Mortal Kombat is my fighting game of choice, unless you are one of those people who considers Smash a fighting game. Regardless, I enjoy Mortal Kombat games a fair amount. Going back to the original or its ports is definitely jarring as far as controls go, but you can get the hang pretty quick. I wouldn't call the early games easy, especially if you are playing the ports of Mortal Kombat II, which are borderline impossible. As for the first game, I only managed to beat it as Liu Kang, mainly 'cos the moves are easy to pull of as him with my Super Nintendo controller. It sets Liu Kang as my main as it were for Mortal Kombat games until the later ones when I branched out more. Anyway, the port is solid gameplay-wise, but it does kinda blow that there is so much censorship in this port. I would still pick the arcade original over it even if the censorship was not in place.

Chinatown Wars was an interesting addition to the series. GTA Advance was the last time we saw a GTA game with the original top-down perspective before this came along. This time, the systems allowed for 3D models to be in the game, with slight visual differences across platforms. This game brought back several 3D Universe mechanics such as the vehicle-based side missions, by which I mean all of them as well as, and I may be misremembering (it has been a while), rampages while taking place in the HD Universe. Those familiar with GTA will recall that only a few vehicle missions return in IV and V, and rampages returned in V although very few in number. This one has them all. Anyway, I found the game to be quite enjoyable and the story was decent. 'Tis not my favourite, but I do not dislike it by any means. I only really had an issue with the music. It seems like the music within the game is not licensed and is instead made for the game, like what GTA I and II did, if I correctly remember. The music on the Deadmau5 channel might be an exception to that. It is probably good for what it is, but it personally is not my thing musically. All in all, good game, quite fun.

It was an interesting take on Super Mario 64. It was cool to see new mechanics and locations to help add a little variety to a game that many have an intimate familiarity with. Luigi's special backflip does tend to break the game and make many stars piss-easy to acquire, but it is still enjoyable. The only real problem that I have is that playing it on a DS and not through 3DS backwards compatibility forces the player to navigate a full 3D platformer with directional buttons, which is not great. As if the N64 control stick didn't make controlling the original already an annoyance. You do have the option to control the game with the touchscreen Phantom Hourglass style, which works for Phantom Hourglass, y'know, being designed around it and all. However, it is not really a control scheme you would want with a 3D platformer. The camera is still problematic as well.

At a time when the classic 2D-sidescroller style of Mario games was thought to be dead and gone, New Super Mario Bros was a refreshing change of pace and showed Nintendo that the original style was still viable and could be massively successful -- and it was, for better or for worse. But I will talk about that in the reviews for the later games of this style. The game was a lot of fun and changed up the classic style in an interesting way. The difficulty progressed reasonably and by World 8 was reasonably difficult without feeling unfair. I still go back to it on occasion and 100% it. Here's an interesting thing, there is a hidden challenge mode that you input a code for. What it does is it makes the game like the classic sidescrolling Mario games and prevents the player from backtracking through the level.