Mortal Kombat

"Just avoid it."

Back in the day Street Fighter 2 and its follow ups were gaining lots of dough and like all things that are popular it also spawned some wannabes that wanted a piece of the pie. The people at Midway also saw the popularity of SF2 and decided to make their own fighting game with gimmicks like motion captured actors and tons of blood and gore. And thus the Mortal Kombat series was born. I recently decided to try this game again just for the heck of it and well lets just say I was not pleased.

Graphics
The graphics here are very atrocious even for its time. The fighters look like card board cut outs and show very little if any detail. The fighters also move very stiff and it looks like the walking animation for these guys only required about two frames. I think Midway was capable of doing better graphics then the ones here but it looks like they didn't even try.

Gameplay
The Artificial Intelligence in MK just can't decide if it wants to easy or hard. At certain times I can just uppercut my opponent throughout the battle and end up winning but in other cases I have to use all of my skill just to beat the the CPU on the first round of a match. At the end of the match you can finish your opponent with a finishing move which was cool at first but I don't consider that gameplay.

Sound
The music here is without the doubt some of the worst I've heard in a video game. The voices are very annoying and sound muffled with exception of Scorpion's line ''Get over here'' which unlike the other voice samples sounds good but it is not enough to save this category.

Control
Control is not that good either. I don't think it was a good idea to press the joystick forward twice to execute a special move which does not seem right. Also why did they bother to put in a separate button to block,I mean why couldn't Midway just have you hold back to block like any other 2D fighting game? Chances are that you won't like how the control is set up here.

Replay
I don't think I want to play this game again any time soon. If this your first time playing this game I doubt you will play it again.

Final Word
If you see this game at your local arcade then I suggest you try your best to avoid it and find something else there that plays much better. If you want play this for a good try then go ahead but don't say I did not warn you.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 03/28/01, Updated 03/28/01