In order to avoid making the moderators have to clean up 20 threads on "XYZ Sucks in MKAK" let's keep it to one single thread. Please post your suggestions for fixing/patching/updating MKAK in this thread only.
1. Online play - Lets face it, these days, older games garner interest because they're easy to pick up and play online. This is why we've seen games such as SSF2THDR and more recently 3sOE see released with particular emphasis on good online play. With so many new people experiencing MK for the first time with MK9, they may just buy MKAK on hype alone, hoping to find one or more of the included games fun and playable. This would be great but the online play is just awful. The games are laggy, slow, and delayed. This is NOT representative of what these games are played like on a competitive level.
2.UMK3 Kombat Kodes in online VS. Screen - Can't enter Kombat Kodes, and it seems like all buttons are disabled during the vs. screen. This makes entering the H.Smoke code impossible on round 1 in online matches.
3. Various Random Freezes in online mode - More than once, MKAK has completely frozen on me to the point where I needed to quit the game during online matchmaking. This needs to be fixed.
When configuring buttons for Mk1 & MK2, you still must have a button dedicated to Run. Their is no run button in MK1 or MK2. And mapping multiple buttons to 1 command should be allowed.
- You can't map multiple buttons to one command. So, you can't put L1/L2 as run, you have to pick only one.
- The menu font online is very hard to read. It's really small and white which blends in with the background. I'm surprised people can navigate through it on anything but a big HD tv.
- You can't adjust the screen ratio. In the stand alone version of UMK3 on XBLA, you could stretch your screen to however you wanted. You can't in the MKAK, which for me makes it full screen and cuts some stuff off on the edges.
- There's no penalty for quitting. Not only do you not receive anything when someone quits on you, they also don't get penalized. This is ridiculous and encourages foul play.
- It's been said but the connection obviously needs fixing. It's really bad and unplayable in UMK3 and MK2 at least, MK1 seems to be fine most of the time... at least in comparison.
- In ranked mode for UMK3, if it makes you host if you can't join anyone, if no one joins you after awhile your name will disappear. Not sure if someone can still join you after that, I just back out because no one has joined me when it does that.
If this was identical to the 2006 XBLA version of UMK3, I'd buy it on principle just to show my support. But if they've somehow managed to make this choke compared to a five year old port, then I won't bother. What a shame!
If they manage to fix some important things I'll be all aboard though. I really hope they pull something off because it'll be tragic if this horribly botched version is the only UMK3 that new players can buy. ant:
If this was identical to the 2006 XBLA version of UMK3, I'd buy it on principle just to show my support. But if they've somehow managed to make this choke compared to a five year old port, then I won't bother. What a shame!
If they manage to fix some important things I'll be all aboard though. I really hope they pull something off because it'll be tragic if this horribly botched version is the only UMK3 that new players can buy. ant:
Offline, the versions seem to be arcade perfect so far... online, however, they are horrible. If you get this, it's only for the ability to play offline.
While reading over on TRMK about MKAK, it seems that they have encountered a few problems/glitches.
Can anyone please test/confirm these? I'm at work now and can't do anything to test them right now....
Universal
-If you pull up the moves list to look up a fatality, etc...when you unpause your character is unable to move for 2-3 seconds.
MK1
- The music on Goro's lair stops playing after about 5 seconds
- The clapping on the courtyard sounds different than the original arcade.
- Connected uppercut sound is more like a tap than the original arcade.
- Thud on the ground sound after an uppercut or a jump kick is different than the original arcade.
- The blood hitting the ground sound comes in and out at times, but it sounds different than original arcade.
MK2
- The sound for a blocked hit plays when you land from a jump
- Ending song is glitched.
- Sound effect for Sub-Zero's ice ball stutters instead of playing cleanly.
-Sub-Zero Freeze-ball sound loops if the other opponent ducks it, or even if it makes contact freezing them.
UMK3
- Some of screams are cut short
- Scorp/H.Smoke's "Get Over Here!" sometimes gets cut to just "Get..."
10 Thoughts On…Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection (Sony PS3)
by Alex Lucard - August 30, 2011 | Email the author
Although I preferred SNK and Capcom fighters as a teen, I’ve grown to really enjoy the Mortal Kombat series. Although the game was light on gore, Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe had a very solid engine and treated both sets of characters with respect. I loved it and it went on to win our 2008 “Fighting Game of the Year” award. So far, Mortal Kombat 9 has captured my heart like no other game this year, and I’m still playing it now while Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is rarely used (although part of that is I have a lot of reviews and the other part is I’m waiting for UMvC3). With all this in mind, I decided to pick up the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection. After all, it was only $10. Sure I owned all three games for various other systems and I even have MKII for the PS3 already via Midway, but this was all three games in what was promised to be an “arcade classic” quality collection. Well, the truth is MKAK is FAR from that. After only a few hours with the games, here are ten quick (and pretty grumpy) thoughts on the Kollection.
General
1. Woah. The game froze up for a noticeable amount of time after I changed some settings the first time. I thought the game was going to crash. Not the best first impression to make.
Mortal Kombat 1
2. SEVERE lag between the time you hit the pause button (Which is select instead of start? Who the hell thought that was an intelligent decision? It’s also the only button you CAN’T change on the controller.) and the time it actually goes into effect. There is some lag with button presses as well. Hell, it’s worse than what we saw in last week’s Street Fighter III: Third Strike The time you are allotted to do your fatality is almost non-existent. The time you have to input your fatality is drastically reduced from other versions of the game I’ve played.
3. I honestly don’t remember having to go through an “endurance round” after beating every playable character. I remember a version of the endurance round in Ultimate MK3, but not in the very first game.
4. Man, MK1 plays like crap. There, I said it. I have loved the past few games, but man does MK1 show how far behind it was to King of Fighters and Street Fighter II back in the day. It’s still better than Pit Fighter though.
Mortal Kombat II
5. I have fond memories of MKII. Hell I bought it for the PS3 back when Midway was still around for a scant $2.50. Remember the days before trophies kids? Sadly, there are again noticeable control issues and bugs here that are NOT in the earlier PS3 version of Mortal Kombat 2. I’ve seen things like CPU character shooting projectiles off before the “BEGIN,” characters jumping through moves, severe collision detection issues, attacks hitting through blocks, moves hitting when characters are too far away for them to hit, and the same control lag issues that plagued MKI in this version. This is downright unacceptable. If this is a straight arcade port why does one play pretty flawlessly and another have so many problems?
6. LOTS of problems getting the game to recognize Fatalities, Babalities and Friendships. I’ve done Raiden’s friendship twenty times in a row and it won’t accept it a single time. It’s one of the easiest one to pull off too!
7. Much like MKI, this version of Mortal Kombat II is so far from “arcade perfect,” that it is laughable. The earlier PS3 release of the game is far superior and hell, the Midway Arcade Treasures port for the Game Cube, Xbox and PS2 has less bugs and control issues that this turkey. This is a massive disappointment to me and I have to wonder if anyone actually playtested this thing.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
8. This is both the best and the worst of the games. It’s the most playable and it doesn’t have nearly the lag problems the other two do, but when there’s a bug, THERE’S a bug, I was fighting Jade and before we got the “begin” she did a jump kick across the screen to hit me and was halfway done what would turn out to be an INFINITE COMBO before the match was actually supposed to begin. By the time I got control of my character, her attacks still went through my block and I was dead by the time the counter’s time hit 98. How the hell did THAT get through QA?
9. A lot of the UMK codes don’t appear to work. Many were tried, both with online opponents and with two players on the same console and they didn’t stick. As well, we ran into a bug after playing a two player match on the same console. The game went back to the “choose what mode” screen and wouldn’t accept any input for a while. Then when it did, it would only let the winning player go into the normal Kombat tower. This only happened once, but again – man, what a bug.
10. Like the other games, there are several noticeable problems here. Your character is frozen for a second or two after unpausing the game, Anamalties have a problem being recognized and while Ultimate Mortal Kombat is the best of the three, it’s still got far more issues than any “arcade perfect” game should have. I can play this on my Sega Saturn or Nintendo Game Cube with far less issues that I’m having on this PS3 one. This is about as bad as it gets.
There are so many problems with Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection that this “Ten Thoughts” can’t even begin to cover it. Look, I like Mortal Kombat and MK9 is arguably my game of the year. This shoddy half-assed collection is so badly done that it’s not worth any amount of money, much less the $9.99 they are asking for this. This is so far from “arcade perfect” it’s not even funny. Stay far away from this thing and stick to the cheapo version of Mortal Kombat II. It might not have trophies, but at least it’s extremely playable. You know it’s bad when I can honestly say the Sega Saturn version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 or the versions on Midway Arcade Treasures 2 play better than what’s in this collection. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to the earlier MKII game so I can remember how good that game is supposed to play compared to the one in this crapfest.
For many people, they haven't played these games in ages, so they may not even know they're not meeting specific requirements to do babalities and friendships. To us, it's second nature.
They really need to address the flaws in this thread though...
Okay so after playing it a bit heres my list of problems. I know this is kinda a budget title since they are putting out all 3 games for $10 (whereas if they went the 3rd strike route they'd be putting out each game for $15) and with 3rd strike just coming out it makes this collection look kinda bad.
- Screen Tearing like a mother
- When you unpause the game your inputs aren't read immediately
- No custom screen stretching
- Online is nearly unplayable 99% of the time
- Scan lines should be a separate option from Filters
- Move list text is too small and looks like it was made for 4:3 and then stretched to 16:9. Also, for colour blind people (like myself) its hard to distinguish between the A and Y button, the A's green should be darker.
- Music for UMK3 seems to be lower than other games? Should have separate sound sliders for each game IMO. Also main menu music should also have it's own slider.
- No option to randomly pick which game you are playing for Ranked match
- Gamertags don't appear while fighting online
- Scorpion/Smoke's "Get Over Here"/"Come Here" get cut off in UMK3
- Finish Him music keeps playing sometimes when you pause the game (sounds dumb because its clashing with the menu music)
- Kombat Kodes don't work in UMK3 online
- I could be wrong but I think the start button may not be functional during the games (which is required for MK2 Smoke fight and certain fatality easter eggs). Someone could correct me but I tried down+start when I was uppercut into the spikes and didn't fall down
- Apparently you can't turn into Human Smoke in the first round of a fight in UMK3
- TerryMasters discovered a bug in the online menu:
- I also think the filters could be a little bit better. The filter is okay but seems to lack a bit of smoothing, its as if theres a little bit of aliasing built into it. When I use HQ2xS in Mame I don't see that aliasing at all. (yes this is a nitpicky thing and more of a want than a need)
- Wheres the lobby match option? UMK3 and MK9 both have versions of this. This should have had it
- theres a tip when the game is first loading which says you can unlock Ermac, Sub-Zero and Mileena from the versus screen which is clearly wrong
If they could fix that stuff, then this would be a really really great package. Honestly, there needs to be a little bit of quality control from NRS. This isn't the first time they dropped the ball on a project like this. At my work if we drop the ball on something, right away we start putting a new process in place which avoids it from happening again. NRS needs to do this for future "port" projects.
Also, I still think they could've done the HD Kollection treatment without refliming. This is kinda my wet dream for one in the future given they fix the above... and I'd happily pay $20-30 for it (spoiler tagged so it doesn't clutter up the thread)
- Keep the original sprites and have filter options, but also have "touched up" sprites as an option which is basically filtered sprites with some touch ups. They could have an artist touch up key frames (such as win pose, upper body while walking, last frame of uppercut animation, face during fighting stance) to look clean and also fix some of the glitches in the sprites. For example when you are Scorpion/Sub-Zero in MK1 and you do a crouching block, the gamma is way off for that sprite; that could be fixed. With some of the other characters in MK2 or MK3 which have dark black in their costume theres also some weird shifting between black and grey in the leg areas that could be fixed. And also smoothing out the outlines of the characters could be done (theres a way to do this in photoshop really easily so it wouldn't be too much work).
- Redraw the stages in HD faithfully, everything should have the same hues and look.
- Redraw the lifebars/UI in HD faithfully
- Redraw the special effects in HD (blood, projectiles, etc)
- Remake the select screens and tournament ladders in widescreen HD (similar to how 3rd strike online did it), backgrounds of select screen should have exactly the same patterns as the original game but obviously redrawn in HD; Human Smoke should be given his own box in UMK3 (get rid of the hacky way it is now)
- Select screen and character bio portraits should be redrawn in HD
- text throughout the game should be the same fonts as the original game, just in HD
- If you're playing the game in a non widescreen mode, the border around the game should just be the background picture from the select screen (not unlike how 3rd strike does it)
- For screen options, allow custom stretching (which also allows you to do a vertical crop if you wish similar to SSF2T HDR's vertical crop), and have an option to expand the viewable area of the screen slightly as well. This way you could get a proper widescreen mode with a slight vertical crop + a slight horizontal stretch + a slight expansion of the view area.
- Offer multiple revisions of the games. If its not possible to HD-ify the older revisions easily, just offer them emulated with filter options
- Make a new revision of UMK3 with Noob & Rain.
- Offer a Remix soundtrack of MK1 (those tracks don't hold up very well), make it closer to the Genesis soundtrack (or at least have an option for that), which is the one that most people remember
- Use GGPO! After 3rd Strike, there's no reason not to. They showed that its legit.
In the end, there is simply no excuse to not use GGPO for a 2d fighting game in this day and age. The players who wanted this so badly would have ponied up the extra cash to cover the money that would have been spent to get GGPO support for this kollection.
I think, regarding online play, it's more disbelief than anything. As I stated before, in this day and age, there is no excuse to use anything other than GGPO for 2d fighters.
Online is unplayable...FIX THIS!!!
Game freezes all the time..I've had it freeze on the game save loading screen!!..It froze while trying to host, while playing online etc
Sometimes I cant ready up
People can exit out of ranked with no penalty
Not good online, but at least playable like the 2006 UMK3 XBLA stand alone version. The MKAK online isn't playable, there's not only lag and delay, but it's like auto slow motion for every online match.
I dont know about this but on ladder mode of umk3, if u play with Reptile till the end, For some reason you cant do forceballs against Shao kahn at all. like the move disappears completely :/
If you press start during a fight, check your achievements, exit the achievements the game music will play with the menu music.
(while still in the pause menu)
ant:
