Those who have played previous Mortal Kombat games will be able to jump in and play with very little adjustment, most of it being learning the new motions for attacks on some characters. The only other major changes are the addition of an optional tag team mode, and a super meter. The meter builds when you take damage, do special techniques, or the opponent blocks your attacks. Divided into three segments, you can spend this meter in various ways. You could power up a single use of one special move, break free of a combo, call ’assist’ attacks from your tag team partner (in relevant modes), and do devastating X-Ray attacks that drive home just how bone-crushing the fight is. It’s a great idea and most of its mechanics work well, though a few actions seem like a waste of meter; for example it’s usually better to spend all your meter on an X-Ray attack than it is to use just one segment to make a special move slightly better since the difference in damage is huge.
Beyond a competent fighting game engine, Mortal Kombat offers tons of extras to appeal to lots of players. Playing earns points that you can spend on unlockables, ranging from new music and costumes to extra Fatality attacks for each character among other things. A reasonably well-featured training mode is also available, which works alongside the story mode to help you learn how to use most of the characters. While said story is kind of silly and cheesy in much the same way the old Mortal Kombat movie was, it does last a few hours and lets you try out most of the roster while earning plenty of unlockable items so it’s definitely worth trying. A ’Challenge Tower’ offers several events to play through, ranging from fights with special conditions to mini-games (including the return of Test Your Might), further ensuring you’ll have plenty to keep occupied with.
Online play is also supported, though as of press time the connection quality seems to vary wildly. At worst, you can be playing in a few seconds worth of lag. On the other hand, if you have a good connection to your opponent it seems quite playable so this may simply be a case of needing to find people who aren’t engaging in heavy downloading and other activities that would slow the game down. The developers are clearly interested in creating a community for the game, offering decent lobby support and ’theater’ style spectator modes (like King of the Hill, see video below) where you join a crowd (portrayed by your Xbox avatars or Mortal Kombat-themed equivalents) and actively show your reactions to the match at hand while waiting for your turn. While some online features are currently a little shaky, it does appear to be improving as time goes on and hopefully they will be in fully functional order soon.
Mortal Kombat King of the Hill Video
Despite doing so many things well, Mortal Kombat does have some meaningful flaws. The most obvious are the controls, which work well enough most of the time but have extremely generous input tolerance that can make you do a move you didn’t mean to; you can tap down-forward, do it again half a second later and press a button, and the game will read this as ’down, forward, attack’ which usually nets an unwanted special move. It can be overcome with practice, but this is definitely annoying and shouldn’t be necessary. There are also a few attacks that have little obvious ’tell’ to help predict them and are surprisingly unintuitive to defend against, which may frustrate some players. Finally, some characters appear to have very easy combos that do damage well out of proportion to the rest of the cast; it remains to be seen whether the others have similar potential that hasn’t been discovered yet, though the developers seemed aware of this potential problem and have been introducing patches (including one on release day), so it may work out fine in the end.
Even with the above problems, Mortal Kombat is both a successful revival of its series and a good fighting game that should entertain both competitive and more relaxed players. With a good roster of characters, tons of content to go through, and simple controls joined by interesting depth of play, the game has a lot to recommend. It’s already great in its current form, and possible adjustments by the developers could make it a genuine classic in the fighting game genre. Unless the over-the-top blood and gore is going to be a problem for you, I can easily recommend Mortal Kombat for purchase.
Recommended Post-Review Reading: While not complete at time of writing (though it might be by the time you read this), the folks at Shoryuken.com are working an in-depth guide for Mortal Kombat that you might want to check out if you need help learning the game in general, or a particular character.
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Our Rating for Mortal Kombat Review (Xbox 360)
9.0
Replay Historically a strong point of the series, and this installment makes good on it. An enjoyable story mode, various challenge events, and tons of unlockable content combine with good fighting game action to make sure you’ll be busy for a long time.
9.0
Graphics Surprisingly detailed characters and stages make fights look exciting. There are a few odd and lazy animations, but they are the exception to an otherwise beautiful game.
7.0
Sound Great sound effects are joined by music that is hard to notice at times and voice acting ranging from good to amusingly cheesy.
8.0
Gameplay Simple controls combine with a fighting game engine that rewards both aggression and intelligent play. There are some snags with the controls and a few design choices, but on the whole it plays very well.
8.5
Multiplayer/Online Content The active lobby system is clearly meant to draw in lots of players and build a community, though the quality of online matches seems to vary wildly; it’s very important to find people with good connections and networking habits (e.g. no heavy downloading while playing online) for the best experience.
8.5
Overall Mortal Kombat is already a great fighting game, and the developers have left open the possibility of tweaking it for the better through patches. Whether you’re a competitive player or enjoy fighting games at a more relaxed pace, this is a solid choice.
Even with the above problems, Mortal Kombat is both a successful revival of its series and a good fighting game that should entertain both competitive and more relaxed players. With a good roster of characters, tons of content to go through, and simple controls joined by interesting depth of play, the game has a lot to recommend. It’s already great in its current form, and possible adjustments by the developers could make it a genuine classic in the fighting game genre. Unless the over-the-top blood and gore is going to be a problem for you, I can easily recommend Mortal Kombat for purchase.
