Okay Geek Farm
Xbox 360 - Mortal Kombat Review
Alex Tretrop
It’s been quite a while since we’ve seen a serious entry into the Mortal Kombat franchise. While Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe was a great game in it’s own way, it suffered from the lack of ridiculous fatalities and visuals as well as being on a 3D plane, which hampered the fighting in annoying ways. Billed as a reboot of the franchise, Mortal Kombat is back and it’s one of the best fighters out there, with it’s excellent gameplay, surprisingly excellent story and all of the gruesome, over the top fatalities you’ve come to expect from the series. — Our full review after the break!
Story
I’m going to start by saying that Mortal Kombat has the best story ever in a fighting game. Veterans of fighters know for a fact that you rarely have a good story to speak of. More often than not, you don’t have one at all. Thankfully, while it isn’t perfect, Mortal Kombat takes the story into interesting areas and while it definitely isn’t perfect, it’s still pretty good.
The story takes place just as Raiden is defetead by Shao Kahn, Mortal Kombat’s signature bad guy and awesome announcer. He sends fragmented visions to his past self back during the events of the first Mortal Kombat and follows the characters as the attempt to stop this coming apocalypse. The game encompases the first three games, but thanks to this alternate timeline business, characters can end up completely different situations than the originals. It’s interesting and manages to compress the story into interesting chunks as you play through each character in a preset order.
That being said, it isn’t exactly perfect. You obviously won’t get as much out of the experience if you aren’t at least somewhat familiar with the story of the older Mortal Kombat games and some of the reasoning behind the fights fall into the “extremely cheesy” category. It also doesnt include any real blood or fatalities, which is fairly dissapointing for a game bearing the Mortal Kombat name. Finally, the story tends to put your character into a ton of 1 vs 2 situations which is just as annoying as it sounds, especially if you aren’t particularly good at a certain character.
The best part about it though is that there aren’t loading screens in the Story. Even as the game changes from cinematic to fight, the game just pans the camera into the battle and your good to go and once your done, it pans right back to the next shot of the character. It really helps keep the flow of it going and keeps you interesting in the exposition as well as the next fight.
Gameplay
The first thing you’ll notice when you begin playing is that the game is finally back in the 2D fight perspective of old. The fact that MK vs DC was 3D was a huge turnoff to many, me being one of them, because it felt extremely easy to dodge characters who had heavily projectile focused attacks. Not so here, Mortal Kombat includes a fantastic fighting system that feels like a ton of fun to play. You’ve got your standard attacks, kombos and a meter at the bottom of your screen that feels like the best addition to the fighting mechanics. You can use upgraded versions of any of your combos for the cost of one notch of the bar, dodge out of a nasty kombo for two or blow the whole thing on one of the absolutely brutal X-Ray attacks that take out a ton of damage if they hit. You need to think on the fly whether to save up for an X-Ray or just use a bunch of upgraded kombos to take down your opponent. It’s easy enough that newer players can jump in and have fun while advanced players can string together some extremely crazy combos together if they can time it just right.
You’ve also got one of the most fully featured fighters in a long time, with support for your standard versus modes, ladder modes, tag team modes and the “Test your…” modes. A particular favourtie of mine is Test your Luck, in which a roulette adds some pretty crazy modifiers to an otherwise standard fight. It could declare headless combat, flip the screen upside down and make the floor magnetic, making for some hilarious results. It provides a nice break from the typical fight and seems like the perfect use of Mortal Kombat’s ridiculous mechanics.
The online is also excellently put together, offering you everything you’d expect from a great fighting game. You’ve got the typical 1v1 format and the Tag team modes but they also include an interesting take on King of the Hill. Basically, everyone in the lobby watch two people duke it out and then the loser goes to the end of the line and the next one up gets their chance at taking down the king. It’s a great mode that gives you a chance to watch others and still keep things exciting while your waiting for your turn.
Graphics and Audio
Mortal Kombat is one great looking fighting game. The characters are all excellently detailed and all look as ridiculous as you remember them. The levels themselves also look fantastic, with a huge amount of things going on in the foreground and backround at a time. When your in combat, the hits look and sound like they really hurt and the blood appearing in the places you hit just adds to Mortal Kombat’s signature, gory style. Speaking of that, the Fatalities are some of the best in the series and all of them are excellently gory as well as ridiculous, giving you that imense feeling of satisfaction after you’ve won a batlle.
The audio is also fairly excellent, with the voice actors doing competent jobs during the story as their respective characters. The hits on opponnents are also extremely convincing, with those X-Ray attacks sounding particularly brutal.
Overall
Mortal Kombat is one really great game. I don’t spend too much time with fighters, but Mortal Kombat feels like it’s accessible to newcomers and challenging enough to veterans that it has something for everyone. A surprisingly great story, superb visuals and sound as well as excellent gameplay and multiplayer all come together into one fantastic package that no one should miss out on.
Pro’s
- Surprisingly great Story
- Strong Visuals and Audio
- Superb Gameplay
Con’s
- Story mode doesn’t have persistant damage on characters
- Absurdly Difficult Bosses
- Occasional Online Problems
I absolutely encourage everyone to try out Mortal Kombat. Regardless of if your new to the franchise or even the genre, you’ll get tons of enjoyment out of the fighting mechanics, gruesome fatalities, X-rays and the over the top characters. It also seems like a sufficiently balanced experience, as well as having a story mode that is cohesive enough to interest you between every fight. Give it a try, you probably won’t regret it!
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