Despite all my rage I am still just Johnny Cage: Ars reviews Mortal Kombat part II

The Arcade Stick

Performance Designed Products has released a $130 arcade stick to coincide with the release of Mortal Kombat, and the thing is a beast. The first thing you'll notice when you pick up the stick is the weight: this is a huge, heavy arcade stick. The legs are designed to be placed on the floor or a table, but between them you'll find a thick pad of velvety memory foam, so it feels wonderful when you rest it on your legs. This is a great touch, and it gives you much more flexibility with how you'd like to sit and play.

The stick is wired, and in another nice piece of design the USB cable is detachable, and you can store it within the stick itself. A faux-gold latch under the front lip allows you to open the stick and keep the game and cable inside, and the electronics are kept behind clear plastic so you can see exactly how it's wired. By removing a slightly absurd 19 screws you'll be able to get at the electronics, buttons, and stick to modify the hardware to your own specifications.

This may not be the best stick for modding however, as it's so specific in purpose and design. This is an American stick, through and through. The buttons are concave, the joystick itself is the American bat-style, and everything feels heavier than you're used to with the Japanese-style sticks from Mad Catz or Hori.

The large, heavy arcade stick

The buttons and stick are made by Suzo Happ, so these are actual arcade parts, and the buttons are laid out to emulate the classic Mortal Kombat arcade machines— and that's a good thing for this game. But by keeping the buttons in this configuration, you're going to lose some playability when you move to other games—the standard Viewlix-style button layout is much more versatile. The L1 button is kept to the left and under the main "X" shape of buttons, and the L2 button is smaller and to the left of the Start and Select buttons, making it all but inaccessible when playing normally. In all, this is an amazing stick for Mortal Kombat, but be aware that you don't have easy access to all the buttons for other games.

The stick's innards are held behind clear plastic emblazoned with the Mortal Kombat logo

While the versatility of the stick takes a hit because of its level of dedication, this is an admirable product and it makes me very interested to see what PDP Designs creates in the future. I've been playing the game with the stick almost exclusively, and my youngest child has also been caught using it as a step stool more than once. This thing is built like a brick, but performs like a champ. I couldn't be happier with it as a peripheral.

If you're lucky enough find a Tournament Edition package, you can buy the stick along with the game itself for only $150, a very good deal.

Here's what we don't like

You earn coins by playing the game, and you use those coins, or "koins," to unlock different items in the game. Sometimes it's a code, sometimes it's a piece of artwork, and sometimes it's a fatality—and there's the problem. Why the hell do I have to unlock characters' fatalities using in-game currency? [Update: The fatalities are always available to you, the unlocks simply add the button presses to the character's move list] The rest of the stuff I don't care about (although it's funny to watch people getting tortured before they give up the item you just purchased), but I don't think fatalities are something that should be unlocked. You can disagree, but the whole thing just seemed tasteless to me.

Noob Saibot trailer

The game has also fallen victim to the preorder bonus, which means you get different outfits and different bonuses by buying the game from different retailers. This is content that was made for the game, finished by launch, and then removed in order to give you a reason to buy the game at a specific place. But with so much content held for any number of retailers, it begins to feel like it's impossible to get the entirety of the game. My copy of the game came directly from the publisher, and had three cards with codes to enter to unlock the content. Yay.

The story mode is also beyond goofy, and the character models may look great when fighting, but when they begin to walk around and talk to each other, things become much less impressive. The story is silly and the characters speak in stilted, awkward dialogue, but it's worth going through at least once to see everything. The game's story has always had a B-movie feel, and this is no different.

A quick note on the 3D

The PlayStation 3 version of the game can run in 3D, and it's a very nice use of the effect. The characters are flat, so they look clear even if you're not wearing the 3D glasses, but the foreground looks close to you and the background looks farther away. Each of the levels has depth, and it's a very cool (but subtle) effect. You'll see a few other neat uses of the technology, such as Kung Lao's thrown hat flying at you if the character blocks it.

Sony's Rey Guiterrez, Sid Shuman, and I lay it down at Sony's lounge

Is it worth buying a 3D television for this game? Lord no. But if you have a 3D TV already, the PlayStation 3 version of the game is the one to get, because it really does add another level to the game's graphics. Plus, the PlayStation 3 edition of the game comes with Kratos as a playable character. Who can argue with that?

Sony keeps adding 3D in games, and lately it's hitting more than it's missing. All of this is making it harder to stay away from 3D displays, especially with the price continuing to dip.

Finish Him!

The game has a few small missteps, but overall this is a brilliant package that shows what can be done in the world of fighting games. It has multiple ways to play, a strong Story mode, Challenges worth hours and hours of gameplay, a fighting system that's easy to pick up but deep enough to dig into, and a long list of hidden things to uncover. If you're even a casual fighting game fan this is a must-buy, and for fans of the Mortal Kombat franchise this is something akin to the second coming.

The Good

• A solid variety of classic characters
• Plenty to do even in single-player
• All the fighters feel distinct, with their own look and move set
• The arcade stick released alongside the game is a triumph, even if it is rather specialized
• Good use of 3D on the PS3 version

The Bad

• Putting in all the codes to get your content
• The Story mode features some silly voice acting
• Having to unlock fatalities in your move list
• The two-on-one fights in the story mode are pretty much nonsense
• Oh, and that last battle? No more of that, please

The Ugly

• Any X-Ray attack that involves a character's crotch. The game shows everyone as having a single pad of muscles where their genitals would be, regardless of sex. I'm pretty sure that's not anatomically correct.
• I'm not against sexy characters in video games, but every female fighter looked... well... I don't think those outfits would be very good to actually fight in

Verdict: Buy