Mortal Kombat (9) for PS3 (SPOILER ALERT!)

Well, in short, its fucking amazing. I played through the Story mode in about ten straight hours (at least one and a half of those hours was spent solely on the final battle, and I like it. A lot. Sure, they changed a few things, and the further you get into the game, the more it changes, but hell, I already knew what happened in the original storyline, and while it would be cool to see that brought to life in a manner better than the shitty movies, this story brings new things to the table.

In short, as far as I'm concerned, this is the way a reboot SHOULD be done.

The MK1 part of the story is pretty much the same, with the addition of more characters (which i'm sure they'd have done in the beginning if it wasn't for memory limitations back in '92) and even in several places seems to pluck scene ideas from the movie (and improving on them with better acting.. well voice acting anyway), except for the part with Raiden sending the message back in time to himself, and you get to follow the storyline of Cyrax and Sektor before they are turned into robots for part of it.

After Liu Kang wins the first tournament, Raiden realizes that wasn't what was supposed to happen, and the MK2 storyline starts, with several changes. For one, Raiden rescues Smoke from being turned into a cyborg, only to have Sub-Zero turned into one. You get to see Jax lose his arms firsthand at the blades of Baraka as well. Lots of good shit here.

In the MK3 storyline, you get introduced to Stryker and Kabal (before the respirators) and witness Kabal being burned beyond recognition by Kintaro, Kano rescues him and gives him the respirators, and gives him his hookswords. Anyway, I'm not typing the entire game out here, but let's just say a couple things.

First off, no fatalities in story mode. But they wouldn't make sense. Think about it... You kill Kano at the beginning of the game, it's not going to make much sense when he shows back up in the story. And there's a SHITLOAD of death in the cutscenes. When it's all said and done, and you're at the final battle, in which you have to fight Shao Kahn with....Raiden. This was the hardest part of the game for me, but only because Raiden is one of my weakest characters. You have to constantly teleport to beat him... Anyway, at the end of the game, the only ones left alive on Earthrealm's side are Raiden, Sonya, and Johnny Cage. Everybody else is dead and Quan Chi has their souls in the Netherrealm.

What surprised me is how much attention to detail was put into this game. Right down to the fact that, with the exception of Liu Kang (and the human Sub Zero), the characters that are left go straight into MK4. Obviously, the differences were intended, because the timeline was obviously changed a bit, and the ending of the game shows Quan Chi and Shinnok plotting their next move. I'm pretty sure I know where the next MK game is going to pick up, and I'm pretty sure that's where they'll re-introduce many of the characters that first appeared in MK4.

Now that I've gotten the story mode out of the way, let's get on to the rest. The gameplay is what MK should have been since MK4, instead of going full 3D. The controls are smooth, the gameplay is fast as hell, the combos are smooth, and it's become much easier to integrate your special moves into the combos, as well as creating your own combos on the fly. (not a Kreate A Kombo feature either, this just means you can try different button combinations, some buttons and moves flow together better than others, it's up to you to figure out which ones)

The fatalities are breathtaking, and the stage fatalities, well. The Dead Pool fatality has MUCH more detail, you see the victim writhing in the acid as their flesh slowly melts off. Feed your opponent to the trees in the Living Forest, throw them in front of oncoming traffic in the Street, grate their face on a moving subway train and then throw them in front of another train on the Subway stage, and my favorite is the fatality for Kratos' stage. You do it, and then you hold your opponent over the side. After this it gives you a choice. You can either drop them into something that just crushes them, drop them into something that cuts them into pieces, or into one that cremates them alive. Babalities are back as well. No Friendships, Animalities, or Brutalities though. Maybe via DLC sometime? (if PSN ever comes back up)

Now that the review's out of the way, a thought came into my mind.. They could totally throw in new plots via DLC with the same game. One I would like to see, now that I've played through this, is for them to put in the ORIGINAL (non time-altered) storyline. Hell, they could do a sequel in the same fashion if they wanted. Like I said, there really isn't much more they could have done to this game to make it even better.. It's almost the PERFECT MK game. The only things I could see them adding is new moves/finishers, and story, but I'm pretty sure that could all be added via DLC if they wanted to do it that way.


Anyway, 15/10. I've been waiting for this game since 1995, and Mortal Kombat games were always one of my favorite series, until they completely changed it in MK4, and even more in Deadly Alliance and every other game until this one. Don't get me wrong, I liked Deadly Alliance, Armageddon, etc, that whole system, it was great, but not as a Mortal Kombat game.

Now THIS...(meaning MK9)..is Mortal Kombat. And the fact that i've been waiting for sixteen years for this is why it gets 5 bonus points.

On a side note, no palette swaps. Each character is his/her own character.