User Reviews

(I'm a proud Playstation 3 owner.)

2011's "Mortal Kombat" is the ninth game in this explosively violent fighting game series. Early reviews seemed to indicate that this would reboot the series, allowing things to restart from scratch. Others indicated that it was a genuine sequel to 2006's "Mortal Kombat: Armageddon." It's a little bit of both, actually.

"Mortal Kombat" (promoted early on as "Mortal Kombat 9") is both a reboot of the series and a sequel. Boasting a movie-quality story-line and taking place after the catastrophic events of "Mortal Kombat: Armageddon," all of the Earthrealm and Outworld fighters are dead, with the exceptions of benevolent lightning-god Raiden and Outworld emperor Shao Kahn. Just as Shao Kahn is about to deliver the fatal blow to Raiden, he is able to magically send visions of the future back in time to his younger self during the very first Mortal Kombat tournament. Using these hazy visions of the future, the younger Raiden tries to use these to his and the Earth warriors' advantage in helping to avoid Armageddon.

I've been playing the "Mortal Kombat" series of video games pretty much my entire life, ever since getting my hands on my cousin's version of the hit Midway game co-created by software developers Ed Boon and John Tobias all the way back in 1993 at the tender age of eight. The first 1992 "Mortal Kombat" started a revolution in fighting games with its realistic graphics (which included digitized versions of real flesh & blood actors as opposed to digitally animated cartoon sprites) and extreme violence. This latter trend helped lead to the formation of the ESRB - "Entertainment Software Rating Board" - a panel which issues ratings to games much like the MPAA issues ratings to movies.

2011's "Mortal Kombat" is a return to the basics of the first three games in the series; the game itself features roughly the entire story-lines and characters from the first "Mortal Kombat" game, "Mortal Kombat II," and "Mortal Kombat 3." Wisely enough, none of the characters featured from "Mortal Kombat 4" through "Mortal Kombat: Armageddon" are featured, which would have blown this game's software engine to the max and leading to a lot of confusion over which lethal character you want to play as the most.

"Mortal Kombat" does have a lot to offer gamers. Interestingly enough, you don't really need to have played any of the previous games to understand the story and what's going on here. Although it would help to have a little prior knowledge since you're not seeing an entirely accurate retelling of events, since things in this "Mortal Kombat" are slightly altered (I won't spoil by revealing what, but just know that things are changed here). I do wonder, though, will this game make all the previous games irrelevant and non-canonical? Can an entirely new series of fighting games based on this re-booted storyline be on the horizon?

In terms of features, "Mortal Kombat" has plenty. The most welcomed is the seriously revamped fighting engine that includes faster game-play, smooth and more-realistic graphics, two-dimensional fighting with three-dimensional characters (replacing the all-out 3D arena fighting of the last several entries), beautifully rendered backgrounds, and lots of brutal gore and violence that fans of this series love so much. What will surely appease gore-hounds is the new "x-ray" feature, which allows a fighter to deliver a series of punishing strikes to his/her opponents and true to the name of this feature, the camera allows the player to see inside his/her opponent's body as bones are broken, organs are ruptured, and weapons enter places where they shouldn't. It's cool, fast, and it's brutal.

There's a re-booted single-player version of the "Mortal Kombat" storyline, which thankfully consists mostly of one-on-one fights, mostly. Other times, you're facing tag-teams that can sometimes consist of up to four opponents at a time! It's certainly challenging and nerve-wracking but for serious gamers, it's not impossible to accomplish. (One of the worst aspects of this are the boss battles, especially with Shao Kahn; I'm going to say flat-out right now that I lost one of my controllers battling him because simply put, he's impossible to beat. The only way to win a battle against him is to edge your character to the side of the screen and just constantly launch projectile attacks at him while simultaneously avoiding attacks of his own. This uneven level of difficulty is also indicative of "Mortal Kombat's" most significant design flaw.)

More features include a new "Krypt" that features over 500 items of unlock-able content, character and fatality training modes, the four-player tag-team mode, and the new "Challenge Tower" that allows players to complete 300 different challenges meant to sharpen a player's fighting abilities (or test their patience, whichever is more relevant). The ultimate prize does appear to be worth it (as of now I've only completed 150 of the challenges) - especially if you're a guy, like me - since you've already seen what the ultimate prize is if you've played through the storyline mode. But the fun doesn't end there: there's also a wealth of additional content that can be downloaded off the Internet and will add to the game-play, and that additional content consists of new characters, alternate costumes, and one new ultra-secret character (hint: he's a famous horror movie icon). Finally, there's also online Kombat.

"Mortal Kombat" is a fitting addition to this revolutionary series of fighting games. Its uneven difficulty in some places - namely the seemingly impossible boss battles and tag-team matches - is this game's greatest weakness and can be extremely frustrating, even for experienced gamers like myself. Still, though, "Mortal Kombat" is simply marvelous. I can't believe it was all started just to rival the success of "Street Fighter II," which I also adore, by the way.

9/10

P.S.: Be sure to go out and get the soundtrack for this game, also! Like the game itself, it absolutely rocks!

I cannot stress how great this game is,many people i know are buying games like portal 2 and duke nukem,well forget them and get this instead.if you like the classic mortal kombat games then you will love this,it is jam packed with so many different game modes that will keep you happy for a long time,story mode is fun,entertaining and very,very violent.the x-ray attacks are brutal and bone-crunching,the fatalities will leave you speechless,and yes there are some new characters in there that we have never seen before,the game does get very hard towards the end,but that is a good thing you don't want to be able to complete the game too quickly give this game a try you will not regret it

Mortal Kombat- 2011 The best fighting game ever made surpassing the previous owner of this title, Soul Calibur IV. Improving on any mistake that Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe had regarding tired gameplay mechanics such as the Rage system or the toned down Fatalities. In this iteration, the blood and the gore are back in full glory for the sadist in all of us and the gameplay is superb when it comes to adding enhanced moves or X-Ray moves or even Combo Breakers making any match different even if someone is playing with Scorpion against Scorpion. In terms of story, this game takes the entire Mortal Kombat trilogy, throws the what if? with Raiden knowing the events of the future and trying to alter it according to his Elder God medallion. The story is very cinematic explaining everything that happened within the 3 games even for newcomers of the series. Johnny Cage is hilariously arrogant, Liu Kang is the self proclaimed hero, Kung Lao is envious of Kang's role, and Raiden is the true protector of Earthrealm just to name a few. Every character has a very different story and an arc to follow, making each character unique to this world. The only notable exception is the guest character, Kratos who is not included in the Story Mode, understandably so and in his Arcade ending has the same story as Vader or Yoda from Soul Calibur IV except with Kratos it was done against his will. He got transported to another dimension, and as opposed to Yoda or Vader who were looking for an ancient power in the other dimension, Kratos was just angry that he was put in the MK world and started killing everything. Since the guest characters are a similarity, a comparison is inevitable with Soul Calibur IV. Kratos is in the vein of Vader in terms of gameplay, they are both slow to play as, but very fun to play regarding their special move variety. Yoda, on the other hand, let's just say it's a good thing Mortal Kombat didn't have one of those cheap characters. New characters Skarlet, Kenshi, and Rain look decent and Freddy Kruger and Mortal Kombat is a match made in heaven! This game deserves to be bought because is the best fighting game out there!

Sadly,I haven't ever been a fan of mortal kombat. But after playing this, I can now say with pleasure that I've changed my mind. This could be the most satisfying and enjoyable fighting game I've ever played.

The gameplay is exciting and deep, and flaws from the last few games have been fixed. The core gameplay is still there, but now, you can do much more then you ever could in previous installments. Among the new features are x ray moves, which are vicious and utterly grisly to watch. During an x ray move, you get to see your character break the bones of your opponent, and also, fatalities have made a return, and they are much more brutal and sadistic then they ever were. A good portion of them are downright sick and nasty( for example, Kung Lao bisects his enemies with his buzz saw hat) and some of the other ones are genuinely comical( When you play as rain, you can inflate your opponent with water, turning them into a giant water balloon before popping them) All in all, there is very little to criticize here. The game has fantastic level design, graphics, and the story is very strong and well written, while the dialogue is also funny and well written also. The characters are very realistic and gritty looking, and many of the characters that were popular in the original games have made a return. The good thing is, all the unpopular characters from previous entries have been ditched, which was a wise move on the developer's part, considering the franchise has always had bloated character rosters filled with too many characters to chose from. The only minor gripe I have with this game is that you can't play as goro, kintaro, or even Shao Kahn, which is a crying shame, given that they have some awesome looking fatalities and moves. Also, another small problem is that some of the fatalities are too hard to perform. The fatalities require you to press a series of buttons in order to execute them, but however, some of them are too tricky to master and from time to time, it becomes frustrating trying to do so. But anyway, None of that are serious flaws that affect the game, and overall, this game is pretty perfect. I heartily give this game a 9/10.

On a final note: watch out for that little imp thing that pops up on the screen while you search through some sections of the krypt. It nearly gave me a heart attack.