Mortal Kombat Trilogy

"This game is truly an embarassment for all PC fighting games. Just how did Midway manage to screw up on another of their premature milking of MK?"

It's times like these that test my resolve to keep playing fighting games. When I was first introduced to video games around eight years ago [from the time this review was written], fighting games were my favorite genre- and Mortal Kombat 1 was my favorite game.
Since then, times have changed. I became an avid strategy gamer, but the day when I played Mortal Kombat 1 never stopped ringing in my imagination. The first two Mortal Kombat were truly good. It basically made the name 'Mortal Kombat' become the epitome of all fighting games- at least during that time. It also made certain that the makers of Mortal Kombat would be able to perpetually milk the series using the excellent copy/paste tool [which I persume, has been used more times than any other tool].
To be short, Mortal Kombat Trilogy contails little innovation. It's way too much like Mortal Kombat 3,and i believe that a lot of the gameplay was simply copied/pasted. And since times have changed, a game considered 'excellent' eight years ago would now be considered 'mediocre' or 'bad'. MK contains no flagrant glitches, but everything feels too outdated.

Gameplay:4/10
One of the ways that I know this game was copy and pasted is because there is almost no balance in the game. Some characters totally defeat other characters. For example, Motaro, the second to last boss in Mortal kombat 3, is so absurdly powerful that no other character is a match for him. Some of the other characters are far too weak. If they had done more testing, they would have nerfed Motaro and made some of the characters better.
The actual gameplay is simply... too monotonous. I wont say its bad because unlike other MK games, Mortal Kombat Trilogy contails some innovation and the game makers did correct a few of the worst problems. In older Mk series AI opponents didnt seemed to be affected by the 'easy' or 'hard setting'. Now, this has changed. Turning the AI to easy will get you an easy opponent. Making the AI to hard will make the computer difficult to beat, sometimes even impossible. And the biggest problem, MK's tendency to become a waiting game where each side waits for the other to attack (since defense is generally stronger than offense) has been, luckily, to some degree, corrected. This is the reason I game the gameplay a far better score than the gameplay in MK3. MK trilogy awards you for aggressiveness.
This game also has an amazingly high number of characters, but this doesn't add much to the gameplay because some of the characters are too much of the same. Others are far too different. WHat i mean is not variety, but strength. Characters should have somewhat different moves that balance out. However, for example, motaro has moves that few other character has equilivants of. He can grab an opponent. WHy can't all the other characters get at least something to counter this? I know that sub-zero can freeze an opponent, but other characters like Shao Kahn do not have a similar move. Some characters are also virtual replicas of others.
Nonetheless, playing MK trilogy has been a rewarding experience at first. Then, as the disparity between the characters is slowly exposed, the game becomes un-fun.

Graphics:3/10
The graphics are good, that is, until you see the execution of them. I have an excellent computer, but the characters look like a whole bunch of pixels. There is hardly any detail, and some of the moves still remain unknown because the graphics are so weak. The characters also move awkwardly. Since character graphics are more important than any other graphics, this category cannot get a good rating.
On a good reversal, the background is truly impressive, such as the one on the rooftop. The background is very detailed. YOu can see very fine details, and some the backgrounds remind me well of the other MKs.

Sound:2/10
It's about time that Midway starts making music that resembles that of their earlier games, instead of synthesizing music from past MK's. Most of the tracks are copies from older MK's. The characters also emit the same sound when attacked, which gets very annoying.

Value:3/10
The replay value is okay, you will want to play this later on. However, the game gets boring fast. I cant play it for more than 20 minutes straight once I have played about 2-3 hour of the thing.

Tilt:2/10
No, i didnt like this game very much.

Overall:3/10
A below-mediocre game. I would have to say that Midway needs to rethink their strategy. Why are they making copies of old games? Is it money that they want? If they want money, producing a quality game would rake in a lot more cash than just milking the series prematurely- at least in the long run. And they will also not lose good customers like me.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 11/29/03