Mortal Kombat Review, Part 2: The Ugly

Welcome to the second (and last) part of my review of Mortal Kombat. This is my second time writing an "Ugly" part of any review. Basically what The Ugly is is my attempt at transparency. Sometimes I feel that I have a very unique reaction to certain pieces of media, and that an explanation is necessary for the reaction that I have. I don't really write this for anyone else's sake but my own, since it allows me to explore my own twisted little psyche and come to grips with myself. Not all of The Ugly reviews will be unpleasant, but most of them are related to unpleasant things in my own life, so most of them will be rather intense.

Without further ado...

Most of my reasons for playing Mortal Kombat stem from my short time as an amateur Thai boxer, which are recorded in the previous The Ugly. Muay Thai is a very brutal sport, as I put up in the other review. But at the same time it's a very intimate sport. You learn a lot about someone by hitting them as hard you can and having the favor reciprocated. You learn how much someone wants to win something in the face of adversity, you learn how much they want to defend themselves, whether they're go-getters or not, things that you wouldn't know in quite the same way.

Anyway, the events that I had discussed from the last post had put me in a situation, where I didn't get to see people very often. I took the opportunity to hide from the world and brood. Since I was homeschooled it wasn't very difficult to do that. Without Muay Thai I started to feel lonely and wanted to hit people. When I was around people I became a bit...overzealous in my rough housing. As I approached 16, however, I noticed a funny thing: when I rough-housed with people I hurt them! I wasn't out to actually hurt these new people, so I stopped touching people as much as I could, unsure of what to do. At about this point my dad enrolled me in a college. He did this for a few reasons: he worked there (free tuition), he couldn't teach me writing (I didn't like his teaching methods), and he couldn't teach me art. Well, to college I went! And, deep in the student's lounge, I found this:

I'd played Mortal Kombat when I was a kid, so I was intrigued. I remember being scared of Raiden and finding that the only character I was truly good with was Sub-Zero, because it could stop other people in their tracks and hurt them. So I started playing. I'm not going to say that it was a good game (Mortal Kombat 4 is most definitely not), or that it was actually enlightening to play, but I couldn't stop. It was bloody, the sound effects were just ridiculous to remind me of reality, and  the hits looked like they hurt.

In essence, it reminded me of Muay Thai, in all its messy glory.

Basically all I did those days was go to school, draw, and play Mortal Kombat. I didn't really see that many people during that time, which allowed for the brooding to worsen. I started screaming and fighting in my sleep, pounding the walls and waking my parents up several times a week. I withdrew further from people, forgetting the good times I had as a child and remembering all the awful things that had been done to and by me.  My drawings grew darker, and my parents grew more and more worried. But I kept playing. And one day I couldn't stand not moving anymore.

I left the Student Lounge one day, and stood behind the college, staring at the trees behind the dorms. Despite doing everything that I could remember as good I felt more alone than ever, and I'd had enough. I started practicing my katas in the back alley. I'm not sure why I did, but it felt good. But I found it felt better when I screamed at each hit. I moved and whirled about, screaming my confusion and loneliness out through my fists, feet, knees, and elbow. Tears started to stream from my eyes, and as I was about to start over on my katas, someone tapped me on the shoulder. Startled, I turned around. There was a security guard.

"Hey man, what are you doing out here this time of night? I've got some noise complaints, people thinking a fight's going on out here. Everything OK?"

I realized I was still behind the dorms. I blushed and quickly explained that I just needed to blow off some steam, and that no one was fighting me. The security guard asked me to show me some moves, and I performed a few katas for him (with significantly less volume). He critiqued me, told me I had serious potential, and we talked  for awhile about the type of training he'd undergone to become a security guard. Apparently this guy was quite the accomplished martial artist, but hadn't gone to a dojo in a while. After about ten minutes of talking the guard told me he had to keep going on patrol. We walked inside the student lounge and parted ways again. But before he left the security guard clapped me on the shoulder.

"Good meeting you, Nate. You're a good guy. Hope to see you again, OK?" I nodded, reciprocated, and hoped I would. I walked back to the machine that drove my days and nights, smiled, and hit the start button again. So what if Mortal Kombat wasn't the intimacy I was looking for? It was a hell of a lot of fun to play.

Shortly thereafter my parents removed me from college and put me into highschool in an attempt to get me to acclimate to "normal" kids, who weren't necessarily going to attack me on sight. After a bit of balking, I entered. I didn't play Mortal Kombat for several years after that, and I never saw the security guard again. But I still think about that guy. I wonder who he was, where he'd come from, and where he went after talking to me. And I still play Mortal Kombat, if only to partially remember who I was and still am, and to remember someone giving me five minutes of kindness when I really needed it.

Mortal Kombat Review

God, that looks painful.

Alright, let's get this out of the way, out of our system:

Now we can proceed.

Mortal Kombat is the reason we have a video game ratings system, since it was the first popular game to break the bounds of decency. For whatever reason parents decided to give up a little more responsibility and demanded the the government decide what was decent. While the rant on the stupidity of some parents is something that may come down the road I should probably stay on topic. We're here to talk about Mortal Kombat, not socialism. Anyway, Mortal Kombat is known for (and is thus rated by) three things: Violence, Gameplay, and Story.

Violence
Let's be honest with ourselves, this is the reason why Mortal Kombat is so well-loved: the ridiculous, over-the-top violence. If anyone says that they're playing the game strictly for the gameplay I'd reply that people look at porn for the articles and stories.

The violence in this game is extremely satisfying and not only fun to watch but hear. Honestly, this is some of the best sound production for a game I've heard in a long time. All the sounds are so well-designed that I could probably play the game on sound alone. Which is not to say that the visuals are bad. The figures are well-animated and the amount of blood is absurdly awesome. And the fatalities... well....

Gruesome enough for you?

Gameplay

While the Mortal Kombat franchise is known for it's blood, its gameplay is something commonly derided by the fighting community for being, well... not very good. And to a certain extent that's understandable. With the emphasis on presentation, not gameplay, you would think a game like this wouldn't have a good fighting mechanic. I can honestly say that most of Mortal Kombat's 3D excursions were too slow and bulky to really be fun. 

That's not the case here. The fighting engine is extremely good, with combos that can be cannibalized and put into your own ideas and imaginings. The game rewards creative thought in a way that reminds me very much of Smash Bros (the best fighting game ever made, in my humble opinion). However, if you're a beginner and don't want to spend a lot of time putting together your own custom combos the game has presets that work very well. That being said, Mortal Kombat is at its best when you're doing creative thinking about how the regular and special moves work together. When a game rewards ingenuity I think it's more than worth the time to play. 

That being said, the boss fights in this game are truly absurd, filled with bosses that truly break game physics and common sense, as well as many TV sets. Seriously, how are you supposed to fight these guys beyond medium difficulty? I still haven't found a way, and while I acknowledge I'm not the best player in the world I'm pretty decent in my own right, and I STILL play the game's story mode on beginner. The ending boss fight in the story mode is ridiculous even for the game, and after 30 tries I gave up in sheer frustration and downgraded the difficulty to beginner. It took an additional five tries before I got it. That's a total of 35 times, people, with cheating. That's wrong.  Most of this can be circumvented by playing as much multiplayer as possible, which is the point of the game anyway.

Story

This might come as a shock to most people, but almost all Mortal Kombat players I've met are in love with the plot of the games. The game's known for an intricate and dark storyline where the good guys barely win, and that's assuming nothing goes wrong. The story of this game is essentially a reboot back to the original Mortal Kombats 1-3. To be honest, I don't like the story all that much. It feels unnecessarily dark and dismal, to the point where I ask "why even bother?" Also, the matching up of the fights make little to no sense, particularly if you know the game's history. While it's true that people don't play fighting games for the plot the ruining of this element of Mortal Kombat is a travesty.

Conclusion

Amazing presentation and overall great gameplay trump a crappy story and ridiculous boss fights. If you're into fighting games I definitely recommend picking this game up!