Does it Pass the Test?

Mortal Kombat has finally come full circle.  No offense to the fans but I would be happy if we never saw another Teen rated MK ever. This one is a yin yang of good and bad.  Good combat, great graphics, effed up convoluted story.  The irony is I'm a series fan and thought I had grown acclimated to the odd story arcs…

I'm going to skip the story altogether and get into the goods.  However I will mention the game effs w/ the timeline hard.  Like Quan Chi, Ermac, and others attending the 1st MK tournament on Shang Tsungs island.There are a few charming moments that are genuinely funny and series fans will appreciate them.  Still the stories effed.  Play through and you'll agree.

Story: C

Anyway there's plenty to do in the game.  That's a good thing considering I couldn't play online because PSN had been pwned by hackers…  There are multiple offline options for single and multiplayer gameplay.  The Challenge Tower is impressive and honestly one of my favorite parts of the game.You will perform a wild assortment of tasks.  In turn you earn koins, which can be used to buy artwork, fatalities, and alternate costumes.  There are plenty of insane challenges to be had and Netherealm was nice enough to allow you to bypass a challenge by shelling out your hard earned coins.

You may need to win a fight and perform a fatality.  You may need to fight off a zombie hoard with projectile attacks.  Heck there's even a couple of stages that have you slinging arms, legs and even your head at opponents. Test your might, sight and strike are thrown in the mix too.  Master the tower and you get one of the coolest/raunchiest alternate costumes ever to grace a fighting game.

The amount of gameplay modes is staggering when compared to most other fighters. Fight, Story, the challenge tower, local multiplayer and local/online multiplayer, there are plenty of things to keep you koming back for more..

Replay value: A

The gameplay is solid.  Series vets will have to adapt to new control inputs for some of their favorite moves though.  Over all the action has been better balanced.  Liu Kang is probably the most changed of all the fighters.  The fireballs, flying kick, and bicycle kick have all been changed as far as button inputs.  He is still effective just not as cheap.

Old school combos can still be used but the timing is different.  An excellent example would be the old school jump kick, sweep, uppercut combo.  It's still there but the timing is more spaced out cutting back on the cheese factor.

Controls: B

Fatalities are back on point.  As always there are winners and losers.  The inclusion of a practice mode for fatalities was genius.  Sadly you can only practice the default fatalities   For some unknown reason you can't practice the second or in some rare cases third fatalities for the characters.So now even a 9 year old that probably shouldn't play the game will be able to disembowel and decapitate with the best of em.

Bosses still have an overwhelming upper hand.  The rubber band AI is still in place.  I look at it as a blessing and a curse.  It helps evolve your skills and forces you to change up tactics.  It also can be a royal pain in the butt when you kick tail one round and find yourself getting destroyed the next.  However, those impossible boss fights will get easier the more you get coccyx handed to ya.

Challenge: B

The graphics are where MK shines.  Although there are some odd moments.  A specific one is when you finally get to the diamond test your might.  The diamond skull is high resolution at first but will lower in quality as the character moves.  The blood is in here by the bucket full.  It looks good and is as over the top as usual.

Character damage is extremely cool looking.  One of the cyborgs will actually have his brains showing through his helmet if you hit him in the head enough. Additionally if you make enough blood fly your character will be coated in the stuff.  This is by far THE BEST looking Mortal Kombat ever hands down.

Visuals: A

Ah if I was to wax romantic about one aspect of the game it'd be the sound design.  The screams yells, splatters and squishes add an extra dimension to the gory and twiztid antics of the game.  That's in the fights.  Yet another odd design choice came with regards to audio in the dialog for Story mode.  I found myself cranking the volume up to hear speech and turning it back down during fights.  Over all I'm not going to knock the game too much for that as Story mode is probably the smallest part of the whole equation.

Audio and Sound: B

PS3 Vs 360 What's the Difference?

PS3 sports Kratos and 3D.  The 3D seems cool at first but is too subtle and not done well enough.  Eventually it strains your eyes.  As a MK and 3D lover it pains me to say it, but avoid playing this game in 3D.  Kratos is one of my favorite characters but I simply didn't like how he felt.  His moves seem limited and his speed is slow compared to what most fans are used to.  It's a cool addition and the only reason I picked up the PS3 version over the 360 one. 

Overall any old school MK fan will be pleasantly surprised.  MK oozes features and gameplay.  Not only can you spectate matches *cough* MvC3*cough* but there is a slew of other stuff to do aside from just going through the ladder and battling online.  As mentioned earlier the game is rich with modes.

Final Breakdown

Story: C

Replay value: A

Controls: B

Challenge: B

Audio and Sound: B

Final Score: B

Thanks for reading and keep it locked into GuerillaTron for all the latest news, reviews and more.