Wednesday 27 November 2013

Review #2: Mortal Kombat (2011)

Hello all! It is I, Retro again and this is my second review on this blog. I have thought about my last review of Sonic The Hedgehog, and thought that maybe it needs some improvements, for instance, perhaps I should change the rating system by concisely elaborating and rating key aspects in the game. Anyway, today I am reviewing Mortal Kombat, the 2011 reboot that is, which is also known as MK9 unofficially. Now, you may be pondering my choice of this game in the series. After all, this is the series' latest entry, why would I review it first? Well, first of all I wanted to review a game that I could include some criticism to, as this could show everyone both sides of the spectrum, you know? I chose this specific game in the series because I played it much more extensively than the classics, which honestly I don't think I have much ground to cover right now. Also, this review will perhaps project my opinion on the series as a whole. I'm honestly not the biggest fan of the MK series, and I have some reasons to this but I don't dislike it anyway.
But I digress, it's time to talk about the game. Now, MK9 is a reboot to the series. It starts with the conclusion of the previous game, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, in which Raiden sends a message to his past self, warning him of the disturbing conclusion. The game's story is specifically a retelling of the first three games in the series. The Story mode was interesting in the gameplay respect I think - in each chapter you play as one character for two fights I believe; however, I must say that while interesting, this order is to my dislike - I'd much prefer the chapters be spontaneous, and I think some characters should not have had their own chapter, but that's just my view. Onto the actual Story, as mentioned it is a retelling of the first three installments. Simply put, the Warlord (I think he is a warlord?) Shao Kahn of Outworld (this dude is the main antagonist if you didn't know) wants to become ruler of The EarthRealm, but the Elder Gods have ordered that Khan cannot take over unless he beats the EarthRealm in Mortal Kombat for 10 times in a row. Simply put, the warrior of EarthRealm, and Raiden, a Thunder God, must stop the tyrant. I honestly don't care much for the story, I mean it is ok, maybe a bit ridiculous but still. The plot (the events linking the story events, don't get the plot and story mixed up) is good though. The Gameplay itself is just like the classic Mortal Kombat games, for it returns to it's 2D roots. This I appreciate as I think the games work better in 2D, but I prefer 3D fighters overall I must include. MK9 has decent controls in all honesty. The characters control very fine, nothing flawed, and thus means nothing else to say about it. Playing the game is quite fun. This has to be said - if you enjoy fighters, I assure you that you will have some degree of fun playing this game. The online multiplayer expands upon this, as I can say that I spent multiple hours playing either online with friends for casual fun or with strangers for a competitive experience. Fatalities return and are bette than ever, each character has two cases of HD gory-ness that will put your enemies to shame! Despite this, there are aspects of the gameplay that I highly criticise; the game is far too simple for a fighter. What I mean by this is in comparison to other fighting games such as Street Fighter and Soul Calibur (both of which require a lot more strategy), the gameplay is very easy, simplistic and, frankly, quite unfulfilled. The simplicity is due to for one the lack of combos - the game has about 9 combos per character on average, 3 of which will be the short combos such as Y,Y,Y. This is a ridiculously small amount, and keeps the gameplay limited - games like Tekken and Dead or Alive have a large quantity of combos, which adds more training, memorisation and deviation to the games. The combos themselves are lacking - the most complicated ones are very short and so shows a lack of innovation in development. It's not all about the combos though. Strategy in gameplay is also important. Street Fighter is a game that doesn't have that many combos in command list, but the game is more dependant on good strategy and creation of your own combination of moves. MK9 lacks this, and so the game is even easier and this means that it is very button-masher friendly. These points make the game need little skill to play. I'll give you an example of an even that occurred. One of my friends, who has been playing for years, was beaten in a newcomer's (my other friends) first match online, for the newcomer just button mashed or 'spammed' if you will. This is present online too, I remember seeing a guy with a 20 win streak, just by using Jax's 'Falcon Punch-esque' move.
But let's move on from the gameplay. The game has 27 playable 'kombatants' (28 on PS3, along with 4 DLC characters). I prefer large rosters, but this roster is actually quite good, as the characters are all different too some degree and there isn't really any 'clones' like in Super Smash Bros. The graphics are really good as expected. As mentioned above, the game is 2D, but I must extend this point by saying that it is 2D in a 3D environment. The visuals are great, not much else to say about it though. Music? Meh, nothing special, it's not like Super Mario where tunes get stuck in your head for days. The music is forgettable, but isn't important in this genre. Now I think it's time to FINISH HIM, and by him I mean this review (I apologise to everyone for this por joke :D). I have said everything that must be brought up I think. The overall gameplay is fun to play both offline and online but is far too easy and simple for a fighting game, bordering un-innovation I think. MK9 has a decent but pretty far-fetched story, and the story mode is good but could be improved upon in the respect of characters and ordering. The aesthetics are good in visuals but forgettable in music. With a nice roster that works quite well, Mortal Kombat is a fun experience for any MK and fighter fan, despite it's quirks and bumps.
Verdict: - 'The Fun Factor' - 9.1 - Gameplay - 7.5 - Story - 7.2 - Graphics - 8.3 - Character Roster - 8.5 This gives an average score of 8.1 - a decent score overall. That concludes this review, I hope you have enjoyed it and I hope you enjoy my new method of scoring and general reviewing. Thanks for reading :D

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