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(Originally published at the Onion AV Club)

In the family of fighting games, Mortal Kombat is the middle child who tortures cats in his spare time, but can also dazzle with fits of charisma. The series loves gruesome combat, but pines for the mainstream adulation. When games were less bloody, that was an easy balance to strike. Gouts of gore plus catchphrases (”Finish him!”) and the allure of shocking hidden fatalities added up to massive sales and popularity. Now that those elements are commonplace, how to recapture the attention of old?

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(Originally published by the Onion AV Club)

In 2006, Gears Of War came off like an incredibly polished proof of concept. Instead of having gamers charge in and kill everything, it wanted them to hunker behind fallen columns and overturned cars… then kill everything. Though Gears was slower and bulkier than most twitchy action games, the action was oddly visceral. Somehow, having to pump a hundred bullets into an enemy rather than ten was an appealing change of pace.

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(Originally published by the Onion AV Club)

In 1997, Interplay published Fallout, a post-apocalyptic role-playing game noted for funny, challenging open-ended gameplay. A year earlier, Bethesda Softworks released The Elder Scrolls II, a fantasy RPG also praised for allowing players great freedom. Interplay is long gone, but in 2006, Bethesda released Oblivion, an Elder Scrolls entry with cutting-edge visuals. Great acclaim followed (for open-ended gameplay, natch) and Bethesda promptly purchased the Fallout franchise for an Oblivion-style makeover.

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(Originally published by the Onion AV Club)

Guitar Hero’s fourth chapter is in an unenviable position: trying to emulate but not flagrantly copy the mechanics of its rival, Rock Band. The solution: straddle party and hardcore appeal with a varied track list that includes Michael Jackson and Tool while adding new, unique details to the experience of miming music.

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