The Mortal Kombat franchise was a brutal awakening when it hit the arcade scene back in ’92. Since then the game has seen its roster balloon to over 64 fighters spanning 8 games that have featured over 40 different arenas in the first 3 games alone. Nether Realm Studios and Warner Bros interactive decided to shave some of the excess fat with this latest release as they attempt to reboot the franchise. Is the Mortal Kombat franchise ready to entertain a new generation of gamers or is it a relic from a time that has passed?

During preview events the designers and producers of Mortal Kombat often referenced Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 as a major inspiration for this latest title. Everything from the plot, characters and design are definitely inspired by the 1995 game. This isn’t to say that Nether Realm studios is ripping off their older work and passing it off as new. Instead they have taken the best character designs, plot points and a lot of blood from the previous games and updated the rest for the modern console generation.

The gameplay formula for this Mortal Kombat has been boiled down to its simplest form. Gone are the multiple stances, weapons and move lists that plagued the previous entries. In Mortal Kombat you choose one of 16 fighters, who should be recognizable to those of you have experience with the franchise, and take your fight to either another human combatant or CPU opponent. Like Super Street Fighter IV the combatants in Mortal Kombat face each other on a 2D platform facing each other left to right.

Unlike technical fighters like Tekken combat isn’t all style, finesse, counters and combos. Each of the 16 fighters has a mix of special moves, blocks and small combos to devastate their opposition. Special moves typically come in two flavors – projectile and teleportation. With the odd exception most special moves will either send a projectile across the screen or teleport your fighter to a new location.

If you find yourself on the losing end of a fight Nether Realm Studios has included a new “X-Ray Attack” feature. As you take damage a meter builds at the bottom of the screen. Once you’ve filled it you can press both triggers together to perform a devastating X-Ray Attack. These new attacks are choreographed attacked designed to be a brutal display of destruction. Once this attack has been executed the character on the receiving end will lose about a third of their health. Players don’t have to fill up their entire X-Ray meter to make use of this new addition. Upon pressing the right trigger when perfuming a special move the game will add additional damage to the attack in exchange for 1/3rd of the X-Ray meter.




The combat and controls are both rock solid. As you watch your character throw projectiles or jump to dodge your opponents, responding is as easy as tapping UP on the left joystick or the D-Pad. There is no visible input lag and no “floaty” physics or attacks present here. As mentioned earlier the player character is moved with the D-Pad/Analog Stick. Each limb is mapped to the face buttons, allowing you to pull off right/left kicks and punches. Some of Mortal Kombats new modes to change up the controls a bit but the for both the story mode and versus modes the gameplay excels in all areas.

The character models in Mortal Kombat are highly detailed. Every one of them have all of the details you would expect, Scorpions clothes move in the wind as he fights and Melina is as bouncy as they come. Each character has an alternate costume as well. The alternate costumes for the cyborgs are really creative and shouldn’t be spoiled. It is unfortunate that there are only two costumes per character. I am sure Nether Realm will add some more via DLC but with games like Marvel Vs Capcom 3 including four costumes per character out of the box Mortal Kombats offerings feel anemic.

Special attacks make use of colored particles and lighting. Each characters attack has a color scheme attached to them. Sub Zero uses blue attacks, Scorpion’s scorpion based attacks are yellow & orange etc. These are effective but simple. When the X-Ray attacks hit the characters skeletons show. This is a great touch and each one is original. Unfortunately watching the X-Ray attacks may get old as they never change. If you are partial to one character you might get tired of their X-Ray attacks after a few hours.

The stages themselves are just as detailed as the characters. There are many different stages from the other classic MK Games including Goro’s Lair, Shang Tsung Temple, and The Pit. The backgrounds in every stage are very detailed in one of them moving gears set the scene. All of these stages can be boiled down to a simple 2D plane with animated objects in the background. It is a simple formula but it works well.





Mortal Kombat offers a plethora of different modes including Story, Arcade, Online Versus and the Challenge Tower. The story mode takes you through the events of Mortal Kombat 1, 2 and 3. This isn’t a straight up retelling of the original games. Nether Realms has included nods to the original stories while incorporating all of the characters from the first three games. This means that events that weren’t possible in the previous games such as Johnny Cage Vs Quan Chi fighting in Shang Tsungs lair are possible. The story mode will take you anywhere between 6 – 8 hours and the cutscenes do their job well.

The classic Arcade structure that made up the older games main mode returns in this latest installment. In this mode a single player is pitted against a tower of opponents with Shao Khan at the top of the tower. The boss battles at the top of the arcade tower and the story modes are challenging. Through my multiple playthroughs the final boss battles proved difficult. Each victory in either the story mode and arcade tower earns you coins that can be spent to unlock hidden features.

The rates at which you earn these coins differ between modes and the difficulty level. Nether Realm Studios have given players the opportunity to spend these coins on a wide variety of unlockables. These rewards range from pieces of concept art, Kombat Codes used to affect gameplay and alternate costumes. Most of these unlockables are trivial and do not affect the core gameplay but they do provide a reason to keep the game in your console.

Back in the 90’s we online play didn’t exist. The console ports of the earlier Mortal Kombat games had to provide fans with a captivating offline experience. Unlike other franchises making the leap into the next generation MK provides an entire suite of offline modes. 2 players can spare against each other in standard combat or test their reflexes with the Test Your Luck and Test Your Might Minigames. Up to four players can enjoy Tag Kombat. In this mode up to 4 players can take sides and fight against 2 vs 2.

The level of brutal violence and over the top fatalities featured in the original MK is what resonated with the public and the media when the game was first released. Nether Realm has taken the series back to its roots with buckets of blood, cracking bones and over the top fatalities. From the get go each fighter has one fatality unlocked with another that can be unlocked via the Krypt in exchange for coins. The developers even included some of other fatality variants hidden deep within the game.

Each player has the ability to swap out with their partner if they are getting low on health. In a room with three other people this mode is addictive. Getting three other gamers in the room and squaring off against each other can be an exhilarating experience.

The online play in Mortal Kombat is relatively lag free and allows you to go head to head with players in both ranked and player matches. Nether Realm has crafted a neat King of the Hill mode where up to four players take to the arena in alternating turns. The winner of each match moves on while the other players wait for their turn. The game also supports Xbox 360 Avatars, while waiting for your turn you can send taunts and other pre-determined gestures.





The last mode that Nether Realms hyped up during the pre-launch parties and events was the Challenge Tower. This set of 300+ matches pit you in predetermined situations. You might find yourself learning Sonya’s combos or taking on Zombies using the new tag system. This new system allows you to swap out one character for another giving you a fresh bar of health. There are even challenges where you play as Boss characters. Wreaking havoc as Goro can be very satisfying as you climb the ladder. Some of the later challenges are truly unforgiving. They are not for the faint of heart.

Mortal Kombat offers a staggering number of unlockable content and a solid campaign mode that will last several hours. The online mode offers up robust options like tag team matches and king of the kill mode that no other fighter on the platform has provided. The level of brutality and gore lives out to the series previous titles. This is truly one of the goriest titles available for the Xbox 360. There are some situations where the audio is out of sync and the online mode is lag free depending that both players connections are solid. Some of the unlockable content is trivial and the number of alternative costumes is disappointing but these are not reasons to avoid the latest MK. Nether Realm studios has proven that the MK series has a lot of staying power and they’ve set the bar pretty high with this latest release.