The rebirth of the Mortal Kombat franchise is at hand with Ed Boon’s NetherRealm Studios hard at work with the series reboot tactfully titled Mortal Kombat. At a closed doors presentation at E3 2010, NetherRealm producers Hector Sanchez and Eddie Ferrer remarked that this game, in particular, brings the series back to its humble roots and more so for its fans. For those hesitant, don’t be as this game is the ultimate fan service for Mortal Kombat fanatics.
Returning back to the series origins, Mortal Kombat veers its direction back to the 2D plane. Offering the fastest combat in the series to date, the animations and combos have been customized to fit the play style of each character. But what could Mortal Kombat be without the overexcessive gore? Violence is ramped up a notch with the return of glorifying fatalities. The NetherRealm developers have eased the execution of fatalities to a simplistic two-button combination of buttons. In addition, the physics are now directly applied to blood so as your fighter becomes physically bruised and beaten, visible drops of blood will ooze.
The levels and characters harken back to familiar terrain. Fan favorites like Living Forest, the Pit, and Khan’s Coliseum return. Most recently, Kitana and Cyrax were demonstrated in-game. The fighting itself is a return to form with the addition of a supermeter; a la Street Fighter IV. The supermeter builds up over time and each bar on the successive meter performs a different offensive or defensive attack. For example, Reptile can unleash a special force ball, a result of having built up one bar on the supermeter. Two bars allows for a defensive combo breaker. A full bar allows the player to perform a devastating X-Ray move; each fighter has a unique move and activates a successive string of combos that pans into an opponent’s skeleton to reflect the level of brutality inflicted on them internally. NetherRealm developers mention that knowledgable MK players will know when and where to use the full supermeter in tow with executing standard combos.
Have we mentioned cooperative two player tag-team modes? While NeterRealm hasn’t touched upon the multiplayer aspects just yet, we can assume that the tag team mode will be an important part of the Mortal Kombat revival. Players can tag-team or fight against other’s teams with character matchups and utilize assist tag moves, all following the cadence set by the series combo centric gameplay. Also, mention of a “Tournament Mode†was briefly discussed, not getting too into specifics, but expect the capability to join ongoing tournaments online and spectating matches for up to eight players.
Mortal Kombat has never shied away from being a series that exuded mature overtones (if you exclude MK vs. DC) and under the helm of Ed Boon and the folks at NetherRealm Studios, it looks like its latest efforts represent a renaissance level revival of the series. Yes, your dad’s games are cool again.
