terrible game.

simply awful.

mostly the controls making it really frustrating. I'm reviewing it now, I'll give you more later,

yes, there are some very intricate combos, but the amount of patience and effort that you need to pull them off is ridiculous, and not even in a "practice and get better at it" way, more like a "god why does it keep making me jump backwards and punch when I'm not even hitting those buttons?"

in the end, it's frustrating, it's not fun, and it's not even that rewarding.

obviously if you enjoyed the past three mortal kombat games, you'll probably try to find some reason on why this game is worth sixty bucks, but I for one feel ripped off.

I could have spent that money on a copy of battle fantasia.

shaolin monks was a lot of fun. I especially loved the stage where you get the cheetah high and ride it.

Burt Reynolds wrote:

Yeah this game is crap. Controls suck, graphics suck for using Unreal engine. The special grappling and pitfall combat aditions are stupid follow the directions, Simon, button mashing. Not to mention that a franchise that has never made a game below M or MA-17 rating, took out all the gore and even censored the Joker's fatality for the NA release. I wanted this game to be awesome so badly, but as I had feared, the MK series has been dead since 3.

I never thought I'd be defending a mortal kombat game, but half of what you said simply isn't true. probably one of the only thigns that I really like about the game is the graphics and the presentation. I can't even tell you how many times I went back and forth on the main menu to see if the battle with batman and scorpion escalated. complaining about the gore being gone is kind of silly, as a game that has to rely on ultraviolence to move copies probably isnt' a good one to begin with, and that's one of my main problems with MK as a franchise. they're incredibly shallow games that use their pols of blood and fatalities as a crutch, and people love them for it.

I'll quote what I said over at HG101:

well, I don't think DC really forced the T rating, so much as midway was trying to make the game more accessible to a wider range of potential buyers. honestly people still bleed when they get punched, it's just done a little more realistically if you think about it. I always found the buckets of blood flying out of someone after an uppercut to be a tad ridiculous, personally.

I think the more realistic amounts of blood, coupled with the fact that the character models have torn clothes and bruising, make the presentation much more believable.

on the topic of fatalities, I don't really think the zooming affects the fatality as a whole. Deathstroke has a similar fatality, and I kinda think that the character getting shot off camera gives the move more personality. This may not work as well for joker's, as he's a psychotic madman, and not a stone cold, remorseless killer like deathstroke, but it could be a lot worse. they could have omitted the move altogether after the ESRB fussed.

good for thought though, deathstroke still has a special move where he whips his gun out and shoots you, and it can totally be done when prompted to "FINISH HIM", giving almost the same reaction (a character falling over dead). I wonder if midway could have "salvaged" the joker's fatality by not simply just removing the blood spraying from the back of kitana's head.

all that aside, it still doesn't make the game playable. the stiff controls and robotic movement of the characters make doing the pro moves and freeformed combos (sorry, Kombos) more frustrating than rewarding. it's not a bad game, but it takes a lot of adjusting to get used to.

long time mortal kombat fans will find reasons to enjoy this game, but the rest of us will probably play it for the achievement points, then shelve it in favor of something a little different.

of course by saying you aren't speaking truth, I mean more that I disagree.