Member the games you used to play? We member. The basement at the Hardcore Gamer office has a section known as the Crust Room, with an old grey couch and a big old CRT TV. All the classic systems are down there collecting dust, so in an effort to improve the cleanliness of our work space, we dust off these old consoles every so often and put an old game through its paces, just to verify everything stays in working order. We even have a beige computer with a floppy disk drive.
Mortal Kombat made its arcade debut in 1992. It featured great gameplay, a unique finishing move mechanic and incredible digitized graphics that brought an unprecedented element of realism to the fighters’ appearance. In spite of these great qualities, it received the most attention due to kontroversy over it excessive blood and gore and “realistic” violence. Censorship advocates tried to stomp Mortal Kombat out of existence, but probably had the opposite effect with all the free press they were providing the arcade fighter. Must to the dismay of some senators the series has thrived and remains one of the big name contenders among fighting games, with its tenth mainline entry Mortal Kombat X being released in 2015.
The reason “realistic” violence is marked with quotes is because I consider the gratuitous violence so over the top it can hardly be called realistic. Sure, the characters looked realistic, but a pint of blood doesn’t typically fly out of a person each time they’re punched in the face, and I’ve yet to see anyone punch someone so hard their body remains stationary while their head flies up ten feet in the air. Or reach into a person’s heart and pull out their still beating heart to show them how corrupted it is before they die. Or take off their face mask to reveal their face is nothing but a skull and incinerate someone with fire breath. The graphic quality of the series does have realistic-looking people receive brutal punishment that’s graphic, but realistic doesn’t apply when someone gets cryogenically frozen through ninja magic and gets shattered T-1000 style.
Mortal Kombat X is a sequel to the 2011 reboot simply called Mortal Kombat, aka Mortal Kombat 9. The events of Mortal Kombat X take place twenty-five years later. Generally speaking, tournament fighters aren’t primarily played for their story, but the lore of Mortal Kombat has evolved into something wonderfully ridiculous over the decades and it’s worth getting into. There’s a war between Earthrealm and Netherrealm, where the famed kombatants have assembled with the military to blast a bunch of demons to death. Shinnock is the ringleader in the attacks on Earthrealm, but getting aid from thunder god Raiden and sun god Kotal Khan should help tip the scales in Earthrealm’s favor.
Story mode features a heavy dose of cinematic cutscenes. The cutscenes are largely a blend of characters talking smack to each other before fighting one another and high octane actions sequences. Many of these sequences are entertaining to watch the way over the top action movies are. If one were to put a great deal thought into it they may come to the conclusion it seems odd to settle things with a martial arts duel when there are planes firing machine guns against demons, revenants and gods, but it does pad out of the game time and can be a grand spectacle to behold. Because of the approach to story it gives a feeling of greater depth than simply having several fights with no specific context. Story mode chooses a different character for the player to control across the twelve chapters as they battle against Shinnock’s forces which is a good way to familiarize oneself with the different kombat styles of each of them.
In addition to the story mode there are Towers where players fight in a series of battles with various challenges, such as landing two jumping attacks in a single round or winning a match with more than a third of their health remaining. The Towers can be a nice way to kill time in the game and earn some koins to spend in the Krypt. The main attraction for most people is to fight against other people, either on the couch or online. Online fighting seems to be the direction that most fighting game developers cater to these days, but having a decent amount of single player content helps make Mortal Kombat X worthwhile.
Players have the option to join one of five factions. This is an optional activity, but does open up more online play options and rewards the player at the end of the week. The factions are Lin Kuei represented by Sub-Zero, Special Forces represented by Sonya Blade, Black Dragon represented by Kano, The Brotherhood of Shadow represented by Quan Chi and White Lotus represented by Raiden. Players earn points for their faction through regular game activities such as pulling off fatalities or x-ray attacks. At the end of the week the factions are ranked and players are awarded accordingly. During the faction wars players can fight invasion bosses. These bosses will stomp inexperienced players to death in seconds, but it’s a battle of attrition where faction members gradually wear the boss down.
In general Mortal Kombat fights consist of three rounds and whoever wins two rounds gets rewarded with the opportunity to inflict a fatality move on the loser. These finishing moves have been a staple of Mortal Kombat since day one, but in addition to standard fatality moves there are a few variations. Brutalities make a return but these are different than they’ve been in previous games. Doing a certain move under the right conditions can cause the move to obliterate the opponent at the end of the fight. Brutalities can also occur when the player uses certain environmental objects for attack as the final blow in the fight. Stage specific fatalities also make a return and are available in three of the arenas. New to Mortal Kombat X were the faction specific fatalities which are specific moves based on the player’s chosen faction. Lastly, there’s the quitality, which instantly kills a rage quitting player in a multiplayer match. X-ray attacks are not fatalities but given the amount of damage they cause can be match ending if done at the right time. These are drawn out attacks that show the recipient’s bones shatter along with other damage to their organs.
An expanded version called Mortal Kombatten fiftyXL includes all the bonus characters that were in the two Kombat Packs. These packs added an extra eight characters to the already robust roster. Klassic characters Tanya, Tremor, Bo' Rai Cho and Triborg return which should please long time Mortal Kombat fans. Outside of the regular fighters one would expect to find these games are some famous Hollywood icons such as Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th, the Xenomorph from Aliens and the Predator. Seeing licensed characters seems out place in Mortal Kombat, regardless of how iconic they may be. But they are are characters that are capable of brutal acts of violence and given all the other types of warfare going on, they fit well enough, plus they’re all a ton of fun to play. As long-time fan of the Aliens franchise, there were a certain amount of satisfaction is ripping people apart as the Xenomorph.
Mortal Kombat X delivers on just about everything someone could want in a fighting game. The story mode is about the perfect length for this sort of game, long enough to provide an entertaining narrative but short enough where it can be completed in one day. Having aerial assaults, armed ninja troops and machine gun packing squadrons invading demonic realms to end with one on one martial arts tournaments seems a bit over the top, but when has Mortal Kombat not been over the top? Mortal Kombat X is a grand spectacle of gore over a finely-tuned tournament fighter.
Mortal Kombat has been going strong for over thirty years with many strong entries in the series. Mortal Kombat X is one of the stronger entries, maintaining the gory essence that made the series popular in the first place, but adding even more layers of ridiculosity to the violence. With a series like Mortal Kombat it’s easy to focus on the spectacle of the violence and gore. But if all the gore and guest characters were taken away, Mortal Kombat X would still be a great game because of its great gameplay mechanics and variety of modes. The gore is what made people notice Mortal Kombat, but it’s the quality of the franchise that resulted in its longevity.
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