I’ve been a fighting game fan as far back as I remember. I’ve played most of the iterations of both the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games in the arcades on the first day of their respective launches. I would have even done the same for Street Fighter 4 had there been an arcade anywhere in Montreal that had it. Although I love the genre to death, that doesn’t mean I hold all of its constituents to the same esteem. In fact, I’ve preferred the Street Fighter series hands-down for many reasons.

First and foremost, I preferred the game play. It was much harder to play Street Fighter for a beginner than it was to play Mortal Kombat. I can see how the layman off the street would prefer Mortal Kombat simply for that reason. In Street Fighter, you couldn’t uppercut and sweep your way to victory in arcade mode, you had to perform some supers to stay alive! I remember beating Mortal Kombat in the arcades before I even knew how to perform my first fatality!

I also preferred the look and feel of the hand-drawn Street Fighter sprites to the photographed and edited Mortal Kombat equivalents. Not that I didn’t think that Mortal Kombat had its own charm, it’s just that I preferred Street Fighter aesthetically.

Mortal Kombat’s “fatalities”,  “toasty” jokes, and other such gimmicks still kept me coming back to the franchise up to Mortal Kombat 3. Anything that came afterwards was an abomination that didn’t deserve the name while the only “Street Fighter” that I can’t stomach is really only Capcom Fighting Evolution.

Now we’re living in the “Next Gen” (or is it the current Gen yet) and both of these franchises are making a come back. Needless to say, Street Fighter 4’s announcement filled me with glee while I believe the Mortal Kombat vs DC announcement to be no more than a hoax. Now things are a bit different.

As I’ve written before, Street Fighter 4 has not ceased to disappoint me with it’s decisions. 3D instead of 2D, a step away from Street Fighter 3 gameplay to the inferior Street Fighter 2 gameplay, the introductions of stupid new characters… What was Capcom doing to my beloved franchise? Had they named it Street Fighter EX 4 I wouldn’t have minded, I expected the EX series to be mediocre.

Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, on the other hand, I had very few hopes for. Now that I see it looking much better than I expected, I’m actually looking forward to playing it. It’s also filled me with a longing only Marvel vs Capcom 3 could fill but that’s a story for another day…

I’m quite sure that Street Fighter 4 will end up being the better fighter in the end despite its flaws, so why am I hating on it more than MK vs DC? That’s an easy one to answer… If I somehow rigged my Playstation One to play Dreamcast games flawlessly but my PS3 can only play PS2 games, which would you find more impressive? It’s about potential people…