DRULCast #9 – It does…[not work]! But Mortal Kombat does!

Topic 1 – PSN & SOE:
There’s a part where you guys say it’d be nice if Sony would tell you if your info was stolen. Truth is, there is no way to really know. If someone accesses a computer and does select * on a database, there’s no way to know if the person who received the result set copied all, part or none of it. So they just send a mass email out to anyone who might be affected.

Also, SOE originally said they weren’t affected. Then they came out and said they did get hacked too.

Finally to answer one of the questions you guys brought up:
“Can it happen on XBL?”
I agree with Chris, yes it can.

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Topic 2 – MK:
MK is amazing! The story mode is engaging and very well done. In fact, I’m going to stop there and say, this is the definitive Mortal Kombat.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t things I dislike:
1) You can no longer do the signature, ‘punch, punch, punch, punch, punch’
2) The girls have boxy faces. They could be a bit more feminine. Sonya is almost as built as Chyna from WWF. The female character models (MK, MKII), are kinda what I was looking for in the new version.
3) Blocking is useless. Thinking back on it, blocking was a big thing in MK, but not so much in SF. When SFIV came out, I had to change my play style to incorporate more blocking. With the new MK, I never block. And when I do try to block in the new MK, it just doesn’t work out. The game favors combos and juggling and not so much blocking. So it’s funny that it seems my play style for MK has become like SFII (little to no blocking), and my current SFIV play style is like the original MK (blocking galore).
4) Liu Kang’s voice during matches (not story mode) feels out of place. It just doesn’t feel like it matches the way he moves.
5) During matches, characters don’t have a big enough height discrepancy. When I’m playing as Kitana and facing Goro, Shao Kahn, etc, there’s no way I’m as tall as them, or even near it. However, it seems that every character is about the same height during a match.
6) The sound is quiet. I think they deliberately lowered all sound in the game so big hits during matches seem more powerful. When I’m playing, I have to turn my receiver up to about -35dB. Comparing that to the Gears of War 3 beta which I usually keep around -53dB. In other words, -35dB should be loud, really loud.

Other notes:
Shao Kahn is not that hard during story mode. All you have to do is stand close to him, hop over him, uppercut. Repeat.
Also, you can use your X-Ray move when you hop over him. It just takes a lot of hits to beat him.