Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat is a franchise that I feel lost it's way somewhere around Deadly Alliance. While always being known for its high amount of blood and gore, it went from a 2D to a 3D format and the changes it brought to the fighting weren't really favored by that many. In the scope of fighting games, I felt it was the franchise that was always on the edge of becoming popular yet never could achieve a level of popularity like Street Fighter.
What I cannot deny however is that Mortal Kombat probably has the most interesting story out of most popular fighting games out there and even though that's not what you come to a fighting game for - I fondly remember it because it took me a long time to get onto something like Xbox live, so all I really had was the story and arcade modes.

I heard that Mortal Kombat 9 was a reboot and as such returns to its 2D roots much to my pleasure. Since I have bit of a fondness for the MK Lore, of course the first thing I checked out was the story mode which picks up at the end of Armageddon where pretty much everyone but Raiden and Shao Kahn have bitten the dust. Right before Shao Kahn can kill Raiden and take control of the massive power of Armageddon - Raiden sends a vision to his past self exclaiming "He must win!". And from there on the actual story begins.
The story mode follows the game through the perspectives of many different characters, allowing you to play as them as the story unfolds. This way you get a good sense of the world and the interactions between many of the cast, and I found it a very enjoyable experience with some cool stuff happening to anyone interested in the MK Lore. Of course there is also the classic Arcade Mode where you fight the Shao Kahn at the end to get a character-specific ending, some of which are more absurd then the others.

Another addition to Mortal Kombat is the Challenge Tower, consisting of 300 Challenges ranging from quite easy to astonishingly hard. There is also a reward at the end of it all, but if you cared enough about that you probably have already heard what it is.
While playing the aforementioned modes you'll be earning Kurrency, which is where the popular Krypt from previous MK games comes into play once more. In this Krypt you'll be unlocking Kombat Kodes, learning alternate fatality codes, and unlocking various pieces of artwork and renders along with stage music and the like.
I felt a bit disappointed because the Krypt from previous Mortal Kombats featured some neat behind the scenes footage, and several gag films like the infamous " Cooking with Scorpion".While I can't really fault them for making an entire series of videos like that just to entertain us, it would've been pretty damn amazing had there been like one or two of those hidden in there. That being said I was able to unlock the full 100% of the krypt fairly easy in comparison to its predecessors but I'm hoping they end up making some Krypt DLC of some kind. Because really, the game throws out Kurrency like Johnny Cage spits witty retorts.

However the biggest pull of a fighting game in this day and age would be the online gameplay against other people, which feels fine but suffers from a few issues.
The 1V1 games where its just you and one opponent are fine 60% of the time, where in the other cases you'll end up in matches with full second delays between inputs which can easily cost you a victory, much to either your own or your opponents frustration. This lag is even more prevalent in the King of the Hill game mode, where you and up to 7 other people can watch the King of the Hill and the Challenger duke it out for control of the Hill and even grade the winner's performance at the end. These connections could range from actually being okay, to being utterly unplayable due to stutter and input delays, and even outright disconnecting you.
That all being said, if it's all working the game is great fun to play online even if it suffers from the typical fighting game problem of "Jesus Christ EVERYBODY is just playing as this/these guys". And Ed Boon did announce that they were working on the Netcode which is reassuring. Another small sidenote is that while games like street fighter and Marvel Versus Capcom 3 make you pay for alternate costume packs, it was said that the costumes they release for MK9 would be free of charge, which I see as a pretty cool gesture.

What I'm trying to get across is that Mortal Kombat is one of those games you can just pick up and learn at your own pace, it's an easy to pick up and rewarding to master kind of thing. You won't regret your adventure in the Mortal Kombat universe, and I highly recommend it to everyone I know.