Tekken Card Tournament (mobile)

I'm playing quite a bit of NAMCO Bandai Games's Tekken Card Tournament on Android (from developer C4M, also available for play online, on iOS, and Amazon Kindle Fire).

It's a competitive / combative card game treatment of the long-standing console and upright arcade fighting franchise -- but whereas card games are pretty common on mobile and tablet devices now, Tekken is what I'd call an "upper-tier offering".

Besides being "just" a card game (with a 15 card deck, specials, and power cards), it has great mobile versions of fight moves (focus, attack, block, etc.) as payoff.

Those three moves make the game approachable, and add decent strategic depth, since you see your and your opponent's drawn cards (with the exception of character Yoshimitsu, who can hide cards from opponents). That's the on-deck (drawn) cards -- you can't see the the full 15-card deck they're playing against you.

"Focus" is basically your "draw card" move, but leaves you open to attacks.

"Block" blocks up to 2 of your opponents attack cards, so if your able to Focus/draw 3 to 5 cards (the on-deck max), you're effectively breaking the block, and able to attack with cards 3 through 5. Block while your oponent is focusing, and you've wasted a move.

"Attack" ... attacks.

The game is surprisingly robust, and a good (read: non-cast-off) freemium license treatment (and face it -- these things monetize well for developers and publishers).

The game has a slickly implemented in-line tutorial system (also available on-demand), intelligent unlockables, Arcade, Versus, and Champion (ladders) modes, and a bunch of replayability.

The online versus mode is pretty playable, and in addition to finding people and adding them as "friends" to battle immediately (or later), there's a quick-battle options that finds closely matching contenders, and drops you into a versus match almost instantly. I do wish the non-quick mode showed the other players levels in the playlist, though (starting out, I ended up needing to click through a number of Level 11 players before I found people at my starting level).

It is a freemium game, which means free to play, and conceivably, you can play for free and unlock enough Gold and Credits (to the two forms of in-game currencies) to play the entire game. Or, you can purchase Gold or Credits packs for as little as 99-cents to $99.99 (hey, people are obviously buying these). You also have a certain amount of "stamina", which limits the number of consecutive games you can play before your stamina recharges (or, you can spend in-game currency -- if you have it -- to refill stamina immediately).

Right now is a good time to play, too -- Namco Bandai is celebrating an alleged 1 million aggregate downloads by putting all in-game booster packs for 30-percent off (using in-game currency). So, you can play for probably at least a day more in the promotion to earn enough credits to spend on the on-sale boosters, or get down to the wire tomorrow, and purchase the remaining credits you need to take advantage of the sale.

Overall, a very slick, fun, replayable new expression of the Tekken license, and well worth the hefty download and accessible investment time.

Note: I haven't had a chance to successfully install the game on multiple platforms, but I'm hopeful that when I do, I can play with the same account across platforms, and it will keep track of my progression leveling. (The delay in trying it is the game didn't require a password on my phone, but does on iOS and Web; since I didn't set one up on my phone when I installed, I had to request a password reset for the other platforms, and that notice hasn't shown up yet.)

Batman: Arkham City (Xbox 360)

Batman: Arkham Asylum was one of my favorite games.

I'm multiple hours (but not done) with RockSteady Studios new Batman: Arkham City, and it pretty much surpasses everything I dig about the first game, without losing the stuff that made that first game great.

It could be a little overwhelming if you're not big into games, and/or haven't played Arkham Asylum  -- there's a ton of gadgets; I even find myself having to stop and look at all of the stuff available to me. But that's a good problem to have (teh Bats has teh gadgets, after all).

I do like that the rogues gallery is a lot more complex this time around. Less "muah-hahahaha!" and more "I haz motivashuns. I haz needs. I haz issues."

The "detective" aspect of the Greatest Detective in the World is also way better, and the side missions compelling enough to pull me from the main quest (though I could care less about the AR training opportunities).

All of this makes the game a lot more fun -- beyond the solid stealth-or-brawler-or-gadget-or-investigation gameplay.

I'm mixed on the Catwoman missions, but I think that's just me -- it's somewhere in-between "different"{ and "not-different" gameplay, and I don't seem to be transitioning well. She is fun to watch in motion, though.

And being able to play as 70s Batman, or the Frank Miller's Dark Knight? Awesome. (As a fanboy, seeing that latter bad boy in motion gives me goosebumps). I also dig that it's not just the skin that changes -- there are changes to audio and animations, too.

I'm not done with the game yet (Mainly because I'm jumping between it, Dark Souls, Uncharted, and Skyrim) -- but I'll be joyfully investing in this game for a long, long time.

(And apologies for my brief fall into the pit of can haz cheezeburgers cat-speak. Not sure what happened there.)

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Xbox 360)

I'm a bit of a Mortal Kombat fan. I'm a comic book fan. I sooo wanted to be a fan of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe.

Unfortunately, so many things worked against the title for me, that I'm not a fan.

Granted, since I'm a fanboy, I had expectations. And they were dashed.

The fighting is frustrating, it devolves to button mashing that's not even fun (like Soul Calibur is fun), feels unpolished (art to animations to transitions to performance), the dialog and expositions are stilted and heavy-handed, and it just didn't do it for me.

Now, that said, it is fan-fare -- So I dig seeing my guys and gals in tights in a new setting. And while the characterization and dialog is challenging for the most part, a lot of love was obviously spent just on the Joker -- and he comes across well. There is one cut-scene moment Joker reaction when the main baddy is announced that is money, and makes the whole game worth it. Actor Richard Epcar doesn't take the place of Mark Hamill's joker for me, but he sells it.

The other thing to note is I played the whole thing on the Xbox 360 using standard controllers, and the 360 D-pads are crap -- especially for fighting games.

Dragonball Z: Burst Limit

I'm about an hour and a half and three chapters in to Dragonball Z: Burst Limit.

This is a solid licensed fighter, but limiting it to that would be a disservice.

For fans of the creative intellectual property, DBZ: Burst Limit finally gets it right (at least in relation to the recent spate of games).

But for fanboys -- you may wet yourself (I'm dry, but just barely).

DBZ:BL (like that?) is a decently deep fighter, contains IP (and genre) signature tropes that I totally dig (for example, sub or dub purists? You can play with English voice dubbing, or in Japanese, with English subtitles.

On the feeling empowered / pushing myself "as the character" front, I really felt like Kaioken x3 was the shizzle (relax, x4 was a cutscene, so it didn't do the same for me); I can't wait to hit super, let alone take on Freiza (and Cell? Please? Majin Buu?).

And while I genuinely suck at button mashers, I genuinely feel like the controls for DBZ:BL are more intuitive, and I find myself doing things "right" more often than with, say, Soul Calibur (much as I love that franchise, I get pwned more often than not).

Don't get me wrong, this DBZ game isn't perfect -- the camera at times seems a little floaty, I can't figure out why they made some of the stage and cut-scene transitions, the rating system is overly complex, and I have a love/hate relationship with the unlock notifications.

But those are trivial detractors from a great overall package.

C'mon Atari -- you're not the love from my youth, but I'm still rooting for you. Knock out some more like this one.

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects (Xbox)

I'm playing Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects. It's a slick, stylized, appropriately dark fighter with a story mode that doesn't totally suck. I'm not sure I'm stoked about EA's Universal Control Set, but I'm adjusting.

The game is frustrating because it has potential not realized, and feels like it was forced out the door before it was ready, which may have been a timing restriction due to the partnership with Marvel and its tie-in mini-series.

There's a fairly blunt insiders view of the game from an EA employee over at game girl advance.