I know what it’s like to want to start over, it works well in many walks of life. You hear it all the time on social media, generally on account of the opposite sex. It’s usually asserted with good intentions, and we all know that a figurative cleansing can do wonders for your outlook and focus.
It can also work in regards to the creative platform, many of us will be all too familiar with the numerous movie reboots, various superhero franchises being at the focal point of such questionable capitalism. Having said that, if they didn’t reboot things more often than people change underwear, we would be stuck with the Joel Schumacher Batman films (shudder).
The gaming industry is also no stranger to restructuring their IPs; DmC recently received a complete overhaul courtesy of Ninja Theory. Lara Croft also leapt on to the proverbial bandwagon of reform in the new Tomb Raider. There will always be naysayers when the now seemingly inevitable reboot comes around, however, I genuinely think that more often than not, it’s a good thing.
Which brings us to the PC release of NetherRealm Studios flagship title, Mortal Kombat. I was 12 years old when MK was first released in the arcades. If you could perform any of the fatalities, you were basically a God to everyone at school. At least amongst the guys anyway.
It’s taken NetherRealm two years to give their remodelled classic to gaming’s affectionately named “Master Race”. In all honesty, we have to count ourselves lucky it happened at all, fighting games don’t sell particularly well on PC, it generally takes a petition with thousands of names on it to get developers/publishers to rise from their bed of fanboy tears, and the end result isn’t usually that special.
In this instance though, there is nothing to fear. Let me tell you why.
The beat-em up genre isn’t generally known for its engrossing story or great dialogue, and in fairness, you play them to drastically alter the visage of your opponent, not talk about puppies and life goals.
Mortal Kombat has always done the aesthetic damaging part well, but the story has been kept very simple. For those unfamiliar; the evil emperor Shao Khan is trying to invade the Earth, but before he does, his warriors must win ten straight victories in the Mortal Kombat tournament. This is enforced by the Elder Gods, who oversee the events and keep Shao Khan in line. In the original MK, the game picks up as the Outland forces have won nine tournaments, the main story ends with Liu Kang winning and saving Earth realm.
This time around though, we have the aforementioned reboot/retelling, in the guise of Raiden (God of thunder and lightning) receiving visions from a possible reality where Shao Khan is victorious. His future self uses his last moments to send his past self a warning, using a magical amulet and a bit of spell castery. I’m probably making it sound more complicated than it is, but to be perfectly honest, it’s actually damn good, in a B-movie kind of way.
The game is split into chapters, each one giving you the control of a different character. The dialogue is cheesy and the voice acting a bit wooden, but it doesn’t try and take itself seriously. The cutscenes move the narrative along nicely, allowing you to shift between various locations and fight the different kombatants along the way. Being that this is a retelling of the old game, it gives the developer the licence to make changes, or just reveal things that hadn’t been previously.
So now we get to see how Cyrax and Sektor become cyborgs, why Jax has bionic arms. There are plenty of nice surprises along the way, for anyone even remotely interested in seeing the story in and around the tournament expanded, you’re in for a treat. The narrative isn’t likely to win any awards, although I don’t recall ever playing another fighter that comes close in terms of a good story mode.
You can still play the normal ladder combat if you so wish. There is also a tag version too, and no I don’t mean you run around a playground screaming any new curse words you might have learned. MK9 allows you to team two fighters together and move through the usual ladder process, adding some great tag moves add a fair bit more strategic play, especially on the higher difficulty settings.
Whilst we are on the subject of difficulty, I will get a couple of minor annoyances out there. The first being the steep learning curve and spikes in kitten strangling difficulty. It doesn’t necessarily feel unfair during one on one bouts, but the story mode will pit you against two opponents at times, with just your paltry single health bar to defeat both twice in a row, this can be harder than making it all the way through a Justin Bieber song.
The other gripe is the sound and frame rate in the cutscenes, the frame rate issue is something that nearly always plagues console ports, so it’s no real surprise. The sound quality I imagine could be fixed in a patch, but as it stands, it seems that it isn’t using the PC’s hardware.
None of the problems I mentioned are in any way game breaking though, the last two are very minor and of no real consequence, the difficulty is more likely my failing than the games. The good news is that the positive aspects of the game, far outway any minor niggles.
The art direction in the game is exemplary, the different fighting arenas look vibrant and often distract from the actual combat. The chunky character models also look superb and are complemented by smooth animation sets. Similarly, the faithful, iconic voice overs return to add the over-the-top arcade feel to proceedings.
Another plus for PC gamers, is the inclusion of all but one of the DLC characters. You get Cyber Sub-Zero, Freddie Kruger, Kenshi, Skarlet and Rain; all for the extra cost of the air you breathe. The only combatant left out, is (unfortunately) Kratos. It would have been nice to have the Ghost of Sparta as well, however Sony are unlikely to allow him to be played on PC. We can but hope.
It’s difficult to talk about a fighting game at any great length. Despite the time evaporating amount of content within the game, the genre itself doesn’t lend the amount of rambling space as say, an RPG. That’s not to say it’s a bad experience, Mortal Kombat is actually the first beat-em up I have played for longer than half a day in a long time (Other than Injustice).
One thing that is certainly worth a mention though, is the challenge tower. It consists of 300 widely differing trials; anything from landing a few special moves in a limited time, to beating an opponent with blocking disabled. There is even the “Test Your Might” events thrown in, along with a few more variants.
It can be quite fun, and I imagine it will keep the kompletionists (last time I do that I promise) among you, busy for quite some time. All of the different modes in Mortal Kombat award you with an in-game currency, you can utilise this to unlock different costumes or fatalities for characters, and even find some “cheat” codes, turning off the gore for example (I have no idea who would want that either). There are also some slightly less interesting inclusions, such as concept art of stages, or stickman drawings of some of the fatalities.
I’m generally not one for unlocking all the optional extras, nevertheless, because the game rewards for playing any of the modes, it’s fairly easy to build up the currency, and it doesn’t cross the thin line between being fun and becoming a chore.
The fisty cuffs works much like it used to. Each of the four attack buttons are assigned to a limb, and as always with MK, you have a block button. I’m not a huge fan of having a button press for block, I have always preferred the “pull back” approach, it’s not a huge deal and it’s made easier by using an arcade stick (which btw works fine on PC).
The latter foes, such as Goro/Kintaro and Shao Khan have some unbelievably cheap ability sets, most of their attacks will stagger or blow right through your guard, add that together with some irritating charge or teleport type maneuvers, and you have yourself a blood spattered recipe for the cause of your next argument with your significant other. It’s not insurmountable, and as I previously mentioned, I’m not the greatest at fighting games, so don’t take that as gospel.
A new inclusion for this incarnation, is the “X-ray” moves. This involves using your entire super meter, to execute a bone shattering, and enormously damaging attack to your opponent, via an X-ray view. They look great and generally take off about ¼ of their hit points. It might seem like a no brainer on the face of it, but you have to weigh that against using the meter for cranking up your regular special attacks. This takes ⅓ of the bar, but can be used to tag your moves on to combos where you wouldn’t usually be able to, also dealing more damage in the process. Lastly, there is the combo breaker, this takes ⅔ of the bar, and does what it says on the tin. Balancing these three things can be tricky to say the least, as using an X-ray can leave you very vulnerable for the moments afterwards as you try to build your meter back up.
Mortal Kombat has always had a rather heavy feel to the controls, you can still leap around in a Batman-like fashion, but the purchase on the strikes landing is pushed to the fore, that along with the iconic amount of gore, gives a very visceral and impactful fighting experience.
The multiplayer seems a standard affair (to the best of my knowledge), ranked 1v1 or Tag Matches, King of the Hill etc. You can create or join rooms, and there seems to be a fair amount of online statistics. I didn’t notice any lag when I played, of course that doesn’t mean others won’t.
I won’t start trying to comment on the balance (or lack thereof) between the various characters, I don’t play this type of game online enough to form a cohesive argument. From watching the pro players from various tournaments, you could gather which characters were generally “better”, either because of their move sets or ease of use. In fairness though, you could probably say this of any fighting game.
The genre will always leave fans divided on which is the better, that said, if you didn’t like MK before, this might be the best time to give it another try.
As far as console ports go, Mortal Kombat is an excellent one, I haven’t noticed any performance issues during play, it looks beautifully crisp and apart from the lower quality cutscenes, it’s pretty much flawless. If you were holding off buying it due to the stream of poorly coded ports PC gamers put up with, you can put those fears to rest.
If you enjoy this type of game, or even if you haven’t found them particularly fulfilling before, you should turn your attention to MK9. I can think of no better way of introducing newcomers to the genre, or even dragging some old hands back into the fray.
It is frustrating at times, you may even damage a few controllers over it, but you won’t find many better fighting games than this. Any which way you look at it, Mortal Kombat deserves some of your time, so go warm up your fingers and dust off your arcade stick; Earth realm needs heroes.
Feature image taken from http://www.bhmpics.com/