The author does not own any of the pictures that are presented here
Holy shit….this game is awesome. You have no idea how much I am glad to see my favorite fighting game series come back to life in this epic sequel/restart of one of the greatest and famous games of all time, MORTAL KOMBAT!!
Mortal Kombat is one of those games that everyone in both the gaming world and outside of it knows of. From its amazing simple and fun combat system; to the bloody and limb tearing fatalities that leave your mother having a heart attack from seeing so much gore and violence, Mortal Kombat is one of those games that is just that famous.
Created in 1993, Mortal Kombat, developed by Midway, became not only one of the most popular arcade games, but also one of the most controversial. Mortal Kombat featured blood, ripping out hearts and spines, burning flesh, and tons of violence. So much so that this game is often credited to being the game that forced the ESRB rating system on our products.
Besides the violence, Mortal Kombat featured a lot of new things back then. For one, all the characters had the same move set except for a few special attacks. Multipunches, Sweeps, and the ever famous Crouching Uppercut, were moves that not only could be easy to pull off, but it made you always have to guess which of the moves your opponent would know that could counter those as well. There was even a blocking button, something Street Fighter didn’t use until later, that could block any of those attacks as long as you held it down making the combat more realistic.
Another two things that Mortal Kombat did that was unique was the intro to the concept of Juggling and the Fatalities aka the finishing moves. Juggling is when you knock your opponent into the air and keep them up in the air as you hurt their poor defenseless little bodies with multiple attacks. Fatalities however were the one thing that separates Mortal Kombat from every game out there. After you won two rounds, a voice would cry out “FINISH HIM!”and you would have a very short amount of time to input a combo that would perform a deadly finishing attack that not only embarrassed your opponent, but made you look badass as well. Hell, the most famous one at that time when it first came out was Sub-Zero’s where he ripped your head and spine out of your body. I dropped my mouth when I saw that for the first time!
From there on numerous sequels of hits and misses, movies, Tv shows, comics, and more of Mortal Kombat have continued for the past 18 years! Now we have the new Mortal Kombat 2011 developed by NetherRealm Studios (Once called Midway Games Chicago), or as I just call it MK9, and it is one of the best Mortal Kombats to come out in a long time. This may even be better than MK2.
1. 1. Graphics
Ever since coming to 3D, I’ve kind of always wondered if that was the best move for Mortal Kombat to go by. Mortal Kombat was original a 2D game, but like most 2D’s they of course changed to 3D. And while a part of me loves the old style more than the new one for nostalgia reasons, I have to admit that the 3D Mortal Kombat games always seem to impress me with their graphics. The graphics are just great, each detail from the character’s body movements to the background action on the stage your on work like a charm. Coloring for each character is well played and everyone is dressed in better costumes then they were before. But what I like most are the arenas, every one of them feels unique and different allowing you to feel that you’re actually playing in the world of Mortal Kombat. And some old stages such as the Pit and Goro’s lair make their return with a new updates style that makes it more artistic then the previous version, but also wisely keeping a bit of their old styles that blend well with the new elements.
And the gore, my god the gore is just awesome. So much detail put into the human body that every character from the bones and organs to the blood and muscles. The X-Ray attacks always make me astonish into how much detail they put not only into the human bodies, but the inhuman ones like Reptile and Baraka. You will see a lot of blood and harm on your characters as they fight and the fatalities make every single head smashing, limb tearing, chest ripping, and spine crushing move look painful and deadly.
2. 2. Controls
The old style is back! I’m talking about the good old fashion style we had with MK 1 and 2. No super long combo list or complications, no switching into a weapon mode, and no different fighting styles. It’s just good old fashioned 2D combat style which is something many Mortal Kombat fans, myself including, have been begging to return ever since Deception. It’s been proven that 2D combat style in a 3D world works well in fighting video games (just look at Street Fighter 4) and I’m glad to see that they decided to do it with this game. The combat plays much like the original games with 2 moves for the first, 2 for the legs, a throw button, and a block button. Special Moves and combos are performed by inputting the right controls and don’t worry about the complications of the combos, they are simple and easy to learn for anybody from the combo study people to the button smashers like myself. This also goes with Fatalities too.
The style is so simple and good that there really isn’t much to talk about it other than you’ll get the hang of it after an hour or so. For newcomers into the series, you’ll be able to fight like a pro in no time. For the veterans of the old games, you’ll feel your muscle memories get the feel back in a matter of minutes.
3. 3. Gameplay
-Where do I begin? This game has so much gameplay and content it’s unbelievable, you can do so much with this game for weeks and still have something to do. First let’s talk about the combat first, like I said before it’s simple and easy for everybody to learn so you’ll have plenty of interesting fights ahead of you both against the Com and other players. But now there is a new element to the game, a power meter. The power meter has enhanced the gameplay a lot, when you make a combo, perform a special move, or get your ass beaten too much the meter will start to fill up. There are three sections of the power meter and each one has a special function. Fill it up a third of the way and you can use it to perform a special enhanced attack with any of your special moves. Fill it up two-thirds of the way and you can use the Breaker function, which returns again, to stop your opponent in mid-combo and do damage. Finally when you have it all full you can perform an X-Ray move. The X-Ray move is when you do a special slow mo combo, each unique for each character, that shows how the attack damaged the inside of the opponent in a grueling fashion. It’s perfect for Mortal Kombat, almost like a lower version of the Brutalities.
Fatalities are back of course, as are stage fatalities where you have to perform a certain input for each character to do so, but also back are Babalities where you can perform the ultimate shame on your opponent and turn him into a baby. It’s hilarious and awesome!
Now you think with all this already in the game that would be enough, but no. There is now a Tag Team battle system which has never been done before in any Mortal Kombat game. And it works so well, I have always dreamed of seeing Scorpion and Sub-Zero team up in a fight and now I can play such an event. It plays similar to the Tag Team system of Tekken a bit and it may get some getting use too, but you’ll have massive amounts of fun. Especially since these battle can be played up to 4 players!
Now let’s talk game modes.
Like the last game we have a story mode, but we’ll talk about that in Story.
You got your classic Latter gameplay just like in the original Mortal Kombat games where you fight a bunch normal opponents followed by two insane ones later on and then get a character ending that may or may not be canon in the next game. Goro and Shao Kahn are dangerous and hard as hell, I’m talking their original first appearance hard. It’s frustrating, but you will go back just to see that get to see that moment where Shao Kahn blows up. There’s also a Tag Team Latter mode too for and it’s quite fun to play.
And you got your original Test your Might and a few other Tests as well that are fun to play and of course you got a practice mode, tutorial mode, Fatality tutorial mode, and the Krypt.
There’s also the Challenge Tower which has 300 different challenges for players to go through, the higher you go up the tower the harder they get and the more currency you get for each victory to be used in the Krypt.
With so much to do it’s a wonder how I’m even going to finish any of this in even one year.
4. 4. Story
-Mortal Kombat has always had a unique story that has gotten more complex every game, but here is the bases. There are many realms in the universe such as Earthrealm, Outworld, Edina, Netherrealm, Orderrealm, Chaosrealm, and more. In order to protect the realms from being invaded, the Elder Gods created a tournament called Mortal Kombat where fighters from two realms fight each other until one is dominant. Should a realm win 10 Mortal Kombats in a row, they are free to invade the world. This was the story of the first game, where Liu Kang, Sonya, Jonny Cage, and Raiden fought and defeated Shang Tsung and his minions, who served the warlord Shao Kahn.
Then of course the was the Outworld tournament, the invasion of Earthrealm, the revival of the fallen god Shinnok, the Deadly Alliance and death of Liu Kang, the rise of the Dragon King and the rise of the fallen Raiden, and then Armageddon.
This game is a squal but also a rewrite of the entire series in a way. The story takes place at the final moments of Armageddon where every character in the MK universe is dead except for Shao Kahn and Raiden. Before Shao Kahn kills Raiden, Raiden sends all his memories into his past self during the first Mortal Kombat game and it takes it from there.
We now get to see what actually happened in the first three Mortal Kombat games while having a few surprising changes thanks to Raiden’s attempts to change the timeline for the better of the future(Trust me when I say there are a few good shockers). Sometimes the dialog seems a bit forced and the scenes change a bit too fast without getting much story in, but for all its purposes it keeps the story well played and it’s nice to see that were getting a fresh new story that plays well for both newcomers and veterans, so credit to the writers of NetherRealm Studios.
5. 5. Characters
-The number of characters in this game is just right, not too few and not too many. Every character from Mortal Kombat 1 to 3 is in this game along with a new character that I won’t reveal because it will shock you as well Quan Chi, from MK4. Each character still remains his or her original like traits and likeness along with a few new inputs. Some characters back stories have changed, like Kabal’s, but for the most part every character is well made and well acted.
What’s also great is their uniqueness on how their played. Characters like Liu Kang, Scorpion, Kano and a few others are easy for beginners while others such as Shang Tsung, Ermac, and Noob Saibot are very difficult to master, but still fun to play as.
6. 6. Sound
-Great voice acting? Original sounds(GET OVER HERE!)? Well done music? I can’t see anything wrong here can you?
OVERALL: 5/5
This is the best fighting game out there right now. I demanded that you buy or so help me I will Finish you all myself.
Best Mortal Kombat game to come out in a long time.
Bloody awesome.
We are gamers and we are legion.
Later.
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