Mortal Kombat

Review from Cormac - Monday, 02 May 2011 @ 3:03pm

When Midway went belly up, I found myself with mixed feelings of dread and relief. Mortal Kombat had always had a bit of a silly undercurrent to it (I’m looking at you, toasty guy) but it had started to go off the deep-end somewhat. I prefer to see a series bow out while it still has some dignity rather than carry on until it’s a bizarre caricature of it’s former splendour. However, like many fans, I clung to hope that we would one day see the remake that this series so deserved. Now, nearly twenty years on from our first fatalities, that wait has been rewarded.

The presentation in this game is top notch. Character models and environments are utterly stunning. Everyone in the roster has been rebuilt beautifully and with just enough attention to detail. Familiar settings are revisited too, but each stage has it’s own feel to it. Some of the environment lighting was enough to make me hold block just to take it all in for a moment. Cookie cutting has been pretty much done away with. One of Shang Sung’s fatalities is a copy paste of The Joker’s gun fatality in MK vs DC, but otherwise each character feels completely unique, inside and out. From realistic body damage to individually rendered organs and skeletons, this is the sort of standard triple A titles should be aiming for.

Seeing this stage re-imagined in current generation graphics really resonates with me. This is where a young me learned about life and death.

Unfortunately, it’s far from perfect. Pretty much anyone with long hair is in for some clipping issues at one point or another. Usually when their head is split in half, and believe me, that will actually be a problem fairly often. Then there’s Smoke, who has little control over his hair at the best of times. I suppose they needed to differentiate him from the other ninja characters, but I see no reason why he couldn’t have just had a top-knot or something. While it’s nice to see that they gave Goro a realistic skeleton for something with four arms, it also makes his muscle structure a bit of a mess, and that’s the part we see more of.

Story mode involves Raiden screaming “fix shit!” through the passage of time to his former self, just as the events of the first Mortal Kombat begin. This means words like Tarkata and Shirai Ryu aren’t just words compulsive fans know, but also gives some of the Mortal Kombat universe’s sillier elements the chance for explanation. This opportunity is not completely capitalized on. Cyrax and Sektor show up in the first tournament in human form, accasionally mentioning their grandmaster’s plan called “the cyber initiative.” Then they show up in act two as robots and nobody particularly notices. We also see Kabal pre and post accident, which is nice, but it’s never explained why being set on fire means he can run faster. There are compensating moments however. I’m not ashamed to say I squee’d a little when Scorpion first took his mask off. Not to mention they’ve actually made Cyber Sub Zero a compelling character. I’ll continute as much as I can without spoiling anything, but it’s probably safest to consider this a warning. One beloved main character is killed off with the sort of ferocious abruptness that makes my heart skip a beat. Jax losing his human arms has a similar feel to it, you know it’s coming, but the delivery is just perfect. It’s not exactly one for the ages, but it’s one for the fans.

Now you're thinking with portals.

The story mode and challenge tower are both littered with the sort of fuck off difficulty that I loved in the early titles of the series. Fighting against Goro and Kintaro at the same time is the sort of challenging that leaves your balls a little bigger. This gives every challenge a sense of accomplishment, but also lends itself to relying on cheap tactics such as projectile spamming. It could also prove a bit much for anyone picking up their first fighting game.

The Krypt is loaded with content to unlock, purchasable through an in-game currency. Revealing everything takes tons of these coins, however you can earn them pretty much every time fight starts. Each victory in story mode or even a tidy combo will earn you at least some coins. The Krypt itself is a field full of the dead or dying representing unlockable prizes. While that’s an interesting enough way to display this, and consistent with the game’s level of presentation, it does feel like I’ve wound up in some weird social experiment to see what lengths gamers will go to for fairly trivial rewards. Closing an iron-maiden on a helpless victim with no idea if it will be more concept art or a new fatality I may actually want makes me feel like I have a shrink behind me taking notes to prove the fear-mongering crowd right.

The combos have a real sense of rhythm to them along with utterly relentless timing. After playing enough Marvel Vs Capcom 3 to absorb the colour equivalent of 8 gallons of sherbet with an, at best, open-minded relationship with the buttons I was pressing, some precision was a nice change. Special moves and fatalities are as cool as ever, but combos are were the fun begins. They’re not eighteen buttons long, and are very well animated. Three button punch combos won’t necessarily just mean punching a bunch of times. Characters draw weapons, or perform quick paced version of specials. Basically, there’s a bit more effort put in here. All of this also builds up to those X-Ray moves we’ve all been watching on youtube for the past few months. They work pretty much just like gory super moves, but are so visually spectacular and character specific that naming them as such feels like underselling them. After weapons, 3D arenas and super heroes, it’s nice to see an addition to the series that actually fits beautifully. Not to mention they do game changing amounts of damage.

Ye-ah!

Controls are tight and varied enough to make each character feel unique without being a whole other toolkit. This is currently the only fighter I can think of that I actually prefer to play on control pads as opposed to arcade sticks. The use of a block button is a sensible choice. With all the teleport moves or projectiles which travel in different directions, I don’t want to have to worry about which direction I’m guarding in.

Kratos is a nice addition to the cast. He plays pretty much exactly as expected, with familiar attacks, a vast selection of weapons and even quick time events. He’s well realised as a 2D fighter character, but no reason to lose sleep over 360 Vs PS3 versions. That choice should come down to your preference of controller more than anything. Personally, trying to perform combos on an X-Box directional pad feels like my thumbs are off getting drunk without me.

Pros

• Loads of content and presentation with a sparkle finish.
• This is a game that’s great, and will stay great for years to come.

Cons

• Some graphical glitches.
• Many challenges may prove alienating to a casual audience.