symbolofmylife
New member
I've never been a Mortal Kombat (MK) fan. (Or beat-em-ups for the record)
Ok. Let me clarify before I incite a mutiny.
By “fan†I mean that back in the day I never owned a proper PC to enable to playing the original 2D versions of the game, and only got exposed to it when playing it at friend’s houses, and usually had me @$$ handed to me.
In recent years the closest I got to a fighting title was Smackdown VS Raw. Mostly because the matches last longer and there's a bit more to your fighting experience than just beating a guy for 40 seconds till his powerbar is empty.
Or so I thought.
But, back to MK.
With the above in mind, as far as the story of the Realms and all that goes, call me a bit of a noob.
However, the recent news that they will be revisiting the original 2D feel of the game, got me a tad excited. The demo also proved to be fun, however limited, and sold me on a pre-order.
Well, I now own a copy of MK9. And here’s my thoughts.
Sadly, similar to most recent releases, even when popping the title into the PS3 on release day, an update awaited. Not sure what it’s for but 40MB of download later the game started up.
The game features a number of game modes:
Fight: Jump straight into the fight ala arcade style (ladder); enter a Challenge Tower where you get assigned certain objectives during a fight in order to progress; Test Your Luck where a match gets affected by certain “lucky draw†elements such as no-head-mode, increased damage by one competitor and the like; Test Your Strength which will remind some of the button-bashing challenges of old arcade titles where button bashing fills a meter before you attempt to unleash a strike to break some boards or the like.
The game supports up to four players, as well as online play, and a two-player-tag ladder mode.
Knowing the normal “ladder†mode the wife and I jumped straight into Story Mode. Yes, my wife plays MK... (and pretty good as well...)
Basically, in story mode you get to play a chapter for each character as a long story. It is a great tool to push the player to get to know all the characters and their vast arrays of attacks, and the cutscenes are rendered into gameplay (think God of War) where the camera pulls into a fight but then zooms out again fluently to continue with the story. Pretty innovative.
Graphically, when the camera is in “fight†position, the game looks truly amazing. Each character also features two or three damage models where, as the match goes on, the one taking a beating will look worse and worse...in a good way. However, when the camera pulls out and zooms in during “story scene†mode, the camera zooms in on some faces quite tightly and don’t expect it to look to awesome then. When the camera pulls in close on a character’s face it looks a bit “previous gen†graphically, if you know what I mean.
Sound design also suffers a bit as volume levels differ between “fight†and “story†scenes, and while “fights†sound awesome “story†needs the volume turned up to hear dialogue in a lot of spots.
MK is a fighting game, so I think it’s understandable that the “deep story†they sell this game on’s plot is about as thin as Jean Claude Van Damme film and shallow as a kiddies pool. From “stop insulting Soya†to “I don’t like your faceâ€, it’s all here to start a fight. Ok, “I don’t like your face†is not in it, but you get the point. On a story level games like these never really carried well, and MK9 is, IMO, no exception.
The "story mode" is proving to be well fleshed out though, and not short at all...
That being said, none of the negative points take anything away from making it a Class A fighter.
I tried the much hyped Street Fighter recently. It sucked. Soul Calibur is a tad too intense. If I wanted to study lists and lists of button combinations I would’ve signed up for a university degree again and not be playing games.
MK9 does right what most recent fighters got horribly wrong.
Controls are razor sharp and feel just right. Level (background) design is stellar and really worth mentioning, as they’ve really brought usually bland backgrounds to life very well. Audio design is awesome (save the Story scenes) and overall, MK9 is what games are supposed to be...F....U...N....oh, and did I mention the PS3 version includes Kratos?!
The only downer to the game really, is the price tag. R500+ is maybe a bit much considering Crysis 2 retails at about R100 cheaper. So, for the price the offering could be seen as a bit lacking.
If you enjoy fighters, or enjoyed MK back in the day before Batman took on Scorpion while Superman looked on, I’d suggest you get it.
And the roster, excluding Kratos, as follows:
Ok. Let me clarify before I incite a mutiny.
By “fan†I mean that back in the day I never owned a proper PC to enable to playing the original 2D versions of the game, and only got exposed to it when playing it at friend’s houses, and usually had me @$$ handed to me.
In recent years the closest I got to a fighting title was Smackdown VS Raw. Mostly because the matches last longer and there's a bit more to your fighting experience than just beating a guy for 40 seconds till his powerbar is empty.
Or so I thought.
But, back to MK.
With the above in mind, as far as the story of the Realms and all that goes, call me a bit of a noob.
However, the recent news that they will be revisiting the original 2D feel of the game, got me a tad excited. The demo also proved to be fun, however limited, and sold me on a pre-order.
Well, I now own a copy of MK9. And here’s my thoughts.
Sadly, similar to most recent releases, even when popping the title into the PS3 on release day, an update awaited. Not sure what it’s for but 40MB of download later the game started up.
The game features a number of game modes:
Fight: Jump straight into the fight ala arcade style (ladder); enter a Challenge Tower where you get assigned certain objectives during a fight in order to progress; Test Your Luck where a match gets affected by certain “lucky draw†elements such as no-head-mode, increased damage by one competitor and the like; Test Your Strength which will remind some of the button-bashing challenges of old arcade titles where button bashing fills a meter before you attempt to unleash a strike to break some boards or the like.
The game supports up to four players, as well as online play, and a two-player-tag ladder mode.
Knowing the normal “ladder†mode the wife and I jumped straight into Story Mode. Yes, my wife plays MK... (and pretty good as well...)
Basically, in story mode you get to play a chapter for each character as a long story. It is a great tool to push the player to get to know all the characters and their vast arrays of attacks, and the cutscenes are rendered into gameplay (think God of War) where the camera pulls into a fight but then zooms out again fluently to continue with the story. Pretty innovative.
Graphically, when the camera is in “fight†position, the game looks truly amazing. Each character also features two or three damage models where, as the match goes on, the one taking a beating will look worse and worse...in a good way. However, when the camera pulls out and zooms in during “story scene†mode, the camera zooms in on some faces quite tightly and don’t expect it to look to awesome then. When the camera pulls in close on a character’s face it looks a bit “previous gen†graphically, if you know what I mean.
Sound design also suffers a bit as volume levels differ between “fight†and “story†scenes, and while “fights†sound awesome “story†needs the volume turned up to hear dialogue in a lot of spots.
MK is a fighting game, so I think it’s understandable that the “deep story†they sell this game on’s plot is about as thin as Jean Claude Van Damme film and shallow as a kiddies pool. From “stop insulting Soya†to “I don’t like your faceâ€, it’s all here to start a fight. Ok, “I don’t like your face†is not in it, but you get the point. On a story level games like these never really carried well, and MK9 is, IMO, no exception.
The "story mode" is proving to be well fleshed out though, and not short at all...
That being said, none of the negative points take anything away from making it a Class A fighter.
I tried the much hyped Street Fighter recently. It sucked. Soul Calibur is a tad too intense. If I wanted to study lists and lists of button combinations I would’ve signed up for a university degree again and not be playing games.
MK9 does right what most recent fighters got horribly wrong.
Controls are razor sharp and feel just right. Level (background) design is stellar and really worth mentioning, as they’ve really brought usually bland backgrounds to life very well. Audio design is awesome (save the Story scenes) and overall, MK9 is what games are supposed to be...F....U...N....oh, and did I mention the PS3 version includes Kratos?!
The only downer to the game really, is the price tag. R500+ is maybe a bit much considering Crysis 2 retails at about R100 cheaper. So, for the price the offering could be seen as a bit lacking.
If you enjoy fighters, or enjoyed MK back in the day before Batman took on Scorpion while Superman looked on, I’d suggest you get it.
And the roster, excluding Kratos, as follows:
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