy it.

A simple arcade HD redo of NBA JAM would sell like hotcakes. A lot of licensing going on there however.

why the hell did they remove the gore? this is mortal kombat, gore is the whole point

I'm pretty sure it's because:

1. So more places would sell it to minors.
2. DC objected to having its characters subjected to eviscerations, etc.

According to homeschooling.about.com (came up in a google search for letter grade to percentage calculator) "Typical grade scale: 90-100% = A; 80-89% = B; 70-79% = C; 60-69% = D; 59% and below = F"

Which seems about right.

However, they're calculating it like this:

f0, e-1, e2, e+3, d-4, d5, d+6, c-7, c8, c+9, b-10, b11, b+12, a-13, a14, a+15

100/15 = 6.66, and 6.66 * 10 rounded up is 67.

Does 1up even give E's? I thought most grading scales went straight from D to F.

Dude you could have written that alot better.

I just stared at it for a minute, thinking it was some series or something, wondering where you were coming up with all these variables.

Ugh, and now I notice that you apologized for that in the post below...

Second time doing this, because I did exactly what you did the first time. Awesome.

Again, sorry about the notation. I know it's pretty crappy, but it gets the point across.

@Vcize: That may be true, but then the whole thing makes no sense, mathematically speaking. I guess if you added a value to F and gave that + and - ratings it would work, but is there a such thing as an F-?

Also...
* apologizes for horrendous notation *

If early reviews are usually the best reviews then I expect it to go down hill from here.

Wow. I wasn't expecting this game to do that well...

Ugh, and now I notice that you apologized for that in the post below...

And I'll just totally forget to click the reply box. Fantastic.

I'm pissed, it did better then Animal Crossing...

Now I'm not pissed, I'm sad.

Now I'm depressed.

I put it in a reply but I figured I'd repost it as its own topic.

GPA 4.0 scale
B- = 2.7
2.7/4.0 = 67.5

That is my guess of what metacritic is doing.

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Metareview -- Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Xbox 360, PS3)

Reader Comments (56)

Posted: Nov 18th 2008 5:21PM Emil K said

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