Art Lean
Warrior
Other than '....Vs DC' this is the only MK game I'd never played, least of all owned.
Bought my son a PC for Christmas, something he'd wanted the last few years. So was finally able to buy some PC games for the first time again in over a decade, found MK9 Komplete Edition on Steam for only a few quid so how could I resist? Especially when I learnt I could just use his PS4 controllers on it.
So only played it for 45 minutes or so, but a few observations...
Voice acting's not as strong as the last couple of games, but it's still WAY better than the 3D era ever was.
LOVE the reboot of MK1, the level of detail is utterly utterly magnificent; having it set up as a proper tournament, the masked guards, the levels, the old school music, day and night cycles, the background animations, the Oriental-ness (is that a word? Spell-check says it isn't!); it's beautifully cinematic. Whilst the voice actor for Shang was pretty horribly hammy, especially after we got Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa back for MK11, I loved the old school kung fu movie feel to it and how much it was indebted to the 1995 movie. Considering Shang Tsung's Island Ruins and Goro's Lair are the only vintage levels in the new game, it's a shame there wasn't anymore throwbacks to the originals in 11.
The gameplay's a bit 'floaty' if that's the word? Doesn't feel as impactful as the latest game. Whilst MKX always felt a tad clunky to me, I do really love how 11 plays.
It's really porny in its outfits for the girls. I mean, I was aware they were trashy in this game and had seen a few fatality videos, but wow, Mileena's bandages for example ... and there's a LOT of effort put into bouncy breast animations. I can see why the team maybe didn't want to return to this level of trashiness, but until this game it never seemed overtly sleazy. However, that said, MKX had costumes that were tantalising without being porn, felt MK11 took the vow of celibacy too far. Glad MK11 is finally back-tracking a bit as time has gone on. I don't need porn in the game, but having MK2 female ninja costumes again is absolutely fine and desperately needed... and you know what, more realistic? They said MK11's costumes were about realism, but there's a reason athletics, gymnastics, wrestling, martial arts etc. are typically performed in light-weight elasticated clothing, rather than space suits and head-to-toe vacuum-formed leather with dozens of belts, buckles, flaps, boots, pads, neck braces, etc.
By the same token, as porny as it sounds, out of realism, I do actually appreciate seeing the costumes getting ripped to shreds. Yes I know it typically results in ladies' breasts and bums hanging out, but at the same time, it's a nice little realistic feature it's a shame has been removed for the last two games (ok, not realistic how certain costumes remained covering nipples... but I digress, I do think it's disappointing that realistic features from two games ago have been removed).
Excellent roster, literally excellent.
Fatalities are superb, way better than many in MKX and MK11, very brutal and visceral, less ridiculously OTT.
The Krypt sucks and still stuck in the 3D era, much prefer MK11's 3D action-adventure version of Shang's island which was very much a throwback to the old Konquest modes instead.
It reaffirms that just like in MKX, that 2, 3 or 4 strong costume varieties are more important than 60 rainbow coloured palette swaps of 4 ugly samey variants. And it's a lovely attention to detail that human Cyrax and Sektor have different dialogue to their cyber variants (what happened with the revenants in MK11 guys?!).
Aside from some really bad hair, I'm actually impressed how how strong the graphics have held up. In some ways the faces are stronger than MKX.
Overall I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. It was a massive step up from Armageddon which was the last MK game I ever played before this came along. I can see why MK finally made its comeback with this title.
Beautifully done... and sorry I never played it before, but I sadly never owned that console generation.
Would love to see this be given a modern day lick of paint, because the level of Mortal Kombat love in its design is incredible. So glad to finally own it.
Bought my son a PC for Christmas, something he'd wanted the last few years. So was finally able to buy some PC games for the first time again in over a decade, found MK9 Komplete Edition on Steam for only a few quid so how could I resist? Especially when I learnt I could just use his PS4 controllers on it.
So only played it for 45 minutes or so, but a few observations...
Voice acting's not as strong as the last couple of games, but it's still WAY better than the 3D era ever was.
LOVE the reboot of MK1, the level of detail is utterly utterly magnificent; having it set up as a proper tournament, the masked guards, the levels, the old school music, day and night cycles, the background animations, the Oriental-ness (is that a word? Spell-check says it isn't!); it's beautifully cinematic. Whilst the voice actor for Shang was pretty horribly hammy, especially after we got Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa back for MK11, I loved the old school kung fu movie feel to it and how much it was indebted to the 1995 movie. Considering Shang Tsung's Island Ruins and Goro's Lair are the only vintage levels in the new game, it's a shame there wasn't anymore throwbacks to the originals in 11.
The gameplay's a bit 'floaty' if that's the word? Doesn't feel as impactful as the latest game. Whilst MKX always felt a tad clunky to me, I do really love how 11 plays.
It's really porny in its outfits for the girls. I mean, I was aware they were trashy in this game and had seen a few fatality videos, but wow, Mileena's bandages for example ... and there's a LOT of effort put into bouncy breast animations. I can see why the team maybe didn't want to return to this level of trashiness, but until this game it never seemed overtly sleazy. However, that said, MKX had costumes that were tantalising without being porn, felt MK11 took the vow of celibacy too far. Glad MK11 is finally back-tracking a bit as time has gone on. I don't need porn in the game, but having MK2 female ninja costumes again is absolutely fine and desperately needed... and you know what, more realistic? They said MK11's costumes were about realism, but there's a reason athletics, gymnastics, wrestling, martial arts etc. are typically performed in light-weight elasticated clothing, rather than space suits and head-to-toe vacuum-formed leather with dozens of belts, buckles, flaps, boots, pads, neck braces, etc.
By the same token, as porny as it sounds, out of realism, I do actually appreciate seeing the costumes getting ripped to shreds. Yes I know it typically results in ladies' breasts and bums hanging out, but at the same time, it's a nice little realistic feature it's a shame has been removed for the last two games (ok, not realistic how certain costumes remained covering nipples... but I digress, I do think it's disappointing that realistic features from two games ago have been removed).
Excellent roster, literally excellent.
Fatalities are superb, way better than many in MKX and MK11, very brutal and visceral, less ridiculously OTT.
The Krypt sucks and still stuck in the 3D era, much prefer MK11's 3D action-adventure version of Shang's island which was very much a throwback to the old Konquest modes instead.
It reaffirms that just like in MKX, that 2, 3 or 4 strong costume varieties are more important than 60 rainbow coloured palette swaps of 4 ugly samey variants. And it's a lovely attention to detail that human Cyrax and Sektor have different dialogue to their cyber variants (what happened with the revenants in MK11 guys?!).
Aside from some really bad hair, I'm actually impressed how how strong the graphics have held up. In some ways the faces are stronger than MKX.
Overall I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. It was a massive step up from Armageddon which was the last MK game I ever played before this came along. I can see why MK finally made its comeback with this title.
Beautifully done... and sorry I never played it before, but I sadly never owned that console generation.
Would love to see this be given a modern day lick of paint, because the level of Mortal Kombat love in its design is incredible. So glad to finally own it.