Crossover Time: MK Edition

When my fiance turned to me this afternoon, he posed this little riddle:

"I know you're not feeling up to it right now, but I want you to guess who the next Mortal Kombat DLC character is. He fits in perfectly with the world of MK and has nine movies to his credit."

Given that I had just gotten home from a job interview on a minimal amount of what may be called sleep, I was not exactly in the mind set required for guessing games. In fact, my brain spent more time trying to come up with the word 'tumbleweeds' to describe my mental capacity than actually attempting a guess.

Then, he gave his final clue: running his fingernails against the side of our CPU. I instantly got it.

Still guessing?

Points for creativity, but no. That's not it.

Check out the Mortal Kombat new DLC trailer (HD) at GameTrailers.com. It's ok. I'll wait.

Holy Slasher, Batman! (Or would that be more like 'Unholy'?) I would have never thought of it, but he's kind of a perfect addition when considering the crossover capabilities of the series. When you can take characters from any universe and move them into Out World, I'm honestly surprised that we haven't seen more franchises making cameos in a long standing series like MK.

Some crossovers are not as successful as others.

Seriously? One hit kill there.

The DC crossover was a bit of a failure in my opinion, partially because DC didn't want any of their heroes killing their opponents. They do know that this is Mortal Kombat, right? It was like they saw Marvel vs Capcom and wanted to jump on board with their own rendition. But while Street Fighter is more about the cool moves and the defeats, MK has always been about the over-the-top brutality and murder. Fatalities are one of the places where the series really shines - so to have characters that don't perform really perform them... it just seems out of place and awkward.

From what I have heard (given that I have MK on XBox, I don't have first hand experience) Kratos was an interesting addition to the series, though he telegraphs his moves too much to be much of a competitor against an opponent who knows their way around the combos.

Even with some not-so-great attempts, I am encouraged by the idea of future franchise crossovers in MK, especially from the horror genre. I think it would breathe some new life into the series - keep things from going stale. Also, I would hope that they use these crossover characters a little better than, say, Soul Calibur, which kind of have their guests show up to the party, but don't try to fit them into the storyline any more than through some slow-as-hell scrolling text. Then again, Soul Calibur isn't exactly story driven, but I appreciate the kind of continuity that the story modes in the latest MK give. Rather than it just being about the fighting, I like that there is a fairly well developed interpersonal and political story behind each of the characters. Some more than others.


Any ideas about who else should make the list?