Something Different...

                Mortal Kombat - Acclaim/VIE
               (Beat 'em up for PC and Amiga)
             Reviewed by James Judge on a 486sx

This is quite an old game now, and its successor is about to be
released with a host of new characters and better graphics, but
how does this 'old' game stand up in todays market?

Pretty well I say, but on with the review...

Mortal Kombat (for those of you who have had their heads poked
into a pile of sand over the past two years) is a beat-'em-up
that caused quite a stir when it first came out.

The game is basically about a championship of epic proportions,
with the best fighters in the universe coming together in a
'winner lives' type tournament. There are seven challengers and
three 'boss' type characters (one who is hidden and needs a
certain sequence of events to be undertaken to be found).
Basically that's it. You, the player, take control of one
character who must fight against the other six fighters and then a
carbon copy of yourself. After that it's onto the endurance rounds
where you must fight two fighters directly after one another (ie
you have to KO 2 fighters twice to win the stage, instead of just
one fighter twice). After that it's onto the current champion -
Goro (a huge dragon-man) and, finally, you must face the host of
the contest (Shang Tsung) to win the game.

Sounds just your usual fare in the old Street Fighter 2, doesn't
it? Well, this game is slightly better. Using Motion Capture
techniques (pretty innovative for its time) the fighters aren't
pixelised creations of a warped mind. Instead they are actors
going through the moves, displayed on your screen (Goro was, of
course, a 12" high model). This adds an extra depth to your game.
Instead of just kicking a cartoony character (as were the SF2
bods), you are kicking something that looks lifelike. And when
the blood starts to fly (as it tends to do), things really start
to get enjoyable.

Then there are the fatalities. Instead of just KOing someone and
being done with it, you can show of your expertise by finishing
them in a particular way that leads to, say, your character
ripping out the opponent's heart, or tearing off their head and
spinal column. Great fun, if you can get them to work.

Moral 'guardians' will, of course, (and have done) get on their
high horses saying this type of game-playing is dangerous and
defiles the youth of today. Rubbish, is how I answer those claims
but if you are worried you can turn the gore off (using a cheat)
and you don't HAVE to use the fatalities.

As with SF2 MK has a great two-player mode. Like SF2 you can
choose any of the characters to play and you can change the
character between bouts. Like SF2 the game gives you a total score
for all your fights but it also tells you how many consecutive
wins you have under your belt. Also, unlike the original SF2, you
can pit the same character against each other without resorting
to a cheat that led (more often than not) to a crash.

There are special moves abound and all the characters are equal,
unlike SF2, with the variety of moves they can harness. In SF2
you could play Ryu who had three great moves - a long and short
range attack, as well as a fireball. Then there was Zangieff who
had a poor short range attack and that was it.

In MK all the characters have at least two moves - one an
attacking move that moves the player towards the opponent and the
other being a weapon (such as a knife or lightning bolt). While
this sounds as if there are no differences between the
characters, this is untrue. It is far easier to avoid Sub-Zero's
sliding kick, but nearly impossible to skip out of the way of Liu
Kang's flying kick. Then, of course, different characters move at
different speeds.

This game is great. With five difficulty levels there's plenty to
keep everyone happy. It has three detail levels - low (386),
medium (486) and high (486 local bus) - and I find it best to keep
the detail to the lowest so the game zips along at a cracking
pace. The music is varied (and can be turned on and off) and the
sound effects are wide an varied from war cries to scream, 'oofs'
and sounds of metal hitting metal.

All in all a great game - whether for a quick five minutes, or a
serious sit down and try to thrash Goro session. All the better
for the two player option. If you haven't the machine to run MK2
this is still a great game.

Hiieeeyaaaa!!!









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