Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat 2011 vs 1992

2011
Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition (3DS) vs Mortal Kombat (Xbox 360)

Imagine a world where you’ve got a miniature animated army, some who’ve been around for nearly 25 years, in the palm of your hand. You choose your finest fighter to take on 8 consecutive fighters to be crowned the baddest, maddest fighter on the street, airfield or jungle in glorious 3 dimensions. Welcome to SSIV – 3D.


Imagine a world, on an original 2D fighting plane, ram packed with glorious gore, brand new x-ray super moves and the old favourite - fatality moves. Combining mortals and gods – a fight to save earthrealm at any cost. On the big screen, 27 playable characters, new lands and the almighty pit. It can only be Mortal Kombat.

Both operate on the classic arcade style 2D fighting plane (this was the second most fan requested feature for the developers of MK9), they both have new playing modes and features (SF – collecting figurines, utilising the innovative street pass to fight battles when you’re not looking and MK has Tag Team mode and Krypt collections) and they both offer online playing possibilities. MK has the big screen possibilities to see all that lush and detailed background and beautifully rendered character artwork vs the small screen, tightly packed, diamond like quality of SF. They’re both brilliant and it’s the first time a fighting game has felt good enough being portable to compete with the big screen big boys - though some of the intricate moves are a trifle difficult to execute on the d-pad. In comparison the 360 controller reacts to every feather light touch in your finest fatal hour, if you can’t pull it off – tools workman bad blames his a always.

What makes both such strong games is the speed of play, the combo’s and there’s a familiarity, like they’re both old friends but have been re-energised, pimped, stripped down and re-invented for the modern fighter. MK runs at an impressive 60 fps and the fighting system is as impressively deep as the 3DS tasty little screen. Both games are dip inable, but MK satisfies that thirst for a heavy session, romping through the story mode, playing through each of the characters and slowly unlocking your XP. The more you play Mortal Kombat, the better it gets.

1992
Street Fighter II (SNES) vs Mortal Kombat (Megadrive)

Twas just shy of 20 years when these first fighting beasts made the leap from arcade goodness to home console happiness, but now, many iterations later, we’re on MK9 and SF43 (ok a slight exaggeration). Who wins? 1990s vs 2010s, SF vs Mk. You decide. Or rather, I will.

I, Mr Cyan, can safely say that the class of 2011 lay to bed any of the nasty, complicated and unnecessarily embellished versions of the 2 games in the last 20 years.

As the great Chairman Mao once said: Civilize the mind but make savage the body.

One Man's Trash....

Yesterday we saw a dazzling array of skimpy tops, over sized sunglasses, skinny white legs and sandals, neon shorts and burnt necks/beer bellies/noses as we trooped around our favourite Car Boot in search of yet more treasure! In fact the weather was so hot, the boot wasn't very busy this week as people must have been staying shady cool indoors or had gone to the beach - which meant we could shimmy out way to the front of each stall with ease and as always, our rummaging paid off.

The first bargain of the day was a very pretty maroon handbag for 30p with the money going towards the Bournemouth Youth Marching Bands - music to Tracey's ears. In the same row of stalls, we also picked out some fabulous ThunderCats badges (25p) and two more cowboy books to add to our collection. Written by Edna Walker Chandler, illustrated by Jack Merryweather and first published in England in 1966 but originally written in the early 1950's, The Cowboy Sam series is a US equivalent of our Peter and Jane Ladybird books here in the UK. Featuring Sam and his friends from around the ranch, they have a vocabulary list at the back of each book whilst the red, yellow and black pictures are beautiful - best find of the day.

We also picked up some plastic gadgets that turn cans into bottles and keeps your pop fresh, handy for the beach, some garish coasters with Spanish dancers on and we spied a game for our niece - Matching Pairs. Tracey and her sister used to play this when they were little. It's a great memory game with fabulous pictures. This weekend, we've also been playing with our new Nintendo 3DS! Though we didn't pick up any StreetPasses at the boot we did use it to take a photo of our bargains when we got home!

Finally, we got a huge bag of baked goodies for £3 - flapjack, Eccles cakes, pasties, a honey seeded loaf, a stilton and red onion loaf and a fruit loaf. Tasty happy sunny days.

#tamzombie - the results

Earlier this month, I got a tad excited as @tamcgarrigan hit the magical 100 followers on Twitter! To celebrate this small but satisfying achievement, I invited people to send me titles of their favourite zombie games which would form the inspiration for some free Mother's Day cards. Some of the suggestions included the Nazi zombies from Call of Duty: Black Ops, the cowboy zombies from Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare and our green friends from Plants Vs Zombies. However, after much deliberation and playing of zombie games late at night, the final designs are ready and feature two iconic zombies on their best behaviour - one of the Bella Sisters from Resident Evil 4 and the big bag of gas that is Boomer from Left 4 Dead.

All you have to do now is select your favourite card, print it off, write a lovely comment for your mum along the lines of "I will try not to eat your brains this Mother's Day, love from your walking dead son/daughter"

Huge thanks to everyone on Twitter for their suggestions and comments.

tambo