Mortal Kombat
First off, the dinner party aspect of the night was a success - since everyone had at least two helpings of stew I think I must have done a good job at cooking it.
Now on to what really matters - the new Mortal Kombat!
Holy shit is it fun! The thing is it delivers on what you want from a standard fighting game and the controls are much more responsive and fluid than any I've experienced on any other fighting game.
But, what makes it awesome for having people over are two things:
1. The ability to have a four player game going where each team has two fighters in the arena at once.
2. Much, much more awesome than that is the "Try Your Luck" mode in the two player game where it has a virtual slot machine that randomly changes the mode of the game for each fight series. Some of the changes are hilarious! We were laughing our asses off much of the time. Sometimes it makes your characters have no arms (and imagine a fighting game armless.) Sometimes it makes you play the game upside down. Other times you suffer from dementia and both characters alternate between responding to commands normally and doing the opposite of what you tell it to do. Sometimes your characters have no heads. Other times there is no gravity. Still other times the floor becomes randomly magnetic. There's even a mode where you can't see either character and just have to sort of guess where you and your opponent are by what you hit and the sound coming from the machine. It makes for very interesting fights and a lot of laughs, because it's not like you can train for it - it's completely random and a wonderful idea for a party game (because playing armless and upside down at the same time will sort of make both an experienced player and a newbie go "what the fuck?" and just play to see what happens.)
I haven't tried the one player "story mode" yet so that may suck - but from a multiplayer level it kicks ass. (I'm still wondering if the slot machine will give us a "legless" mode at some point and have us fighting on stumps.)
Now on to what really matters - the new Mortal Kombat!
Holy shit is it fun! The thing is it delivers on what you want from a standard fighting game and the controls are much more responsive and fluid than any I've experienced on any other fighting game.
But, what makes it awesome for having people over are two things:
1. The ability to have a four player game going where each team has two fighters in the arena at once.
2. Much, much more awesome than that is the "Try Your Luck" mode in the two player game where it has a virtual slot machine that randomly changes the mode of the game for each fight series. Some of the changes are hilarious! We were laughing our asses off much of the time. Sometimes it makes your characters have no arms (and imagine a fighting game armless.) Sometimes it makes you play the game upside down. Other times you suffer from dementia and both characters alternate between responding to commands normally and doing the opposite of what you tell it to do. Sometimes your characters have no heads. Other times there is no gravity. Still other times the floor becomes randomly magnetic. There's even a mode where you can't see either character and just have to sort of guess where you and your opponent are by what you hit and the sound coming from the machine. It makes for very interesting fights and a lot of laughs, because it's not like you can train for it - it's completely random and a wonderful idea for a party game (because playing armless and upside down at the same time will sort of make both an experienced player and a newbie go "what the fuck?" and just play to see what happens.)
I haven't tried the one player "story mode" yet so that may suck - but from a multiplayer level it kicks ass. (I'm still wondering if the slot machine will give us a "legless" mode at some point and have us fighting on stumps.)