Mortal Kombat

I can still remember that bright Spring afternoon, coming home from school and discovering that all my friends had gathered at my neighbors house. What mystery was contained that would stir up such a ruckus? A working lightsaber? A Neo Geo? I walked down the stairs into his basement to find the only light coming from the TV, projecting an eerie glow on all my open mouthed friends. Getting closer I could see that they were playing some new fighting game. It looked interesting, but I had Street Fighter II at home and had been completely obsessed with it, what could this game possibly offer? A declaration came from the TV, “FINISH HIM” and I saw my friend’s character walk over to the flailing foe before him and kick through his torso.

It took me awhile before I was able to convince my parents to let a cartridge with the words “Mortal Kombat” sneak through the door, so until then I played it wherever I could. It was the forbidden fruit, and I think this led to much of my liking of it. Friends that did have it explained the ins and the outs of the different characters, their moves, and their back stories. There was a character that could freeze people?! Holy shit, that sounds awesome! I watched the movies, I watched the TV shows and I bought every Mortal Kombat game up to Mortal Kombat 4. Something was… off about that game. And then there was Mortal Kombat mythologies.. something was very off there as well. I loved the characters, but shit game after shit game came out until I eventually resigned to the fact that the Mortal Kombat games were dead as I knew them.

I played a few of them here or there, but none of them sparked any of the connection I had to the earlier games. Then, at E3 2010, I saw material all over the place for the new Mortal Kombat game. I immediately wrote it off as some further desecration of my childhood, when buzz around this game started to build up all around me.  Everyone seemed to be talking about it.  I barely got a chance to play it when I got swine flu and came home, but there was a curiosity that had built that could not be denied.

Fast forward to the present.  After a long wait due to some extenuating circumstances you couldn’t care less about, I was finally turning the game on.  I dove in to story mode and I was brought back in time, face to face with the characters I loved in a game worthy of them for the first time since MK3.  Every fight brought a sense of adrenaline that reminded me of the days gone by of blood splattered Netherrealms.

Moving on to the 1 on 1 was basically a trip back to Mortal Kombat the way my rose colored glasses remembered it.  Every hit is absolutely brutal and satisfying, and the moves are all very cool to watch and just the right difficulty to pull off.  THIS is Mortal Kombat.  THIS is what I have been waiting for!

Not only is it Mortal Kombat at its best, but it is better..er..  Let me rephrase that, this is better than Mortal Kombat ever was!  It takes all the things I loved about it, amps them up, and then adds in a great fighting system that is right at home with veterans, but is modern enough to stand up there with everything else.  I love all the Capcom fighting games, and have always liked them better than the MK games, but as of right now this is my favorite fighting game of this generation.  Let’s see how it plays out in a few months, but I fucking love this game.

I don’t care what your ideas are of Mortal Kombat, fighting games, or anything else.  Go out and buy this game right now.  It will test your might.  Flawless Victory.  Fatality.  Babality, Round 1 FIGHT.  Ok, I’ll stop, but only because I can see you leaving to go buy the game.  You are leaving to go buy it… right?