I know I've been absent for a while. My laptop was crippled for a while and could handle only the simplest of tasks. It kind of sucks because before this happened I thought we were on a bit of a roll as far as blog activity went. The plus side to this is that it has definitely given me time to dig into my actual hobby of gaming without the added incentive to play simply for blogging purposes. Not that that wasn't fun or anything because I like giving my opinion on demos, betas, and sharing news and all; but there are times where I just want to sit down and play for fun and not play to rip the game apart piece by piece to get a better understanding of how good or bad a game is so I can relay that in a post.
In that time I have had a chance to check out a few demos and get back into some games that I enjoy very much. For one I'm back to kicking the ball around in FIFA and thanks to the new Depeche Mode track-pack released by Harmonix I find myself oddly drawing to breaking out my guitar and keyboard once again. Don't fear though as I've had a chance to sample a few demos and today I can share my opinion on one of them with you here on the blog. So here are my thoughts on the demo for Mortal Kombat on the PS3.
Like always, I like to preface a preview with some thoughts on the franchise I'm talking about. Fortunately for us, Mortal Kombat is a long standing franchise that can be summed up very quickly; at least from my point of view. Mortal Kombat has a very awkward past. From a personal stand point I think the series reached its peak with Mortal Kombat 2. While MK3 was good and Ultimate MK3 just built on that formula, the series faltered and never really found a way to transition to the 3-D era. It wasn't until the last few years that they really started to change things around.
Fast forward to today and the ninth game in the series is in development and almost ready for release. Like Capcom, NetherRealm Studios has decided to give their game somewhat of a retro feel. While the characters are fully rendered in 3-D, the fighters battle on a two-dimensional plane just like in the original games. What this accomplishes is blending the old with the new while maintaining the integrity of the series. So yes, Mortal Kombat is back in a very big way which became clear shortly after starting the demo.
Upon beginning the demo you're greeted by a very sleek menu set up, most of which is not accessible in the demo. The meat of this demo comes from the ladder style tournament. The available fighters should be familiar to fans in the form of series favorites Sub Zero, Scorpion, Johnny Cage, and Mileena. Once you've picked your fighter it's off to the first match in your ladder. Once again the developers manage to take old school influences and adapt them to the modern age of graphical capabilities as some of the old stage backgrounds from Mortal Kombat 1 and 2 make a return with more vigor. The living forest and pit never looked so good.
But when you get passed all the bells and whistles in this game, it boils down to combat between you and your opponent; whether that be the computer or another player. Luckily this Mortal Kombat continues it's trend of handling like the Mortal Kombats of old. Of course it took some time to become familiar with the controller set up on the PS3 controller but when the game is paused there are handy menus that show you the button layout as well as command lists for each character. I was even surprised to find that in that command list the fatalities for characters were listed. I'm not sure if this is simply for the demo or if that feature will remain in the final game. However I have to say that it disappointed me a little bit. Was it cool that I was able to rip out the computer opponent's spine in the demo? Heck yea it was. Watching that gore unfold on my screen in sweet high definition was amazingly brutal and entertaining. Still if the fatalities are readily available it kind of takes away some of the mystique the earlier games had when people had to discover them.
Still there is much room for experimentation. There are certain combos listed in command list that you can try out with the characters. While the combo system doesn't appear to be as free-form as Marvel vs Capcom 3's where you can seemingly chain almost anything together, it is still very accessible. It will definitely take some time and experimentation with the timing but the game definitely has potential for linking various attacks and specials together into extensive combos. Also judging from the four characters, it seems that the characters will be distinctively different. Some fighting games can suffer from the fact that playing each character can feel essentially the same. Luckily based on the time I had with the demo the four characters available definitely had their own pros and cons. As per usual it will come down to player preference.
So to sum this up, the game plays extremely well. The controls are extremely tight and responsive. The character animation is solid and the level design is equally as good. The whole game has a wonderfully retro feeling while still coming off as being fresh and new. This is definitely one to keep on your radar if you're a fan of the series. Look out for Mortal Kombat to release for consoles on April 19th. Soon you too will be able to test your might.
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