Mortal Kombat (2011)

            There is one thing my readers probably don't know about me concerning video games.  I am terrible at tournament fighters.  To me, these games are just nightmares.  I always get my ass kicked, have no idea what I'm doing half the time, and can never understand why so many people I know get so pissed on the off chance I beat them.  So it probably comes as a surprise to some that I love the Mortal Kombat games.  As you may or may not remember, back in March I gave a general look at the major games of the franchise in preparation for the release of Mortal Kombat (2011).  However, like Dead Space 2, it took me a long time to get a hold of this game and even longer to play enough of it to where I felt I could write a proper review on it.  But now, I finally feel that I've played enough of it to give you my thoughts.  This is the Illusive One's Review of Mortal Kombat (2011).

The Plot

            The game begins at what appears to be the ending of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.  It reveals that nearly every warrior in the Mortal Kombat Universe have killed each other in the battle of the Pyramid.  Only Raiden and Shao Kahn have survived and Kahn is beating the shit out of Raiden, about to kill him.  Realizing that he can't win in the present, Raiden sends a message back in time to himself during the Mortal Kombat Tournament of the first game so that he might be able to alter events of the future.  Throughout the game you play as various warriors as they try to defeat Shao Kahn and essentially rewrite the history of the first three games.

            One really good thing I noticed about the plot was that IT ACTUALLY HAD A FUCKING PLOT!  For some reason, an actual plot is very hard to find in tournament fighters and it's even harder to find a good one.  With the story of this game, however, it was not a half assed effort.  It was obvious that the writers actually put a lot of thought and effort into developing an engaging story that gamers could actually follow and made for an unexpected change of pace.

            With the alternate timeline, you got a familiar, yet fresh take on the first three games.  Events don't always go the way they did in the original three and at times you actually hoped they would go different, cheered when they did, cried when they didn't, and felt you heart drop when they took a turn you didn't want them to go.

            There are a few things to complain about, however.  For one thing, before the plot of this game was announced, I was really hoping that the story would continue directly after Armageddon, so I was slightly disappointed that they decided to take things in this direction.  The only other bad thing I have to say is that your point of view in this game is narrow and, as a result, half of the events occur off camera.  For example, you'll play as Striker during one part of the game, while Raiden and Liu-Kang are killing Motaro while you’re busy fighting other enemies. 

            All around however, the plot of this game was compelling, well written, great for this genera, and is definitely one for the books.

The Gameplay

            Get ready for a long section because there is a lot to talk about here.  For starters you had the combat style, which went back to a 2D fighting plane along with only one fighting style, on par with the first three games.  Depending on your point of view, this was either the best move the developers could have made or the worst.  Some people loved it and some people hated it and I myself can’t decide.  However, once you take that factor out of the equation it’s still a really solid fighting system that is very easy for anyone to jump into.  The fighting moves are great, special attacks are great, the controls are great and the fatalities are a little bit simpler but just as satisfying and gory as ever.

            One of the major things they added to this game is something they call tag team fighting.  This is where the player, or players, control two different characters and swap out to fight another tag team of opponents which can either be fun as hell or frustrating as shit if the person you’re playing with is a complete dick.  Still, it’s definitely something worth wile and is, in my opinion, the best tag team system out there. 

Along with this is the challenge latter in which the player does various challenges to earn coins that you can spend at the Krypt, (an area where you buy in-game bonus stuff for those of you who don’t know).  Some of these are simple, such as performing specialty moves or finishing an opponent with a fatality while others can be hard as hell but all around provide a great challenge to the player and hours of entertainment.  The graphics and attention to details in this game were also a huge improvement over any Mortal Kombat game and is the best looking tournament fighter I have ever seen, (it doesn’t have any of that cartoony crap you get with the Street Fighter games).  The characters and environments all look stunning and there was obviously a lot of work put into these things. 

Finally we had the best innovation of the game; the super meter.  This is a bar that loads up whenever you attack, block or perform a set of combos that allow you to do special attacks with increased damage; pretty standard for most modern tournament fighters.  There are two things, however, that separate this bar from the crowd.  The first is that when you get the meter to a certain lever it allows you to break off an enemy combo.  The one, however, that everyone talks about and everyone loves is the X-Ray move.  When the meter is full and when it’s triggered it shows the character performing various moves and shows an X-Ray view of the damage it does, such as shattering bones or rupturing organs and is very cool to watch.  It’s just something that’s very pleasing to the eyes and puts me in a good mood every time I do it to an opponent.

There are a few drawbacks to the gameplay, however, just like there are with any video game.  For example, there are a lot of cheap ways to beat an opponent in this game.  Often spamming the same attacks over and over again does the trick as does performing combo after combo with an opponent in a corner.  You also have the fights with Shao Kahn who is ridiculously hard because he does exactly that.  It’s infuriating to say the least.  The final negative thing I have to say deals with the Krypt.  While there is a ton of stuff to unlock within most of it is very underwhelming, mainly consisting of concept art and music.  What fun is that to unlock?

            All around, however, the gameplay was just awesome.  The graphics were beautiful, the combat was great, and there was just so much stuff to do and kept me coming back for more.

The Characters

            Where do I even begin?  In my personal opinion, the Mortal Kombat games have the most interesting and diverse cast of characters of any tournament fighter and this game really fleshed them out in ways that no other tournament fighter had done before.  I think anyone would agree that after the third game, the cast of characters started to grow ridiculous in both creativity and numbers.  So in this game they stuck to the essential characters which I think was best thing they could have done.

            While the fighting moves and such were tame in comparison to previous games there was one great thing the creators added to these characters; depth.  Unlike previous Mortal Kombat games or any other tournament fighter, these characters weren't as shallow as a pond.  You could actually see and hear the emotions of the characters through the expressions on their faces, body language and dialog.  As a result you're much more interested and involved with the characters and you really want to see them succeed.  I think the best example of this has to do with Scorpion as in this game the writers and animators really make you feel the pain he goes through.  Sure it it's not BioWare depth but it's far better than anything any tournament fighter has ever made.

            As with all the other elements of this game, there were faults.  Even though the game gave a whole new depth to the characters, the voice acting was kind of bad and very cheesy.  There were also a few things I couldn't help but nitpick at, mainly dealing with the new looks of some of the characters.  Mainly, I didn't care for the way Shao Kahn, Goro, and Kintaro looked.  In previous installments to the franchise, they always towered above the other characters and this gave them a monstrous quality.  In this game, however, they were...well....smaller and seemed more like mutated men then monsters.  My guess is that they were trying to go back to the original designs and size of the characters but in the process they seem slightly...underwhelming when compared to six generation versions, (that's the XBOX/PS2/GameCube era). 

            All around, however, this was easily the best cast of characters I've ever seen for a tournament fighter.  Are they perfect?  No.  Do they have anything on RPG characters?  No.  Do they have their faults?  Yes.  But at the same time they were the best developed cast of tournament fighter characters I’ve ever seen.  They were complicated, interesting, and very fleshed out.  Truly one for the books.

The Verdict

            What else can I say about this game?  It's fucking awesome and one of the best tournament fighters I have ever played.  Sure it had its faults but they weren't anything I couldn’t look past.  For its genera, it had a great story, great characters, great graphics, great gameplay, and I believe that this is the standard by which tournament fighters will be made from now on.  If you haven't checked it out, I would highly recommend doing so because it's worth every second of your time and you'll love every second of it.

All Around

9.25/10

A Look at Mortal Kombat

            I'm fond of saying that you either love Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings.  You can love both, but inevitably you like one more than the other and this saying can be applied to many different competing franchises.  Such as is with Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter.  You can love both of them, but you'll always love one more than the other.  And today, I'll be getting into the franchise I love more; Mortal Kombat.  The franchise has spawned seven main games, three spin off adventure games, and a crossover with the D.C. Universe.  With the release date of the new Mortal Kombat approaching, I decided that I would do a small take on each of the games, similar to my Look at Bioware.  In it, I'll be giving a small look at each if the main games and the D.C. crossover but I won't get into the adventure games, as I have little experience with them.  So, without further delay, this is the Illusive One's Look at the Mortal Kombat Games.

           The original Mortal Kombat was released to arcades in 1992 and was later ported to various video game consuls.  In it, you take control of one of seven different characters as they battle each other for different reasons in the tournament of Mortal Kombat.  The actual plot of the game, however, wasn't revealed until later for unknown reasons.  The background story states that the Elder Gods created various realms and decided that the natives of one realm could conquer another only by defeating the defending realm’s greatest warriors in the Mortal Kombat tournaments.  To prevent an evil emperor from taking over Earthrelm, the warriors of Earth must win this tournament, or all will be lost.

            This was the game that started it all for the franchise, introducing the series' trademark characters, environments, and, of course, fatalities.  It introduced the characters of Liu Kang, Raiden, Sonya Blade, Kano, Johnny Cage, Goro, Shang Tsung, Reptile, (although he was a hidden characters in this game), and of course, the best known characters, Scorpion and Sub-Zero.  Unlike earlier tournament fighter games, digitized sprites based on actors were used rather than cartoon graphics, and had blood, gore, and over the top deaths and some speculate that it was the reason the ESRB came into existence.  While incredibly outdated by today's standards, it was truly a master piece for its time and a milestone in gaming.

           In Mortal Kombat II, (released in 1993), after Shang Tsung fails to win the Mortal Kombat Tournament, the emperor of Outworld, Shao Kahn, holds a new tournament in Outworld, that for some reason the warriors Earthrealm couldn't turn down, (I honestly don't know why; not much effort was put into plot those days).  And so Shao Kahn restores Shang Tsung's youth and the tournament begins in Outworld.  This game introduced new characters, got rid of a few old ones, improved the graphics, added new environments and more complicated moves but it was still just more of the same stuff you got in the first game.  Fatalities also changed to where Animalities, (the character turns into an animal to kill the opponent,) and Babalites, (where the defeated character is turned into a baby instead of dying) could be triggered making the game more comedic and less serious.  3 would even go further with this by adding in a fatality where the entire planet would blow up as a result of the fights.  Despite this, it was a good sequel.

           In 1995, Mortal Kombat 3 was released. This time around Shao Kahn, tiered of getting his ass handed to him in the tournaments, has his dark priests resurrect his dead wife in Earthrelm, enabling him to ignore the rules of the Elder Gods and merges Earthrelm with Outworld, instantly killing billions.  Before this happens, however, Raiden is able to protect the souls of Earthrelm's champions, enabling them to fight against Shao Kahn's invasion.    

            Once again, it was mostly the same with a few new moves added, improved graphics, introduced new characters, and added new environments.  Many people didn't like it, however, because several key characters such as Scorpion, Raiden, Reptile and Johnny Cage were missing.  While some did return with the two title updates, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy, it still remained an issue. 

           In 1997 a radical shift came for the Mortal Kombat series.  By this point, consul games were becoming more and more popular and the world had entered the 3D era of gaming and Mortal Kombat did likewise.  This new game for this new era was Mortal Kombat 4.  In its plot, a fallen Elder God and an old nemesis of Raiden, named Shinnok breaks free of his prison with the help of the sorcerer Quan Chi and now seeks revenge on the Elder Gods.  To stop Shinnok, Raiden recruits the champions of Eathrelm to defeat Shinnok and his minions. 

            Once again, new characters are introduced but this time gameplay had radically changed.  The game is gorier, the characters were three dimensional, and this time was fully animated.  In addition, it allowed for the use of limited weapons, more use of the environment for fatalities, and allowed insane combos that would automatically break off at a certain point. 

            By this point, the number of characters that appeared in the Mortal Kombat games was getting ridiculous so this one stuck to the essential characters, like Liu Kang, Jax, Johnny Cage, Raiden, Reptile, Scorpion, Sonya, Sub-Zero and Goro, (in his first appearance since the original game).  It once again introduced new characters like Quan Chi and Shinnok, (although both appeared in the Mortal Kombat Adventure Games, Sub-Zero and Defenders of the Realm).

            This one also happened to be the last Mortal Kombat game to come out for the Arcade, as the Arcade's time had passed.  The series would remain inactive for five year but returned in what would be one of the greatest sequels in gaming history.

           This sequel was the 2002 game, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.  It's considered by most fans to be the greatest Mortal Kombat game ever made as it completely redid the old combat system, added new fatalities, fresh looks for the characters, added gallons of blood that can spill from the characters and greater environment traps.  In its plot, Quan Chi and Shang Tsung form an alliance to revive the invincible army of the Dragon King, the former ruler of Outworld.  Together, they manage to kill the only two people who will be able to stop them; Shao Kahn and Liu Kang.  Realizing that this deadly alliance must be stopped, Raiden gathers champions from each of the realms to stop the two.

            As mentioned, the combat was completely remasterd, allowing you to change to three different fighting styles that allowed for a huge number of devastating combos.  It is also the first game not to feature Liu Kang as a playable character but introduces several new characters as well as keeping many of the old.  The old characters include Raiden, Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, Kung Lao, Johnny Cage, Kitana, Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Reptile, Jax, Sonya, Cyrax, and Kano.  New characters included Kenshi, Bo' Rai' Cho, Li Mei, Nitari, Frost, Mavado, Hsu Hao, Onis Drahmin and Mulch. 

            Truly a milestone in the Mortal Kombat games.  But don't take my word for it.  Find it, buy it and play it.

           Two years later, the follow-up to Deadly Alliance, Deception was released in 2004.  Its opening reveals that Raiden's champions were unable to stop the Deadly Alliance, and most of them were killed in the attempt.  As a result, Raiden was forced to face the two alone in combat.  Unfortunately the Deadly Alliance proves too much for him and he is defeated.  Very quickly, however, Shang Tsung and Quan Chi turn on each other only to be faced with Onaga, The Dragon King.  In an act of desperation, the three enemies form an alliance of desperation to fight Onaga but all are killed in the effort leaving, Onaga free to do as he wishes with the Realms.

            For the most part, it was just a rehashing of Deadly Alliance but lacked nearly all the characters from the original two games, (with the exception of Scorpion and Sub-Zero).  While it did introduced new characters it just didn't have the feel of Deadly Alliance and was the most forgettable of the three of the PS2/XBOX/GameCube era. 

          Then in 2006 came the last true Mortal Kombat game yet released; Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.  In it, the warriors of the Mortal Kombat Universe were growing too strong and numerous for the realms to handle and their power threatens to destroy the fabric of the Realms.  In an enormous crater the warriors clash in a single battle royal between the Forces of Light and Darkness; a battle that threatens to rip apart reality and bring about the Apocalypse. Without warning, a mysterious pyramid rises from the ground, and the tip bursts into flames, attracting the warriors' curiosity to see what it was. The kombatants fight one another to get to the top, while Blaze, the firespawn reveales  himself to them and the one who can defeat this creature will be rewarded with the powers of a god.

            The game contains 63 different characters; all of the characters from previous games with four new ones.  Upon beating the game's tournament mode, alternate endings are shown where what would happen if different characters defeated Blaze; some like Sub-Zero and Liu Kang become gods while others like Quan Chi and Kobra are punished.  The game had two main differences from the last two.

 The first was that fatalities changed to where you make them up with a button sequence rather than doing it automatically.  The second was that the number of fighting styles changed from three to two and this disappointed fans.

            All around, it was better the Deception but still not as good as Deadly Alliance.

           And then came Mortal Kombat V.S. D.C. Universe, the only next-gen Mortal Kombat game to be released so far.  In its plot, Raiden kills Shao Kahn after his failed invasion of Earthrealm as he tries to go through a portal.  At the exact same time, Superman kills Darkseid as he enters a boom tube and the two fuse into the creature known as Dark Kahn and causes the Mortal Kombat and D.C. universes to merge and both sides fight each other thinking that the other side serves Dark Kahn. 

            It had all the moves, the classical characters, an interesting rage mode, allowed you to ram your opponents though walls, and allowed for fighting while flying through the air and while it was a good tournament fighter, it wasn't really a Mortal Kombat game.   Fans of the series were hoping to see the Mortal Kombat characters perform bloody, over the top fatalities on the D.C. characters but were extremely disappointed when it was released with a T rating and the gore was either nonexistent or happened off screen.  It was still better then a lot of other tournament fighters that came out for next gen systems, (Street Fighter IV, I'm looking at you), but it wasn't the game fans were looking for.

           So what's next for the franchise?  Well, as I stated above, a new game is coming out and is scheduled for release in April.  Unlike previous Mortal Kombat games, however, this one will not be made by Midway Games as the company had been fighting bankruptcy for years but finally filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in 2009 and the rights for the Mortal Kombat games were purchased by Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment.  Luckily, however, the Midway Chicago Studio, (the studio responsible for the Mortal Kombat Games), went with them and now works under the name NetherRealm Studios.

           From what I gather, the new game is both a sequel to Armageddon and a remake of the first three.  How is that possible?  Well, Raiden is about to be killed by Shao Kahn, but sends a message to his past self just before this happens, and thus resets the clock.  While the characters are three dimensional the environments have switched back to the two dimensional platforms of the original 3 and this gives me pause.  But all we can do for now is just wait and hope this game proves to be the reboot fans have been waiting for.  Until next time, this is the Illusive One saying,