Title: Mortal Kombat
Publisher: Warner Brothers Games
Developer: NetherRealm Studios
Platform: Xbox 360, PS3
Genre: Fighter
Release Date: April 19, 2011
Price: $59.99
Rating: M
It’s very rare that I get all geeked up about a fighting game. I am usually pretty poor at them, they require a lot of learning, and there generally isn’t enough replayablity in them for me. That is until the latest installment of Mortal Kombat came along and changed all that.
It’s been a long time coming but I am willing to go out on a limb here and say that Mortal Kombat is back. The latest installment in the ultra-brutal fighting series is simply called Mortal Kombat. There are no numbers and no reason not to believe that this isn’t the beginning of something great. Much like the reboot (of sorts) of Street Fighter, MK returns to its roots.
Mortal Kombat is a 3d fighter set on a 2d plane. No longer do you have to worry with moving on all three axises. The only depth that is presented in the game is depth of field, and it looks gorgeous. Fighters are lovingly rendered with an almost obsessive attention to detail. Stages are just as detailed as the kombatants fighting on them, and each is brought to life with a myriad of things to look at. If you have time while not being pummeled, that is. Also now during a fight you and your opponent will show the damage they are being dealt.
The sound design is just as spectacular. Though the actual music in the game is a bit lost behind everything else going on, it really has never played a very big role in the games themselves. The sound effects, however, are what are the real star here. Fireballs sizzle, lightning crackles, and punches sound just real enough to make you wonder if the designers were just wailing on each other in front of a microphone. Everything just seems to have weight to it. It’s also the little details here that really bring the entire package together. The sound of a characters scream slowed down when entering an “X-Ray” attack. The crisp sound in most all of the special moves. My personal favorite is almost stupid, but I love the way that Stryker says “Punk!” each time he wins a round. It just fits his characters persona so perfectly.
All the characters that you really cared about show up here in the newest Mortal Kombat. There aren’t any of those random off-the-wall characters that were strewn through the series. No Meat, no Lady Sub-Zero (Frost), and no Kobra. This is the ones you really want to see, in an updated form. Move sets all feel pretty distinct and unique to themselves. Each of the ninjas all feel and look wildly different now, and no longer are just a simple pallet swap. You will be able to pull off at least two fatalities, one other -ality and a stage fatality as well. And man, are those fatalities brutal. Ripping apart dudes, chopping people up, shooting them… your foes can and will die in all manner of gruesome, disgusting, and genuinely fun ways.
So everyone knows, or should know, that Mortal Kombat is great for multiplayer fun. However it’s a little know fact that the new MK is actually a hell of a lot of fun in single player as well. The “Story Mode” in most if not all fighting games to date has been pretty much a joke and nothing more than completing the ladder to get a ridiculous ending. Not so here. NetherRelms has managed to craft a story mode that not only is fun to play, it’s educational in many different ways.
The story will take you basically through the stories of MK1-MK3 and all the things that happened around them. The beauty of it is that you don’t just play as one character. You will take control of pretty much everyone at one time or another in order to further the story. For instance, you will play as Johnny Cage for a little while and help Sonya in the story. Then at some point you will control Sonya herself and continue on as Johnny takes another path. It’s genius, really. Not only are you seeing things you never saw before pertaining to the lore of the game, but it forces you to learn the fighting techniques of basically all characters in the process. You also get to see a much more fleshed out back-story for pretty much everyone and learn how and why they ended up in Mortal Kombat in the first place.
On top of the excellent story mode is the Challenge Tower. This is a mode that will allow you to earn coins (explained later) through a series of… well… challenges. Challenges vary from beating an opponent in a limited time with limited health, to (no joke) beating your opponent by throwing your own limbs at them. Yup. There are set ups for each and those are just as crazy. An early challenge is set up by the fact that Milenna wants to give you a teddy bear, and you don’t want to take it. Seriously. It’s just the kind of crazy (Krazy?) that you would expect from MK.
Also quickly want to touch on the unlocks. With pretty much every game there is some sort of unlock system and in that respect Mortal Kombat is no different. However to actually DO the unlocking you have to ear coins… Koins? This is done by either playing through the story mode challenge tower or the ladder. Either way nets you koins based on your performance. You then take those koins to the “Krypt”. Here you will spend your koinage to unlock all manner of goodies. Music, renders, paintings, and best of all, new costumes and new fatalities. Which of course are then available in the ladder or versus play.
Sure it looks, and sounds great, but “how does it play” you may be asking. Phenomenally, that’s how. The controls are simple enough for people new to the series to jump right in and hold their own. It also has a decent combo system in there that pros will no doubt attempt to master in order to milk every bit of damage out of them. Most of the moves from the past are still present, and remain for the most part unchanged. Playing against a friend (who had never played the new version) he was able to pick up the controller and immediately give me a good fight with Kung Lao simply because that was his “go to” character. It plays well enough with a standard controller if that is all you have access to. There are however some new moves and things have been tweaked just enough that old players will find there is are still things to be learned.
Nothing in the game (fatalities aside) makes quite the impact as the “X-ray Attacks” do. Throughout the fight you will fill a meter at the bottom of the screen. Halfway full and you can perform a combo breaker during an enemies attack. Fill it all the way, and you can perform an “X-Ray Attack”. These are pulled off by simply by pulling both the left and right triggers. However it does take a bit of skill to get the timing correct. Some are performed as a type of throw, others a counter, and some just a direct hit. Learning when to use them in an actual fight is just as important. Wasting yours when you can win a fight with one hit is a mistake that may leave you open to your opponent using theirs in the opening seconds of the next round. It’s all part of the learning process.
This truly is the rebirth of Mortal Kombat. I have never really done well in these games before. However, with the superb story mode that teaches you each characters fighting styles and the pretty generous learning curve, it’s possible to improve. Actually, it’s pretty easy to improve. I was well over halfway through the story mode before I even realized it was set on medium, or that I could change it. If you have enjoyed MK in the past and are wondering if this is the game to get back to it, I am pretty sure that now is the time. I think it says a lot that MK will be included in the next “Evo” fighting game tournament. One last thing before I wrap this up… This one’s “M” rated.
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