Mortal Kombat (2011)

[AsparagusTrevor]

The new Mortal Kombat sequel/reboot/remake/whatever came out last week, a surprisingly decent game which works well as a blend between old and new. However, it still suffers from the unforgiving difficulty spikes and CPU characters with impossible reflexes, and obviously anyone who wasn't a fan of the originals won't find much to like here.

The story actually has some effort put into it to make a coherent plot, you can actually follow the different threads and the whole thing plays out like a continuous movie interspersed with gameplay, rather than having to piece together the story from character bios, multiple conflicting endings and dubious canon.

The gameplay itself has gone back to the fully 2D style of the first 3 games and no sidestepping like the fourth which means the focus is back on jumping, juggling, combos and projectiles.

Oh, there's also some finishing moves called Fatalities that have been thrown in there that some people might be interested in. They are gory. Very gory. The blood is much less cartoony than previous games so sometimes the fatalities end up being quite disturbing. The Dead Pool stage fatality actually made me wince a bit when I saw Sonya screaming and writhing about as her flesh melted away in graphic detail.

I've been playing it over the weekend, played through story-mode in two sittings (took about 8 or 9 hours) and now I've started on the Challenge Tower which is interesting but can often be infuriating.

[Famous Mortimer]

I was just watching the ending movies for MK 4, and they're hilarious. Play through and win the game as one guy, only to have some dude you beat ages ago pop up and throw you off a cliff.

Also, this:

Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Ep. 1 - Jax, Sonya and Kano (Part 1)

which you've probably already seen, but seems to be some sort of cross-promotion / attempt to start new show thing.

[Spiteface]

The most recent one of that went up today, and surprisingly, it's a Johnny Cage-centric thing I actually like.

I really like the new MK. Best since ultimate MK3 for me.  Interesting angle for retelling the story of the first 3 games, and I find it interesting that they pretty much reveal the Noob Saibot/Original Sub-Zero thing right away.  That revelation came quite late on as I recall.

The one thing i don't like about story mode and challenge tower, is thegame forcing you to play as characters you can't possibly care about.  I don't know a single person that ever gave a shit about Nightwolf, SO WHY MUST YOU FORCE ME TO PLAY AS HIM????

Oh, and SNK Boss Syndrome really should be renamed to "Mortal Kombat Boss Syndrome"

[Garfield And Friends]

I hope there's no "Toasty!" zaniness in this one. That got old very very quickly in MK2.

[AsparagusTrevor]

The 'toasty' dude is indeed back, but I've only seen him pop up once in all the time I played. No crap stuff like arcades falling on people either.

[Obel]

Easily the best Mortal Kombat yet and one of my favourite fighting games. The amount of content in the game is quite staggering for a fighting game, actually gives you a reason to play through it.

I really like the graphics, it's nice and violent (as it should be) and the story mode is a fantastic addition. Complaining about the story mode not letting you choose characters seems pointless when you can go up the ladder with whatever character you like and they get their own ending. The story is following the Mortal Kombat story and I think they did it extremely well. Hammy as all fuck but it works perfectly.

Shao Kahn can be an annoying tit but once you get the hang of how to beat him the challenge reduces significantly. Basically, don't keep running up to him trying to pound him.

I love this game.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Shao Kahn can be an annoying tit but once you get the hang of how to beat him the challenge reduces significantly. Basically, don't keep running up to him trying to pound him.

Every time I've beat him I've just stayed full length of the screen away from him, projectile spammed (ducking the occasional spear he might throw), built my x-ray up and used it when he's doing one of his ill-advised taunts. Close quarters is hopeless. The sub-bosses Goro and Kintaro however were surprisingly easy to pummel.

[Obel]

Every time I've beat him I've just stayed full length of the screen away from him, projectile spammed (ducking the occasional spear he might throw), built my x-ray up and used it when he's doing one of his ill-advised taunts. Close quarters is hopeless. The sub-bosses Goro and Kintaro however were surprisingly easy to pummel.

Yeah, exactly. With nightwolf it's hilariously easy to beat Kahn, just stand far away and use his reflect move. I got a flawless victory like that, haha.

[Brent Cockman]

Shao Kahn can be an annoying tit but once you get the hang of how to beat him the challenge reduces significantly. Basically, don't keep running up to him trying to pound him.

I love this game.

I love it too, was looking forward to it for a while and am surprised that it delivers as I hoped. Buckets of fun.

Regarding running up to SK and getting trounced, you can if you're Raiden (and other teleporters). Get a knockdown, then as he's getting up dash towards him so you're right in his face and then instantly teleport right beind him. Free big-damage combo as he's guaranteed to throw out a big attack in the wrong direction. Rinse, repeat.

Anybody heard about the colossal glitch discovered a day or two ago? With characters who have immediate-counter moves (J.Cage's XRay, etc.) if you get a successful counter then immediately hold down+block it stores the same move even though you're crouch-blocking and automatically gives you infinite free counters for as long as you're holding down+block. The bizarre thing about this with XRays is that even if you burn all your super meter on the first XRay counter so it's then empty, the XRay can still be triggered indefinitely on an empty meter. Will get patched ASAP I imagine.

[Obel]

Yeah my mate said he had a glitch where he just constantly trounced the opponent one round, must have been that.

I think there's been a couple of patches already but because PSN is down we've not received them.

Can anyone do Smoke's second fatality? I can't do it from any range, it's supposed to be back back down forward triangle at sweep range, or something, but it never works. Wondering if there's a glitch.

[madhair60]

My mate got this.  I've played it a fair bit and I think it is excellent - surprisingly similar to the PS2 games (which I also liked) but improved in all the right ways.

[AsparagusTrevor]

It is rather good isn't it. It's good to have a decent MK game in the current gen. MKvDCU was piss-poor.

Can anyone do Smoke's second fatality? I can't do it from any range, it's supposed to be back back down forward triangle at sweep range, or something, but it never works. Wondering if there's a glitch.

I can pull it off no worries on the Xbox, maybe a PS3 version glitch? His default fatality is the better one anyway, the second one seems a bit thrown together. Here they both are incidentally:
Mortal Kombat: Smoke Fatalities

Does anyone have a favourite fatality yet? I've always liked Quan Chi's recurring leg beat first seen in MK4 but now the shock and hilarity of that have died down a bit. Kabal had a pretty gross one where he uses his hookswords

Spoiler alert

to pull out the opponent's guts and pins them to the floor, ending with them falling onto the swords

[close]

. There is Kung Lao's second fatality that was one of the early ones leaked onto the net (

Spoiler alert

circular saw hat

[close]

), but the one that made me shout "holy fuck" when I first saw it is Noob Saibot's default fatality. If you haven't seen it, look it up!

The Babalities are pretty funny in this one too. I groaned a bit when I heard they returned, but they have a nice little character-specific animation to accompany them and it's good to thrown one in when my wife's bored of watching me mutilate people.

[Brent Cockman]

Yes, Noob's default fatality is fantastic! Baraka's second fatality is also very good, as is Sheeva's second one (I literally laughed out loud).

[Obel]

Sektor's second one (The Scarecrow) is easily my favourite. It's brutal and I find it slightly disturbing in a Saw-esque way. Noob's default of course is amazing, but Sektors just about trumps it.

[Yusuf Mohammed]

Hi,
is it will be available for Win 7?

Or there will be some problems ?

Most of the games make a problem with me

[mycroft]

Has anyone else, like me, experienced a total mystifying wonder at their younger self's memory? When I were a young limb addicted to MKII, I knew every single character's moves, Fatalities, Babalities and Friendship moves, and Stage Fatalities, and how to morph Shang Tsung into every other character (as well as managing the Kintaro Morph on a couple of occasions). Nowadays, I'm having to look the Fatalities up during pretty much every match.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Good god yes. Like you said, I had pretty much everything memorised for the first three games when I was younger. Now I can't even remember one character's fatalities from one match to the next. Luckily there's an easily accessable move list, or maybe that's what's spoiled us.

[madhair60]

I think this game has the best story mode I've ever seen in a fighter.

[wheatgod]

Had a go at this on a hungover morning this weekend - loads of fun, best MK I've played.

Most entertaining was my mate's encyclopedic knowledge of Mortal Kombat characters and their history, he'd spent a day online researching. Is there anything more pointless than a plot in a fighting game?

[Spiteface]

Had a go at this on a hungover morning this weekend - loads of fun, best MK I've played.

Most entertaining was my mate's encyclopedic knowledge of Mortal Kombat characters and their history, he'd spent a day online researching. Is there anything more pointless than a plot in a fighting game?

Trust me, it's NOTHING compared to the mess that is Street Fighter's plot.

[wheatgod]

Are you sure? MK's plot features interdimensional travel which is a biggy.

[Neil]

Really into fighting games at the moment, so picked this up in Asda's yesterday. It's ace, but for my third ranked match it just matched me up with FuriousMk Luke, who is 4th on the leaderboard!  I did get his health down, at least, but he juggled me all over the place, and played a very defensive game. Just blocked, then punished.

[Neil]

Fucking hell, the bounce combos are insane, and Kabal's spin can piss right off.

[glitch]

Picked this up at the weekend, is anyone still playing this?

[AsparagusTrevor]

Yeah I'm still playing, have quick blasts on it a few times a week. They recently released the first DLC character, some red-clad bint called Skarlet.

[glitch]

Has anyone beaten Story Mode? I can't see how the fuck you're supposed to beat Shao Kahn.

[Spiteface]

I beat it.

Just keep going until you actually get lucky.  Dude's SNK Boss Syndrome incarnate.

[mycroft]

Has anyone beaten Story Mode? I can't see how the fuck you're supposed to beat Shao Kahn.

Frequent teleportation and endless projectiles. You feel like a troll for doing it, but it really is the only way.

[Neil]

Yeah just teleport constantly then combo or do the flying move. Cant be beat as a normal fight.

[AsparagusTrevor]

Every time I've beat Shao Kahn with any character it's been projectile spamming til X-ray's built up then using it when he taunts, and repeat.