Games I've Finished in 2023: The Return

Let's get back to it.

Also I was going to do all these screenshots in black and white, for ~aesthetic~ purposes, but then they looked terrible and blown out. I don't think I'm gonna blow through my alotted storage anytime soon, at least.

Mortal Kombat 1 (PC, but also Switch, which, oof)

I think it's only fair to get the most important part out of the way - as a fighting game, Mortal Kombat 1 is fine. The combat (no K, I'm not a child) is solid, the Kameo (ah heck!!! my hubris!!) system is...neat, but pretty hard to get the hang of. It looks great, they made the Fatalities nice and succinct (as always, it's just faster to do a Brutality if you want to add insult to injury)...it's OK!

But! That's not entirely what Mortal Kombat fans come to the game for, right? While I missed the whole PS2/Xbox era of games, it's safe to say Netherrealm started going hog wild on their Story and Krypt modes back with 2011's Mortal Kombat (9), Mortal Kombat X, and 2019's Mortal Kombat 11, along with the Aftermath epilogue story.

Mortal Kombat 1 picks up from that universe-resetting conclusion of MK11, with Liu Kang, now a Fire God and protector of earth, having carefully crafted a universe in which his greatest enemies (namely Shang Tsung, shown peddling snake poison cures as a traveling salesman) languish in mediocrity, and his allies know a new, different sort of peace. Of course, this doesn't last, and the story that ensues brings in a few new players (and some overlooked ones from the PS2 era), in an incredibly and lavishly presented, if maybe a bit...same-y story of multiverses and treachery and so on.

Hey, at least Baraka gets a fair shake! Dude is the best in this one!

While the final act is pretty disappointing in a story sense, what goes down in the final chapter is...insane. By now it's probably good and spoiled, though I won't dare ruin it here if you haven't seen it. The conclusion is ultimately ho-hum, but that final chapter...damn, what a trip.

So why am I down on MK1? Well, for starters, the PC version isn't super well optimized (they should say outright, kinda like Alan Wake 2 does, that you do not want this thing installed on anything other than an SSD), and the Switch version...has been dragged through the mud enough, but holy moly, what a mess that was. To Shiver and Saber's credit, the patchwork they put into the Switch version doesn't exactly lift its status above "worst version," but you're not getting the face-stretching floating head mess like in the screenshot above.

The Invasions mode, thankfully, is massively improved with season two, but is still pretty dull. You slowly (though they patched a slightly faster speed in) run a character around a sort of board game environment, getting into fights with various conditions tacked on (some, like exploding bugs, are fine - others, like fighting in complete darkness, makes you wonder if they tested this with players at all), with each season culminating in long, challenging fights against the boss character, and a limited fight with a Titan character.

It's...a slog. The Krypt is history, so your main unlocks are going to come from playing through the Invasions maps, and leveling up each character through a battle pass style progression. Even this is scaled back from Mortal Kombat 11 - each character now only has a single piece of gear that can be swapped out (Mileena's sais, Johnny Cage's sunglasses, etc.), and a few different styles with different palettes for each. Though, if you're willing to pony up absurd amounts of cash, there are plenty of unlockables in the game's rotating store (that didn't rotate at all for the first month or so).

I dunno! In a year where Street Fighter 6 righted the wrongs of its previous entry and went above and beyond in nearly every imaginable way, Mortal Kombat 1 feels like it's maybe, at best, treading water, and at worst, a more expensive package with less to offer than Mortal Kombat 11. If you strip it down to the fighting, then, yeah, it's pretty good. But for what they're asking (and continuing to ask, in additional DLC)...I dunno. There's still a chance that future updates will further redeem MK1. If not, well, maybe next time, with Mortal Kombat...2...13...uh, whichever they elect to do.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch)

Oh god, I've never been so happy to be wrong about a first impression.

For some reason, the Nintendo Direct reveal of Super Mario Bros. Wonder rubbed me the wrong way. Was it the flowers? It was probably the flowers. Reminded me too much of the "wah-wah" stuff from New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe, a game I was also terribly wrong about (well, mostly)!

The graphics, which looked weird watching the Direct on my damn telephone (sorry, David Lynch, you were right)? Spectacular. Maybe the best any Mario game has ever looked, easily. The whole Wonder Flower gimmick? Delightful, level by level. And those talking flowers? There's an option to turn them off, but I wouldn't dare. I would defend those talking flowers with my life.

It's not just the wild changes the Wonder Flowers bring to each level, either. The new power-ups (the highly promoted Elephant transformation, of course, but also the Drill and Bubble forms), the astounding graphics and animations, the music, the secret exits - all of it coalesces into one of the most relentlessly upbeat and enjoyable games I've played all year. The level designs are not only smart, but designed in such a way to give you just enough clues to find their secrets, and make you feel like a genius when you do so. The removal of the timer (thank god) and the plethora of ability-granting badges makes the game feel like it's meeting you half way, and letting you play it as you see fit. 

But, in the grand scheme of things, I'm not sure I'll find myself returning to Super Mario Bros. Wonder in the same way I would, say, Super Mario World or Super Mario Bros. 3. Choosing to replay levels without nabbing the Wonder Flower (in the levels that let you do that, anyhow) causes them to sort of fall apart - at the very least, the back half or third of levels are pretty dull without the spectacle the Wonder Flowers bring. And once I had seen my way through those levels, and collected the three purple flower coins, I can't say I was compelled to replay any of the levels for the sake of it in the same way I have been with past Mario games. Also, it's worth adding that the boss fights aren't much to write home about, with even the final boss encounter feeling like a pretty weak challenge to cap things off on.

But! Even for those knocks on the game, the positive experience of playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder far outweighs any gripes I have with the game. I've still got the final two post-game levels haunting me, taunting me, likely to never be finished, and maybe some day I'll be up for the challenge, if not ready to wipe the slate clean altogether and play it again from the beginning.

RoboCop: Rogue City (PC)

Look, I'm gonna say it - I had a hunch with this one. Not sure what it was, exactly, but I had a good feeling about Teyon's stab at your friend and mine, Robert Cop, which is amazing given I not a few months ago booted up Teyon's Rambo: The Video Game, which...I'm going to get back to it, some day, but it's...bad.

RoboCop: Rogue City's demo during the Steam Next Fest has to be up there with, god, I dunno, the Saint's Row demo, in providing a shocking amount for you to play and sell you on the game? It lets you play out not only the opening level of the game (seeing RoboCop and his partner Anne Lewis make their way through a news studio under siege by a gang of punks), but also a pretty decent chunk of the game's immersive-sim style open city segment in Old Detroit, helping citizens, issuing tickets, and doing a little detective work. I can only speak for myself, but that demo pretty much cleared any doubts I had with this one.

But hey, the full game! I've seen RoboCop: Rogue City get what feels like backhanded praise as being an "AA-game," or "shockingly good" or whatever, so I'm just gonna say - it's great, outright, no conditions. Oh, sure, it can be pretty janky, and some of the voice acting could be better (Peter Weller returns for RoboCop, thankfully, and his line reads are all pretty amusing), but I really can't recall the last time I played a FPS like this that really just hones in on being as fun as this game turned out.

It would have been easy to crank out a crummy RoboCop game - it's been done, many times now! But RoboCop: Rogue City oozes with what feels like an earnest, genuine respect for the source material (thankfully closer to the first movie than the sequels). The looks, the sounds, the deafening blasts of RoboCop's Auto-9 pistol, the way the precinct looks exactly as it did in the first film, the way RoboCop's car scrapes the bumper on the ramp in the garage.

The imitation is all there, but what the game strives to tell on its own makes for a better sequel than either of the film sequels. While the meditations on Alex Murphy's past life are pretty well covered in the first two films, RoboCop: Rogue City sees Murphy reconcile with the trauma of his lost life, and has you actively partake in a lot to make you understand why he does what he does for the city of Detroit beyond his programming. Whether that's letting a kid off the hook for getting in over his head with a local chop shop gang, finding a woman's missing cat, or doing the robot for an excited kid in the neighborhood, you really warm up to the couple of blocks of Detroit available to you, and the people within it. As one of the final chapters unfolded in that open area, I scrambled across the city to guarantee everyone's safety, out of more or less genuine care. That's...pretty impressive, if you ask me!

On a technical level, the game is gorgeous. You can quibble about the character models, but they're fine. The environments are gorgeous, and many of them reduce to blood-soaked rubble as you blast your way through them. The shooting is fairly basic (there's a plethora of side arms available to you, but none feel as good as using RoboCop's Auto-9), but you can spend experience points to customize RoboCop to your liking (I'm a nerd and maxed out the trees that would grant me better dialogue options, but if you want to have electric powered punches instead, that's certainly an option). The Auto-9 eventually lets you upgrade it with new PCBs, slotted with Pipe Dream-style bits and pieces to maximize various perks - like full auto, body piercing, and for a few of them, extra gore, as a treat. It seemed like a pointless perk to me at first, but I wound up having a lot of fun with the Ricochet upgrade, which highlights little square areas in the environment that you can bounce bullets off of for nearly one-hit kills. Something extremely satisfying about firing off a few bullets at a ceiling panel and hearing some hidden goon get mulched.

I could gush all day about this damn game. I didn't even touch on the detective missions, or the mission where you're asked to protect the historic court house, and pretty much annihilate it in the process. Absolutely, without a doubt, one of the biggest surprises and best games I've played this year.

And yes, you can shoot guys in the dick.

OK! That's it from me. Sorry, that got...long-winded. I'll try to keep it brief in the next one.