HellblazerHawkman
Confused Thanagarian
Today is the first day of the of the Mortal Kombat 11 beta in the US. It's also the only time in human history that we are getting a Kombat Kast that falls on the day of March 27, 2019. For those of you not celebrating this occasion, either due to work or too much time on the beta, here's the TYM recap of what went down.
On the docket this week, the regular crew was taking a look at three of the most recently revealed characters, Jax, Liu Kang and Kung Lao. After some updates and small talk, we got into it with Liu Kang:
Keeping with the theme of giving people weapons, Liu Kang is using his nunchaku in a lot of his strings this time around, but he still has a focus on his punchy martial arts. His base kit specials are pretty standard, he has his fireballs and bicycle kick once again, the latter you can MB 3 times in a row for a pretty lengthy carry.
For his loadouts, he gets a parry that can do A LOT of damage if you use the krushing blow requirement to parry a wakeup. He also gets a move that gives him a damage buff and a cross-up teleport, something totally new for Liu Kang.
If you like his nunchaku, you can get a few cool moves that make use of them, like a unique stance that leads into different kinds of hits. His nunchaku can also be used to projectile crush, and you can also throw in a command grab if you want to step his mix-up game even more. Last thing they should was his fatal blow, which confirmed that the dragon thing from the trailer is not a fatality.
Next character was Kung Lao. Lao was also fundamentally the same from past games, he throws the hat and bad things happen to people who touch it. His special animations have been tweaked to give him some more 80s kung fu movie flair, but the moves are what you'd expect: teleport (which you can MB to delay when he comes out), divekick, spinny stuff.
Part of his loadout, he gets a really strong move where you can throw your hat around the opponent to keep them trapped while you do your thing. Or, he can throw the hat in place, which gives you a lot of set up opportunities while it's hovering like a buzzsaw.
He's got some other moves that involve throwing the hat in different ways, but something really cool he can do this time around is summoning the spirit of the Great Kung Lao, the original ancestor he was named for. This stance allows you to do a lot of different moves while leaving a spooky ghost to hang out behind you.
Last up, Major Jackson Briggs. In his redesign, he lost his superman punch special, but gained some new, brutal looking command grabs. In his base kit, he has a character ability that builds up a meter as he throws punches, the progress seen as his arms glow brighter from the heat. This allows him to do more damage, and at the max level, his specials turn into krushing blows. Lastly, it allows him to throw a really quick fireball, giving you a chance to get in if your opponent gets away.
In his loadout, he gets some moves that give him new launches and command grabs, including an aerial one that looks really cool. He also gets a grenade launcher (much slower projectile) and his old ground pound.
Keeping with the theme of the day, Jax also gets a boxer's stance that also allows him to do a few new things, including a low command grab. His fatal blow is neat, in that it automatically maxes out his metal arm buff mentioned earlier.
So that's that for the character showcase, they ran through everyone kind of quickly to account for the fact they were showing 3 people this week. The belt battle wasn't anything crazy, Tyler playing Sonya and Derek playing Jade again. Derek took game 1, showing marked improvement over the past few weeks. Tyler clutched out a win game 2, taking us to a Grand Final, Hell in a Cell in a Temple Ladder Match to the Death. Derek was able to close out the final game in the final match that came down to the final hit, securing the belt for this week.
And there's the Kombat Kast for this week. Next week (currently planned for Thursday), they are confirmed to be showing off Noob Saibot, alongside "some others". So get excited for that!
On the docket this week, the regular crew was taking a look at three of the most recently revealed characters, Jax, Liu Kang and Kung Lao. After some updates and small talk, we got into it with Liu Kang:
Keeping with the theme of giving people weapons, Liu Kang is using his nunchaku in a lot of his strings this time around, but he still has a focus on his punchy martial arts. His base kit specials are pretty standard, he has his fireballs and bicycle kick once again, the latter you can MB 3 times in a row for a pretty lengthy carry.
For his loadouts, he gets a parry that can do A LOT of damage if you use the krushing blow requirement to parry a wakeup. He also gets a move that gives him a damage buff and a cross-up teleport, something totally new for Liu Kang.
If you like his nunchaku, you can get a few cool moves that make use of them, like a unique stance that leads into different kinds of hits. His nunchaku can also be used to projectile crush, and you can also throw in a command grab if you want to step his mix-up game even more. Last thing they should was his fatal blow, which confirmed that the dragon thing from the trailer is not a fatality.
Next character was Kung Lao. Lao was also fundamentally the same from past games, he throws the hat and bad things happen to people who touch it. His special animations have been tweaked to give him some more 80s kung fu movie flair, but the moves are what you'd expect: teleport (which you can MB to delay when he comes out), divekick, spinny stuff.
Part of his loadout, he gets a really strong move where you can throw your hat around the opponent to keep them trapped while you do your thing. Or, he can throw the hat in place, which gives you a lot of set up opportunities while it's hovering like a buzzsaw.
He's got some other moves that involve throwing the hat in different ways, but something really cool he can do this time around is summoning the spirit of the Great Kung Lao, the original ancestor he was named for. This stance allows you to do a lot of different moves while leaving a spooky ghost to hang out behind you.
Last up, Major Jackson Briggs. In his redesign, he lost his superman punch special, but gained some new, brutal looking command grabs. In his base kit, he has a character ability that builds up a meter as he throws punches, the progress seen as his arms glow brighter from the heat. This allows him to do more damage, and at the max level, his specials turn into krushing blows. Lastly, it allows him to throw a really quick fireball, giving you a chance to get in if your opponent gets away.
In his loadout, he gets some moves that give him new launches and command grabs, including an aerial one that looks really cool. He also gets a grenade launcher (much slower projectile) and his old ground pound.
Keeping with the theme of the day, Jax also gets a boxer's stance that also allows him to do a few new things, including a low command grab. His fatal blow is neat, in that it automatically maxes out his metal arm buff mentioned earlier.
So that's that for the character showcase, they ran through everyone kind of quickly to account for the fact they were showing 3 people this week. The belt battle wasn't anything crazy, Tyler playing Sonya and Derek playing Jade again. Derek took game 1, showing marked improvement over the past few weeks. Tyler clutched out a win game 2, taking us to a Grand Final, Hell in a Cell in a Temple Ladder Match to the Death. Derek was able to close out the final game in the final match that came down to the final hit, securing the belt for this week.
And there's the Kombat Kast for this week. Next week (currently planned for Thursday), they are confirmed to be showing off Noob Saibot, alongside "some others". So get excited for that!
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