Mortal Kombat (2011) review

Mortal Kombat (2011)
Fatality or Friendship

NetherRealm Studios, formerly Midway Games Chicago, is the team behind this magnificent franchise, with Warner Brothers currently publishing the games. Standing behind this franchise are Ed Boon and John Tobias, immortalized by reversing their last names for the character Noob Saibot.
Mortal Kombat is a fighting game franchise, where the story revolves around a fighting tournament, with the faith of the world at stake.

The original story of the franchise makes a return in the 2011 installment. Here, the story of the first three games is revisited, though altered because of a time travel issue. First things first, though. Mortal Kombat is a tournament created by the Elder Gods, where Shao Khan challenges warriors of a particular realm. If the warriors of this realm lose the tournament ten times (with one tournament per generation), then the realm is merged with Outworld. This time, Earthrealm has lost nine times in a row, and it's up to the protector of Earthrealm, Raiden, to select a group of worthy combatants and try and prevent this from happening. However, rules are meant to be broken, and Shao Khan continues to find ways to bypass the main Mortal Kombat rules. This results in him winning. However, before he kills of Raiden, the mighty thundergod sends his memories back in time. In the past, Raiden is warned of the coming events and tries to alter the timeline so that the end of Earthrealm is prevented.
Overall, not a bad story. It's cheesy and epic at the same time, creating just enough changes in the story to keep the seasoned players on the seat of their chairs. Some changes in the Cyborg program, for example, are interesting to say the least. Plus … Johnny Cage. Just … Cage.
As for the sound and graphics, there isn't much to say about em other than the fact that these are absolutely superb. The backdrops are gorgeous, the fighters are detailed and the moves are graphic as all hell. Whilst the sound is absolutely spot on, and equally as graphic during certain things like the X-rays.
Plus, there is also enough content to last a long, long while. Obviously there are ladders, where you fight combatants in increasing difficulty. But there is also a challenge tower, where you take it one ladder at a time, each time having to do something different. One round will have you fighting your opponent with half damage, other times you need to do specific moves, other times you need to hit specific body parts … and so on. And there is also a training grounds and an online feature, which includes a King of the Hill, where you can MST3K the fighters currently playing.

Buuuuuuuuuut, it's the gameplay where it all comes crumbling down.

Let's look at the gameplay at its whole first. You have your standard attacks, your special attacks, your superattacks (X-Rays), block and combo attacks. Seems like standard fighter fare, until you start to look at it more closely.

First, the offline fights. In the beginning, the A.I. Barely does anything at all. In the middle they start to act like proper A.I. … but then it all goes to hell. They start to spam all of their attacks and even start to respond to your button input. You high kick? They sweep. You block high, they sweep. It's a vicious cycle. And then there's certain combatants, like Shao Kahn, that take no damage and dish out triple damage whilst being unstaggerable. Yeah … Plus, the A.I. Is always given preferential treatment. Your blow will be null and void if the A.I. attacks right before, right after or during your blow.

Now, let's talk about the online fights. It's equally as bad the Artificial intelligence in many regards. I've played enough fights to see the pattern in which these fights go. Other players will always: Spam projectiles, spam special attacks and spam combos to the point where you will not be able to do anything. Here are a few things that happened to me during a fight.
I got juggled in to the air with a full healthbar. My controls froze up and I was unable to do anything. The other player simply spent the rest of the match keeping me in the air, never letting me touch the ground.
Another player spammed three attacks constantly. If I did manage to block the attack, he only used another special and then proceeded to spam those three attacks again.
Another player spammed projectiles and special attacks.
Other players can bypass my blocks with any attack, whilst they can perfectly block any of my attack. Like, this one time, the other player never even ducked down. I swept once and he immediately managed to duck and block. An impossible feat unless my character is moving at a snails pace on their end.

In the challenge tower, there is one challenge where you can play Cyrax at double speed. That's how online matches feel. Only they are double as fast. I see impossible things happen from their end. For example, special attacks result in a downtime of a second or two. Recovery, sort to speak. In that time, you cannot launch another special attack, or go in to a combo, because your streak is reset when you use a special. Yet, they can perfectly string specials along without any downtime.

I can understand that there are far better players than myself. They have a better grasp on the controls and on the timing. They will probably be able to string combo's together. But they still can't be able to get passed the controls and the mechanics of the game like these players have. There are rules in place that can not be bypassed, yet I see them broken all the time in online matches. Not to mention social rules of not spamming attacks.

It's a damn shame to see this game be so poor in the gameplay department. Especially after that 150 MB patch. Though, the story is tons of fun, fatalities are a blast and when the gameplay is good, the game is absolutely brilliant.

As it stands …

Design: 9/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Fun factor: 8/10