Mortal Kombat is the best fighting game that has come out since the 16-bit days. I had more fun playing this game that I have had playing any other fighter that has come out. Let's start with the most obvious part. The characters. The roster here is nothing we haven't seen before(well, that's not true, there are two, but that'll be covered in the spoiler section) but the characters are all well designed. New takes on the old designs. The best bits are the costumes of characters before they become what we know them as. Particularly Cyrax and Sector. I can't praise this game without telling everyone that this game has a good story, a story that outshines every fighting game to date. Fully voice acted, this integrated combat will set the precedent for how all fighting game stories have to be connected. And as you progress you'll unlock stages, costumes, and characters. All of which sets you up for one hell of a local multiplayer experience. Though it is sometimes a bit trickier as you have to go into the Krypt and try and find some extras like costumes, fatalities and art. The Krypt is well animated, able to create scares and creepouts. Every character has access to four finishing moves: Two Fatalities, A babality, and a stage fatality. The variety and complexity of these moves are awesome. They are also gross and sick as you'd expect. The special moves are easy to perform, and often intuitive. Then after you have finished the story mode, there is the challenge tower which while providing unique challenges, it also pits you in some off story matches that could have easily fit in between chapters.
So that's the good, let's talk about the bad. For example, the worst part of the story mode is the broken boss battles. Boss Battles are not a test of strategy, but of luck and mini game timing. Bosses prevent blocking, hitting, and combos. I spent almost three hours trying to beat the final boss and every strategy I sought out(because eventually you just want it to be over) basically boiled down to spam a move, use a simple attack. And it still takes about 10 minutes, and a whole lot of luck. A few other problems exist, such as 1 on 2 matches, including a match that is 1 man versus 2 bosses. The inability to skip cut scenes is an issue. Particularly after you restart and it plays the previous cut scene, some of which are dreadfully long on second viewing. Also there is no option to restart a match mid fight, so in some instances where it is otherwise required to win the first round or have a certain amount of super bar(such as boss battles) this is a major time sink.
There are times when hit detection, combo breaking, fatalities, and special moves don't respond correctly and instead become a hindrance rather than an advantage. A personal issue for me is that this is yet another fighting game that focuses on juggling and combos over any amount of skill that can result in a novice player being juggled and completed hammered by a skilled player before even having a chance to hit said player.
And lastly, for a game that focuses on a tournament, there isn't a tournament mode....
+
Story mode
Variety
Local Multiplayer
The Krypt
Stages
Fatalities
Costumes and their relevancy
Challenge Tower
-
no restart.
No skip cut scene
No replay chapters.
Balance
Boss Battles are not a test of strategy, but of luck and mini game timing
Bosses prevent blocking, hitting, and combos
attacks not working consistently
Fatalities not being performed correctly.
Juggling still persists to exist.
Game relies too much on spam and juggling.
collision detection is awful.
Inconsistent recovery times and animation times.
Lack of proper counters
Glitchy controls.
No Tournament mode.
Spoilerssssssssss:
(1)Back in the day, Smoke was a ninja. And then he was captured and coverted for the cyber initiative. And he became Cyber Smoke. Here however, time has changed, and Smoke was not captured, but instead the second Sub Zero was. Leading to a wonderful conflict between Noob Saibot and Cyber Sub-Zero. Furthermore the ps3 version comes fully equipped with Kratos, the God of War.
(2)
Khan is one of those bosses that breaks the rules of the game. It is common for all of the bosses but it is in the final bout that you really see him hit the spam hammer. The lack of reaction makes him nearly impossible to beat without resorting to boring tactics. It is because of this that the game becomes almost unplayable at this juncture.
End of spoilerrrsssssss
All in all, the game is a B-. More of a try before you buy, because not everyone will like it. That said, you owe it to yourself to play through the story mode.
*I attempted to use MK online, however it only ever found 1 opponent and they backed out before the match began.
*There are a few attack spams possible and they are an issue that needs to be addressed and you can tell a difference between gamer types based on their answer to this problem. You can always tell the difference between the good players and the hardcore players. Hardcore players are the dumbasses who think adding more broken moves to the characters who aren't already broken will make the game better. the good players know that the solution is to take away the teleport moves.
No comments:
Post a Comment