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Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat

Fly-kick, uppercut, kick, repeat, finish him! Petter Hegevall has enjoyed grotesque design, a cheesy story and brutal fatalities in the latest Mortal Kombat.

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Cheesy, dorky, silly in that special 90s way and totally predictable. Mortal Kombat is back - and conceptually nothing has changed. You can call it a reboot, a fresh start, a remake. Call it whatever you like. It's still Mortal Kombat, just like it's always been - and always will be.

This new Mortal Kombat makes away with all 3D-oriented arenas, odd bonus levels, beat ‘em up-smelling sidetracks and all that kind of nonsense. Back to basics 2001. It might sound bizarre, but Mortal Kombat is a gameplay-mix of Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 wiith a few important additions.

Mortal Kombat

One of those is the super meter at the bottom of the picture. Just like in games like Street Fighter IV you can use it in various ways and tailor your use of the collected super power. It has three states and every state means that you can use a different power during a match - Nighthawk might shoot three arrows from his bow or Sub-Zero might blow out extra ice. If you allow the meter to reach its second stage you can use it to break your opponent's combos, which you'll have to learn if you're going to stand a chance online.

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And if you reach the third stage, you can unleash a X-ray attack where you'll stomp, cut, smash or kick your opponent's skeleton to pieces - something, as the name implies, is shown through a X-ray camera. The idea behind the meter might be good, and it will quickly become a valuable part of your arsenal, but I think the X-ray attacks should have been skipped since they unbalance the game. If you pull one off, which isn't very hard to do, you'll easily knock 40% off your opponent's health bar. All fighters can use them, so there's no imbalance between the different characters, but it's simply no fun to fight hard with combo-breakers, juggles and great blocks when you can still be instantly killed by a cheap super attack.

Mortal Kombat

The result is that Mortal Kombat, which is actually a pretty decent fighter, ends up being more of a party-game than it deserves to be. Just like in Tekken 6, where the Rage-meter actually managed to devalue an already good fighting system, the X-rays feel like an innovation made purely to innovate. I wish you could at least turn them off.

The button layout has been changed as well, which now reminds me more of Tekken than before - a button for left arm, one for right arm, etcetera. This kind of configuration, at least according to me, is the best solution for fighting games. And while the button layout and the silky smooth framerate create a good flow during the matches, Mortal Kombat doesn't even come close to competitor like Super Street Fighter IV and Virtua Fighter 5 when it comes to depth, precision, balance and tempo.

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Mortal KombatMortal Kombat

The game mechanics are still way too stiff, just like always. You never get the feeling that your fighter moves with any form of dexterity, the animations don't really flow into each other and the kind of zen calm that Street Fighter IV offers is not to be found here. The game also makes some weird priorities, and it's way too easy to build up special attacks that some matches simply become spam fests of super attacks. And the target seeking attacks should simply have been eliminated by now.

Mortal Kombat

The story in Mortal Kombat has always been important, but also stupid, macho-oriented and often laughable - and here it goes to new lengths. Mental projections, alternative destinies, traitors and the fight between good and evil. It often feels like a parody of itself, and during the story sequences I often have time to laugh before I get annoyed that I can't skip them - not even when I've finished the game and want to test out the story mode on a higher difficulty.

Besides the story mode you get, like always, Challenge Tower. This mode is my personal favorite, with 300 imaginative challenges to beat. It's perfect for Mortal Kombat, Ed Boon's patented sense of humour is still intact and the difficulty is perfectly balanced. There's also The Krypt, of course, where you as usual can spend gold you earn in the other modes for new costumes, concept art or character sketches.

Mortal Kombat

During my online fighting in Mortal Kombat I've seen both good and bad matches - some completely lag-free, while others have been hard to finish due to delays. It's obvious that Netherrealm Studios simply don't have the experience companies like Capcom and Namco have with online-based multiplayer and most of the time it's a rather mediocre experience. I also miss something similar to the "fight request"-feature from Super Street Fighter IV.

Mortal Kombat

I've spent many hours with Mortal Kombat by now, and I love the feeling it gives me when I get to fly-kick my friends in the face with Scorpion. It throws me 20 years back in time and offers up wonderful retro- and nostalgia-laden memories from the wonderful 16-bit era.

At the same time, Mortal Kombat can't compete with the kind of brilliance other modern fighting games - like Super Street Fighter IV - have. Netherrealm Studios have created another Mortal Kombat-game filled with vulgar design, über-violence and meaty game modes. It's fun for a while, but it got nothing on the true stars in the genre.

07 Gamereactor UK
7 / 10
+
Vulgar design, good sound effects, good controls, tons of content
-
Stiff, unbalanced gameplay, dorky story
overall score
is our network score. What's yours? The network score is the average of every country's score

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