Sunday, December 11, 2005

Throwback Thursday: Mortal Kombat II

This is probably one of the most important games ever made. Mortal Kombat stormed arcades with a level of graphic violence unseen in video games before. It arrived on consoles as the first game to ever be given a rating, and was toned down quite a bit. The controversy didn't stop Ed Boon or John Tobias, the fathers of MK. They came back with MKII, adding 7 new characters, 2 new bosses, and greatly increasing the number of finishing moves. The arcade edition was the first game I ever followed versions of. Updates adding new moves and fatalities were added regularly and you did well to know what versions did what in my town because Mortal Kombat II was the only game worth playing. The web was in its infancy and few of my classmates had computers that went online, so moves lists printed out were a hot commodity. This also gave birth to a lot of complete bullshit moves, combos, and fatalities that you might waste 5 bucks playing trying to do thinking that you're at the wrong distance to do Sub-Zero's polar bear 'animality.' I can only guess that these schoolyard rumors are what inpired MK3's animalities. Its worth noting that MK3 mostly sucks. The run button and dial-a-combo changed the game dramatically, and it just didn't resonate the way MKII did. MKII hit consoles in a fantastic manner, giving SNES and Genesis gamers all the moves and blood of the final aracde version, and no more quarters. There was a Game Boy version, but as you can see it was pretty dumb looking. I actually knew a loser who had this turd, and not only did it play terribly, have only a handful of characters, and look messy, but the fatalities were actually just random punches or kickes with no real gore or death. They cut out the entire game! MKII also hit the Saturn and while it was an arcade perfect port in the looks and sound department, the loading times were about as bad as any first generation CD-ROM game, and went double for selection Shang Tsung and doing any morphing. The SNES was the version of choice for many. Graphics and sound were just right, and the 6 button control standard avoided the pitfalls of getting all the moves right on the 3 button Genesis pad. Basically the game wasn't as good on Sega systems! Ha! MKII is now pretty widely available under the budget priced Midway Arcade Treasures Vol 2, and as a bonus unlockable for the newly released PS2/Xbox title Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, a game that itself bridges the gap between the first 2 games. As I mentioned before, MKII was an improvement over the original Mortal Kombat in just about every way. As time went on MK suffered some embarassments. MK4 wasn't really bad for its time, but like many early 3d games it hasn't aged well. Special Forces and the Sub-Zero solo game were about as horrifying as you could imagine, and really helped bury the franchise while Tekken, DOA, VF, and the new generation of 3D fighters were really taking off. Thankfully Midway didn't give up and came back strong with Deadly Alliance in 2002, and then MK Deception in 2004. Sure, the series had to let go of its arcade roots, but the complete overhaul to the game didn't go unappreciated by serious players because now they could go online. MKII was the best kind of fun: dumb fun. It didn't take a lot to master the controls, the moves were mostly easy to do, and your payoff for having quicker reflexes than your opponent was to shamefully turn them into a baby or offer them an autograph as they wobble about in a haze. It holds up well after a decade, and offered the kind of content that paved the way for some of the best and worst moments in gaming today. Now DANCE! DANCE, BARAKA, DANCE!!!!

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