Back in the days of the SNES, there was only one fighter for me - Mortal Kombat. Well, make that two, Mortal Kombat 2 also had my heart. To my young brain, far too young really, there was nothing finer than back back high punch with Scorpion, followed by an unceremonious upper cut to the chops, and a minute later seeing the fallen opponent getting burnt to oblivion with hellifire breath. Truly, the height of entertainment, and no fighter has ever quite had my heart since.
Its sad that that was in part because Mortal Kombat really dredged the doldrums of fighters over the years, suffering perhaps more than most through the lean years of fighting games' history. So it was with glee I noticed this Mortal Kombat coming over the horizon, looking fantastic and back to it's roots.
The promise of those first glimpses has remained. This game is great - a reboot of the franchise, it provides superb fan service, a great introduction to the series for new fans, and an easy wiping of a slate that has gotten pretty dirty since MK3 last really provided a top fighting experience.
The canon of the title is a simple retelling of the first 3 games' storylines, all shown through the brilliant story mode. This mode sees you take over a different fighter from the series for about 5 fights a pop, all linked with a series of hammy, just-played-straight-enough cutscenes that advance the plot and provide you the reasoning for the series of scraps you find yourself in. This is a simple idea, and it is a good one - it immediately feels more advanced than than the old school ladder that formed the bread and butter of every fighter for the past 20 years, and it provides an excellent introduction to around half of the games numerous characters . It could almost be called a tutorial really for these characters, easing you in to each one and then ramping up what it asks of you, and repeating this right to end for character after character. That is not to say it is easy, however, pretty much every character faces a 2v1 scenario that, in a couple of cases will definitely test both a players skill and patience. Speaking as a pretty average player, I was given good reason to hurl quite unnecessary abuse at my TV on a couple of occasions due to these fights. But they're not impossible and probably help to improve your ability that stage further in my opinion.
In great MK tradition, the final fight in this mode is rage inducingly cheap, but even that doesn't take the shine of this mode for me, it's great.
Other single player treats include the traditional Ladder, a series of 10 fights up to the boss to unlock the individual character endings in both single and tag flavours, and the Challenge Tower, a series of 300 fights and minigames that impose certain rules and critieria on the player to challenge their skill to new heights. This mode is another joy - it can be devious, it can be infuriating, it's regularly silly (an example of challenges include fights where damage can be only done by throwing your regenerating limbs at the opponent), but its a smart addition and a few of the challenges have a glorious sense of satisfaction at finally nailing them. If a challenge does become too much for your patience, in-game currency earned through the story, ladder and previous challenges can be spent on skipping them to get to the next, another smart design choice given how devious the challenges can become.
This currency's main use is in the Krypt, a compendious store of alt costumes, unlockable fatalities, concept art and the like. Most of this is pretty useless but hey, it's another nice feature.
The game plays supremely well, indeed it's only failing in my experience is not the fault of the developer, and rather more the Xbox Pad. MK was always a slightly less complex gameplay experience than it's contemporaries, and this has been maintained in this title. Indeed as a veteran of the older games, I was grinning when I found that with only slight adjustment I was pulling off moves burnt into my brain 15 years ago. Each character has slight adjustments in strategy necessary to get the most out of them and learning the preset combos soon sets you onto a path of success. Even when a special's inputs crosses over characters (for example down back and a punch will do something for perhaps 80% of characters) the strategy for getting good use of that special is different character to character as you would expect and hope for. The controls are as tight as needs be and the whole game has a satisfaction in nailing that combo that is hard to find in other genres.
Its a shame then the controller lets it down. The Xbox 360 isn't blessed with a great Dpad and it shows in this genre and with this game. Whilst probably not as bad as it might be for, say, Street Fighter, the pad just doesn't do the game justice. More than once I have found moves, even simple ones, taking multiple inputs to get them out, and this I know not to be my failing as my inputs are pretty consistent. The pad just can't handle the fast paced accuracy required. It's by no means a game breaker, I've polished up the single player elements of the game with the issue a recurrence, but it is an annoyance to find yourself having a brief window of opportunity only to find that disappear because the input wasn't registered. I have noticed that the problem seems to depend a lot on the individual controller - of my 2 pads, the older more used one suffers more than the newer one, but both suffer from the issue.
If I must fault the gameplay itself, I do find the much vaunted 'Xray' attacks, whilst bringing a welcome new dynamic to the game, in some cases feel slightly unbalanced - some are too powerful, and they are universally to easy to pull off - pulling both triggers to pull off your most powerful attack is little galling. The only difficulty in using them is finding the right situation (which differs character to character as each individual's xray has a different use, some being counters, some projectiles etc etc) and the right strategy in using them. Either way it's entirely possible to pull the triggers and completely turn around a bout, which can feel a little cheap.
Fatalities are of course back, and in great form. Theres some truly grim (in the best possible sense) finishers in this game, and some truly inventive ideas in ways to kill an opponent, all appropriately gorey and in some cases almost funny, in others wincingly horrific.
The game looks great, it's well presented with top class backgrounds, smooth frame rates across the board and only very rare slightly less stellar character models in close up letting the side down. It's not the best looking game out there, but it's still a pretty title. It sounds approriately visceral too, hits have a pretty hefty thump to them, and the specials all sound top notch too.
Multiplayer is also well served. Traditional 1 v 1, tag and 2 v 2 tag is available both on and offline, and local multiplayer is also served with modes such as 'Test Your Luck', a mode where a fight is subject to effects randomly assigned by the game, including unlimited super, vampire kombat, boosted damage, and so on. These fights can often be best described as 'manic', but they add a great new flavour to multiplayer fights.
Online is also served by King of the Hill matches, a 'winner stays on' style fight where a room of challengers takes it in turns to take on a current King, while everyone else can spectate and rate the match and show their appreciation (and displeasure).
It's a shame then, at the time of writing, that the online is damn near unplayable. Searching for a ranked match is regularly a lesson in futility, lag is rife making a number of matches pretty much pointless given the twitch reflex side of the game against a human opponent, random disconnection is also rife. I've no doubt this will be sorted but at the moment it's a fairly frustrating experience. The tools are there though for a great online experience, especially given the title's Lobby system that is a simple idea done well.
Mortal Kombat is a joy. I havent truly played a fighter since Soul Calibur 2 on the Gamecube, but this has stolen my heart and I'm not even that good. It's enormous fun, its accessable enough for even a novice to get a good time out of and, in pretty much a first for a fighter of recent years, it's even worth recommendation to anyone with no friends and no internet - I've gotten at least 25 hours out of it as a solo experience and I'm sure that'll rise even with most of the solo side of the game aced for me. It's great gory fun. It may not have the same finesse of a Street Fighter, but damnit it's fun. Go buy it, you'll not regret it.
