Mortal Kombat 9 Review
By MoxBornAgain
First off, let me make this perfectly clear, that the last Mortal Kombat that I enjoyed from start to finish was Mortal Kombat Trilogy for the N64. Mostly for the 31 character selection, which was unheard of at the time.
With Mortal Kombat games you pretty much know how the story is going to play out. With this game throw that thought out the window, because NetherRelms has a different formula for this story. The game starts out showing the lifeless corpse of every Mortal Kombat fighter before panning up to a battle that has been going on between Raiden & Shao Kahn. The battle goes south very quickly for Raiden and before he is defeated he casts a spell that sends visions to himself in the past.
This game is told through the eyes of many fighters as you play through the events of MK 1, 2 & 3. While the action is unfolding Raiden is receiving these visions of the deadly future and is attempting to alter reality to help avoid these outcomes.
Overall it's a great alternative to the standard cookie cutter story lines that we are normally fed with fighting games. You know the ones, pick a fighter fight 7-10 battles and show a cut-scene at the end, pretty boring.
Graphically this game shines from a distance of 5 feet. If you get a close up shot of a character model you will be looking at some "B" level texturing. As for the animations in game, they are just beautiful. It's just sad to see such a disconnect when it comes to the story cutscenes.
The game offers some great extras. The most noticeable is the X-ray attacks! Basically you build this meter up at the bottom of you screen and unleash a devistating attack that gets very up close and personal, most of the time will leave you saying ouch or yuck! These attacks are different for each character and are tuned for each fighters personality.
Also available is the 300 Challange mode. Which gives you extra content to unlock as well as hours of fun after you finish the story.
Mortal Kombat gives gamers 2v2 combat options as well as the King of the Hill mode where you are in a party of 8 and 2 fighters face off while the other 6 cheer from the stands, winner stays and someone from the stands is brought up to fight.
The last thing I thought was worth noting is the addition of the Finishing Moves Trainer. This training mode will teach you spacing and button presses for every fighters individual finishing moves. This is perfect for gamers like me that are terrible at spacing on these end match displays.
Rating: Time Killer (Great for the quick 15-30 min gaming sessions & easy to pick up and play)
