Well, it's been a few days since Midway officially unveiled MK vs. DC Universe. I have been very conflicted about the whole thing but here are my thoughts.

From a purely storyline point of view I don't like the idea of mixing the MK world with any other, just because it taints the purity of the MK universe. With that said though, Midway created MK so they have the right to creatively take it wherever they deem fit. What is really important to me is why they are doing the crossover. There could be two reasons, one because they feel that would be a good direction to creatively take MK towards, and two because they are not doing well financially and are hoping the shock and sensation value of introducing DC characters into MK games would help their sales.

Now, if it was the first reason I can live with it, I still don't like the idea but I can say to myself, 'Well, I don't like the idea, but if it's well done I'll give it a shot". If it's the second one then I'd hate it, but the thing is there is no real way of knowing. It's most likely a little of both.

One thing that struck me in Ed Boon's interview is when he said that he's wanted to do a crossover since the time of MK3. That leads me to think that, at least to a certain degree, the decision was based on creative idea. But of course then he said that their marketing team approached them with the idea of doing a DC crossover, which is an obvious evidence that to a certain degree they did it to cash in on shock and sensationalist value.

Either way, as I said above if it's done well I can live with it, as long as the story in the MK vs. DC is not cannon, i.e. if it's just a one time think, a what if sort of scenario, that doesn't really affect the actual storyline in the real MK world I'll be totally ok with it.

The second concern I have is with how good of a game it will be. Knowing Midway I am skeptical, especially after the debacle that was MKA. As they say, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So with that in mind, if we look at the history of MK games there are certain patterns we can observe that can give us some clues as to the quality of MK vs. DC.

Here are the patterns that I have established in the years 1992-2006:

1. When Midway makes a MK game from scratch they usually do a really good job. Such was the case with MK1. Seeing as how it was the original MK game it was obviously done from scratch and the game was phenomenal, for me it is still the best MK game of all time. All aspects of the game were done exceptionally well, from the never before seen photo realistic graphics, to the well thought out plot, to the amazing characters, great gameplay, and exceptional sounds and music.

The same is true of MKII. Another MK game done from scratch, and another phenomenal achievement. Actually most people still think MKII is the highlight of the series and with very good reasons. I still don' care about the Friendships though

Then came along MK3, yet another MK game done from scratch. Undoubtedly not as good as MK1 or MKII, but still a really good game. I personally enjoyed it a lot, except for the fact that Raiden wasn't in it. It had great graphics, great sound and music, and some good innovations in the gameplay department. Then came along UMK3. I thought it was a good game, but I was a bit turned off by all the palette swapping. That was the first time Midway started exhibiting the tendency for lazy programming, lack of vision, and greed that was to dominate much of their future projects.

The above tendency continued with MKT, which was just UMK3 on steroids and was the worst MK game at that time.

Then came along MK4, which is a weird exception to the pattern of making good games from scratch. It continued the trend of bad MK games and was the low point for MK in general. Many a gaming media announced MK was over at that point. The biggest gripe I had with MK4 were the graphics. Both the arcade and the PS1 version (don't know about the N64 one) featured graphics that were just plain bad. Other than that it wasn't a horrible game, but I think it just didn't rise to the expectations that were placed on it.

That was followed up by a Dreamcast port of MK4 called MK Gold which I know nothing about, cause I never played it.

Then in 2002 MKDA was released and it revitalized MK. It was another game made from scratch and again it was very well done. To be sure, it was not of the caliber of MK1 or MKII, but it was a great game in its own right. It had pretty good graphics, great sounds and music (as always), good story, a good mix of returning and new characters, and a very innovative and fun gameplay. In many was, MKDA was a new beginning for MK.

It was followed up in 2004 by MK Deception, which was an equally great game. It took everything MKDA had and improved on it by adding online mode and a couple of other nice modes (I still say Chess Kombat was a great addition to MK, I wish they'd gone further with it in MKA). There were problems to be sure, mostly with the online mode but all in all it was one of the best games in MK history.

And finally, MKA came along a couple of years later. I personally consider it to be the worst MK game in history. I've written at length about the reasons why so I am not going to go into it here.

So basically the pattern is that they release a good game and then if they re-use the same engine the games quality generally drops.

So based on all that and the fact that there will only be 20-22 characters in MK vs. DC I think there is a good chance it will be a good game. When I say good I mean for the game overall. I don't expect the fighting engine to be anything to write home about. It certainly won't be anywhere near to being on par with Tekken 6 or Soul Calibur IV, but it will probably be better than MKAs.