Mortal Kombat - Who knew X-Rays could be so much fun.

[Shixx]

Intro-
Mortal Kombat is the 9th installment in the critically acclaimed Mortal Kombat series which gained notoriety for excessive amounts of gore, and just being ridiculous in general.... in a good way. The latest game is seen as a reboot to the series after some undesirable past games, and some weird decisions made Mortal Kombat a ghost of its former self that gained quite a negative reputation. The game goes back to it's classic 2D gameplay much to the excitement of old fans but keeps it up to date using 3D character models and backgrounds. The roster is considerably smaller compared to the last game being Armageddon, but it has almost everyone anyone gives two ****s about. It also goes back to the very first Mortal Kombat game storywise. What I'm about to say is in no way an exaggeration. Mortal Kombat features the best story mode in a fighting game this gen, but I'll get into that in a bit.


Sound/Graphics-
You simply need to watch a youtube video to tell this game sounds and looks good, but wow, a youtube video doesn't do it justice. The graphics are the best I personally have seen in a fighting game. It goes for a realistic style trying to keep everything in proportion, and believable.... well, apart from the boobs. This is great in that it magnifies the impact of the gore much more-so then a cartoon styled game would have making nearly everything you do look brutal. Yes, it's gore for the sake of gore and it goes all out, but it manages to be awesome in doing so. The most brutal and visually interesting attacks are fatalities which are a staple of the Mortal Kombat franchise, and a new attack called an X-Ray attack. During combat you fill up a meter by being damaged and having your attacks blocked. When the meter is maxed you can attempt to pull off an X-Ray attack which as you can guess, shows you what's going on under the skin and clothes when some really hard hitting attacks make contact. Let's talk about sound. This is probably one of the most important factors in the game, and one I fear other reviewers aren't going to talk about. Whilst the attacks can, and do look devastating, the sound is really what makes you go "Dayum" This can range from a deep thud from big characters attacks, to the horrifying sound of bones shattering.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4sSYGo__Ig


Gameplay/story-
THE most important factor in a good fighting game. Whilst it's no Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat has more then enough depth to satisfy a big fighting game fan, and is extremely fun and ridiculous enough to appeal to the casual player. So far the balance seems to be there with no one character seeming that much better then everyone else, hard to say on a tournament level though. The game is very combo and juggle focused, but you won't see anything that really goes past a 5 hit combo unless you are playing experienced players, or decided to be brave and whack the difficulty up. The game has an OK tutorial, not great but it gives you the basics, and the menus give you some pretty good basic combos that'll get you through a good portion of the game. Whilst the game does feature online, I personally haven't played it much since I was borrowing a friends copy, but it's being widely reported that the game is pretty laggy, but I'm sure that will be fixed pretty quick. The good news is, the game features so much offline kontent that this really doesn't matter as much as it would in other fighting games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e4IGKeqrsc

Right! Onto the more detailed stuff. The story mode picks up after the events of Armageddon in which Shao Kahn (main bad guy) has cut through all competition in claiming the power of Blaze. Blaze was the end boss of Armageddon and wielded limitless god-like power after being born out of an egg........ yeah. When he reached the limit of his power all the best fighters of every realm was drawn towards Blazes' location. This resulted in pretty much every Mortal Kombat character showing up and duking it out for the chance to battle Blaze. The person who could beat Blaze in combat absorbed Blazes powers and seemingly killed him.. her... it. Shao Kahn being extremely powerful as it is being a demi-god becomes basically invincible. The only combatant left alive is Raiden, the lightning god and Shao Kahns brother. Horrified at the thought of Shao Kahn merging Outworld and Earthrealm to rule both, Raiden sends visions back to his past self to warn him of the future, and to get him to attempt to change it. These visions go all the way back to the very first Mortal Kombat tournament in the series, but not the lore. As you continue to progress through the mode you see Raiden succeed at changing some things in the hope of a better future, of course with any time travel based storyline, some changes end up having better outcomes, and some end up having worse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfsc65KmiFY

The very first fight in which has seamless cuts between cut-scenes and gameplay has you playing as Johnny Cage fighting Reptile, due to Johnny being a movie star and yet to really witness anything like what he's about to get into believes Reptile is merely special effects in the first of many dumb moves Johnny makes throughout. Johnny is not the only character you play as, after a good few fights it jumps to another character and this is continued through the whole of story mode. Now, whilst it's good that it's all one seamless story, chances are this is the first mode you play, and hence aren't sure how to play the game, or how to do basic moves with any character. This results in you changing characters just as you start to get somewhere with the previous, and either having to quit to training mode, or lose a few matches simply trying to figure out how the **** to play that character. This gets worse as you go along as it get's harder and by then you are too invested in the story to want to quit to training and figure out the character. I'd advise you leave story mode for later after you've played a good amount as it becomes a less frustrating experience. Don't worry though, there's PLENTY to do in the mean time.

Whilst it went back to it's roots for most of the game, it made sure to try new things for the Mortal Kombat series. One of those being Tag gameplay which as I'm sure you know, is two on two fighting in which one character tags the other in. Now I know what you are thinking, that they just tacked it on because of the current Marvel Vs Capcom 3 love... but I have to say, it's much better implemented then I first thought. Mainly due to the fact that they implemented tag combos. These are pretty standard combos but end with a tag in which the tagged character jumps in and does a special attack, the special attack is able to be combo'd off and can lead to massive combo chains. One of the other things that I appreciate is you unlock the ending of whoever lands the final hit on Shao Kahn, which makes unlocking all of the endings less of a drag.

The game also features the return of "Test Your __" modes which includes the classic Test Your Might in which you mash the attack buttons to raise a bar past a certain mark, and quickly hit another button, in this case one of the shoulder buttons to attempt to break the object in front of you. Along with that you get Test Your Strike and Sight, one being a more accurate mashing mode, and the other being....... sorry I can't remember the name, but the game in which an object is hidden under a few cups, and is mixed around whilst you keep your eye on the cup with the object and try to guess the correct cup in which has the object under it. These modes are OK and will keep your attention for a bit, but the real focus has to be put on Test Your Luck. What makes this mode different and so good is it features a slot machine that randomly decides who you fight, and different modifiers such as armless combat in which your arms just fall off and kicking is the only form of attack (this also effects special attacks), ice raining from the sky which freezes fighters on touch, and turning the screen upside down which is a hell of a lot more disorientating then it sounds. There is so many modifiers that you end up playing just to see them all and how ridiculous some combination's can be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AuJFfpSHJc

One of the other big modes in the game is Challenge Tower. This mode see's you doing a wide variety of things such as simply learning how to block properly to throwing your limbs at opponents, and yes, it's as amazing as it sounds. I guess you could say it's a non-random version of Test Your Luck, but has more depth and the opportunity for bragging rights. The mode features an awesome 300 challenges that as you can guess, get harder and crazier as you go along and ends on something only the best of the best Mortal Kombat players will be able to finish. I can happily tell you though, that if you ever get stuck on a challenge that is just impossible to you, you can spend "Kombat Coins" to skip that challenge.

Kombat Coins are a type of currency you earn throughout almost every mode, it could be all of them, but I'm not sure about multi. The coins are used to skip challenges in challenge tower, and to unlock stuff in The Krypt. The Krypt is an old Mortal Kombat method of earning unlockables such as alternate costumes, concept art and music that was first in MK: Deadly Alliance. Basically it's a massive land of death filled with graves and dead bodies. You move throughout the areas and highlight one of the graves/dead bodies, and when purchased an animation plays such as the grave exploding with arms pushing out, or a weird liquid flowing through a fleshy tube into a guys mouth until there's so much his stomach explodes. These little animations are skippable, but worth watching the first time just for the "GROSS" factor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZb0WVXvZmg

I should talk about online play before I start to wrap this up. To be honest, I haven't played it much, as I said earlier, I couldn't find a match no matter what mode I tried.(eventually I found one but it took forever) However it's not impossible that a patch will come along and fix all of it's problems. Fighting game fans will know instantly what's what when they get into the multiplayer screen, but for those that are new to fighting games in general I'll go through the modes. The two main modes are player match, and ranked match. Player is a fun focused mode and is really just there to test to see if you are ready for ranked yet. Ranked is where the big boys come to prove they are the best, each win and loss is recorded and shown for all the world to see. You can also surprisingly team up with a friend play tag matches online against other teams. The last mode is King of the Hill mode in which people gather into a lobby and in-turn fight the King of the Hill who is the winner of the previous fight.

Mortal Kombat is the best in the series yet managing to recapture the magic of the old 2D titles, yet bring enough new stuff to the series that it doesn't feel dated. It offers a massive amount of offline kontent that make it the most feature packed fighting game this gen, which more then makes up for the currently laggy online, and is great for those fighting game fans in which online play doesn't appeal to. Old fans of the series will love this new installment, and people who have yet to play a Mortal Kombat game will not regret starting here.

Final Thoughts-
Alot of Kontent
Wish there was more new characters( sure they will add more with DLC though)
Online mode needs patched
3d effects were decent(for those with 3d tv's)
Totally worth the buy, whether you plan on playing online or not.

Score-
9/10

[LiNuX]

I used to be such a huge fan of MK. Had a few versions of it for my PS, Sega, and PC. But Haven't bought any MK games in ages. This one looks pretty cool and I'll most definitely try to play this one, even though I probably won't own it. I've seen a ton of gameplay vids already along with trailers.

Good review! Glad to see one of your reviews again, was a great read.

[Echo]

HA, I did two matches online and gave up.
It was AWFUL.
Nice review, I've been enjoying this game all month. : D

[Fr0stByte]

last time i played MK was on the psp and i loved it...this is deff a game i would pay for