Mortal Kombat 3

"Ugh...it just went downhill again."

-Graphics 5/10-

Grainy...big time. You'll notice that your character doesn't quite have a sharpness to him/her like they did in the SNES version of Mortal Kombat II. Most of the character animations are there, although they tend to breakdown when the action starts getting heavy.

The backgrounds are nicely drawn, but again, they suffer from a grainy texture that you won't find appealing to the eye. The interaction on the backgrounds, is a plus, having paper blow around your fighter's feet, or the swirling in the distance, all nicely done, but it still doesn't make up for the graininess.

The character animations are spectacular to watch, but you'll notice while playing, that sometimes they cut out in mid move, or the fatalities don't quite match up. Some blaze through, while others seem to miss, and then the camera kind of adjusts to make up for it.

-Sound 5/10-

It's got all of the game music, and it does, for the most part, fit nicely while fighting. The only complaints that I have, is with the sound effects. There is hardly anything that seems to match up with what you're doing when you pull off a special move. Hard to hear at certain points of the game.

-Control 4/10-

Alright...the moves can come off fairly well, but this time, there is a new option, the Run button. This, on the SNES controll, makes it hard to use, and hard to do anything that entails using the Run button.

That was a major downfall in the Arcade version of this, is because some of your fatalities must use the run button..that's hard to do on the SNES controller, because the Run button is placed on top...one of the triggers.

-Gameplay 5/10-

It's got some new fighters, and new looks for the old ones. But that doesn't save it from being the same storyline as before, only with different characters. Innovation was starting to slip with this Mortal Kombat, all the time was spent now for giving the game more moves and finishers, instead of actual variation.

There are no endurance rounds, there were no Test-Your-Might rounds, nothing...just straight through fighting. That can, and does, get on your nerves after doing it with this type of game for so long.

-Overall 5/10-

This was a definate slip from the SNES version of Mortal Kombat II. In my opinion of the game, it's got the moves, it's got the characters, it's got everything that you might need for a fighting game....if you haven't played one of the other Mortal Kombat's yet.

It's only got one thing...collectable value. It's one of the Mortal Kombat series, and it's a great show piece to show off to your friends when you say, ''Hey, I've got all the Mortal Kombat's for SNES.''.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 02/23/00, Updated 02/23/00