Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe

Rating:


Price: $59.99

The Skinny: The Mortal Kombat and DC Comics worlds collide, pitting some of your favorite heroes and villains against one another in a fight to the death. Well, at least until the severe bruising.

The Good: The character art is spot on and the storylines, spearheaded by Ed Boon on the MK side and Jimmy Palmiotti (Manhunter, Secret Six) on the DC side, make a faithful transition to next-gen consoles. Veterans of Street Fighter's hadouken duo Ken and Ryu will have no problem figuring out the moves for the characters—most of them are some permutation of "down," "front," and "button". Others will take solace in the traditional method of playing video games: button mashing until your thumb feels broken.

The Bad: Once you get past the wow factor, you're left with only a few stellar hours of gameplay. The series was built with a foundation of over-the-top, soul-crushing, permanently disabling fatalities, but what you'll find here are a mixture of toned down love taps that will ultimately disappoint. Sure, superheroes aren't supposed to kill their opponents (they get something called "heroic brutalities"), but slapping on weak finishers to even the MK fighters—seriously, not one severed limb?—is hard to defend. Also, the online play is shaky, at best, and it's highly unlikely many will venture out into the rough waters of Xbox Live and PSN very long when lag really starts to creep into the servers.

Maxim Tip: You won't find the move list for fatalies or brutalities anywhere in the game. But, you're on the Internet and Uncle Google's door is always open.

Buy, Rent, or Disembowel? A solid rental. Time to break out your Superman jammies!

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Smackdown vs. Raw 2009

Rating:


Price: $59.99

The Skinny: Pick your favorite spandex-clad wrestler, or create your own, and ride him all the way to the WWE heavyweight championship. Wait, there has to be a better way to say that.

The Good: The all-new "Road to Wrestlemania" storyline mode, although a bit repetitive, is satisfying. It will keep you occupied for a few hours, and may even get you to tune in to one of their 5,000 weekly TV shows. The controls are easy—just press one button when your meter flashes to pull off finishing moves—and the presentation of wrestler entrances, which includes live footage, is top notch. Most impressive is the Create-a-Finisher feature which allows you to make your own signature move.

The Bad: Making a game for a niche audience in a way disqualifies certain people from really getting into it. With that said, this is mostly fan service geared toward those who know what the hell an Inferno Match even is. (Unless you live in Los Angeles—you call that "Tuesdays.")

Maxim Tip: If you're looking to throwdown on the road, go with the PSP version—while the DS version has all of the same features, it has touch controls which are innacurate and sluggish.

Buy, Rent, or Disembowel? Buy. The WWE may have given you a low blow with the last few efforts, but there's no shame in picking this one up.