PS4 > PC

OK, so MKX has been out for a few days and I find that even though I preordered the game to have access to Goro, I haven’t even used Goro yet.

But I have noticed something interesting. When I bought the Kombat Pack, I was under the impression that I would have access not only to Goro, but to Jason, Predator, and others. It took a little digging around, but it turns out that I don’t have access to any of that extra stuff I paid $30 for.

I’m kinda pissed. When Steam was there asking for my credit card number, nowhere did it say that I’d be paying more money for something they weren’t planning on delivering any time soon. They were deliberately vague in a way that would make any reasonable consumer believe that they would get the new characters with the release of the game. Then, a few days later, they announce a release date for *one* of the new characters. Jason. But I still have to wait for them to release the other guys.

I don’t usually buy virtual property. This may be the first, or one of the first times I’m buying it. But I feel robbed, misled, and scammed. These guys took my money, and now I have to wait until they feel like giving me what I paid for?

So I put a ticket into Steam, and told them I wanted a refund. Their answer was that they don’t give refunds, and that I’ve already played the game for 40 hours. Like the guys down at Steam are so noob that they don’t realize the difference between the release game and the additional DLC content.

So now I’m left in a position where I could cancel the purchase on the credit card. Obviously, if I wait too long, they’ll release Jason, and then they’ll get to say that I have received the DLC content. At least part of it.

I’m honestly torn on what to do here. What doesn’t make it any easier is the fact that the PS4 version of MKX is the best version. I feel kinda lied to and cheated by Ed Boon, who said that the PC version would be just as good as the console versions.

It’s not. Where should I begin? With a minor aesthetic change. On the PS4 version, after the character select, there is an animation where the characters walk away from each other. That doesn’t happen in the PC version.

But I’m much more upset with the netcode. This game plays horrible. I’ve had more MKX disconnects in this first few weeks, than I’ve had in *years* of playing StarCraft 2. I started keeping track of the number of disconnected matches. So far, I’m at about 1 in 10. Which doesn’t sound so bad, but statistically speaking, that sucks.

It sure doesn’t help that it takes a long time to find a match, and that I’m often matched against much stronger, or weaker, opponents. In short, I find myself wishing that I had purchased a PS4 instead of a new computer because I’m very unhappy with the PC version.

I could write a whole other post about the release day debacle, but it’s passed us, and I’m sure I’d just be beating a dead horse. Next post I’ll finally get around to talking about gameplay and characters.

In the beginning ...

I can still remember the first time I ever saw Mortal Kombat. My father had taken me to Coconut Grove for some reason, which brought us by an arcade I’d never seen before.

Yes, this was before people had any kind of video games at home, and you needed to go to an arcade to play. I was so young I wasn’t tall enough to see over the joystick. But I spotted Mortal Kombat right away. It was the newest machine in the arcade, and by far, it had the best graphics.

This was an era when video games were horribly pixelated. But Mortal Kombat looked like real people. It might’ve been the first game to use rotoscoping. Of course my father gave me some quarters and I started to play. I don’t think it was long before someone got knocked into the pit, and I saw my first fatality in a video game.

I was hooked.

Eventually the pizza place by the movie theater got a Mortal Kombat game, and every Saturday and Sunday I’d ride my bike there and play. I got good. I came to learn how to play every character. I knew all of the fatalities and special moves. It got to a point where I’d go to the arcade with a few bucks, knocking I’d only need a few quarters. That’s because I could play one game, and then continue to beat a long line of competitors. Winner stays, loser gets to the back of the line.

And right there I think I’ve hit upon one of the best aspects of the arcade era that sadly, is nearly extinct. The fact that, back in the day, if you were good, you would gain some street cred. You would be able to play for forty five minutes on a single game. People would know you as that guy. The incentive to win, so that you could keep playing for free, that’s what’s missing today.

Anyway, a few years later, my dad got a job in Arizona. In the middle of the desert on the Navajo Indian reservation. Shortly after that, Mortal Kombat 2 came out. But because it was now a two hour drive to the arcade, I was unable to practice. Home consoles weren’t yet good enough to play Mortal Kombat. My love of fighting games was forced to take a hiatus.

Which brings us to the present. Mortal Kombat X is upon us. I was really into StarCraft 2. But my PC was barely good enough to play it. I decided to get a new PC, just to play Mortal Kombat X, with the added benefit that I’d also be able to play the new StarCraft when it came out.

I bought the PC, and a fightstick to go along with it. Sure, I could have used a controller. But I hadn’t ever played fighting games with controllers. I’m now the proud owner of a Qanba fightstick. It works great on my PC. It doesn’t appear to work on an Xbox One, but they never said that it would. Still, I’m anxious to take the stick over to a friend’s house and see if it works on his PS4.

When I bought MKX on Steam, I went ahead and sprang for the deluxe pack, so that I could play with all of the characters.