Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was a game dripping with nostalgia in my mind. As a huge fan of the series, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the N64 being my video game ever, I was very much looking forward to the release of this game on xbla. This arcade game provides a genuine experience of when it was in its prime with 15 characters and others unlockable. Series favourites like Johnny cage, Scorpion and Sub-Zero are present and all their classic moves are intact. However, games have greatly improved in the years since this game originally released and its faithfulness to the original works against it in some ways.
Graphically Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 has not aged well. Backgrounds are very simple yet retain their charm, but the digitised actors for the character models look slightly comical at times. The Xbox 360 controller is a poor tool to play this game with, making combos and especially fatalities difficult to do. The sound is poor, with low volume music failing to add anything of value to the fighting itself. The menus are simple and easily navigable, which greatly helps the online play and matchmaking. Online generally runs smoothly with little lag, and the leader boards allow you to compare directly with your friends.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is a nice and well priced throw back but playing it really shows how far games have come since that time and an unsuitable controller does not help. The art style and minimal story has its charms but is all very simplistic and nostalgia alone fails to hold it all together. Its by no means a bad arcade game, and MK fans will enjoy it, but its not an easy game to recommend.
Pros:
- Recaptures an authentic experience
- Old school fatalities are great fun to pull off successfully
- Menus are well laid out
- Art style is simple but charming
- Online matchmaking runs well
Cons:
- Characters are not well balanced
- Sound is poor
- Character models have aged poorly
- Xbox 360 controller is not suited to this game
- Story/Lore is lacking
Wtf:
- No Raiden
Score:
- 5/10