Until the advent of the 32-bit era, which heralded the switch from 2D sprites to 3D polygonal graphics, 2D fighting games were the kings of their genre. 2D fighting series like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat dominated arcades and home consoles alike, but then the hardware became more powerful and allowed for a new class of fighter. 2D fighters began to lose fans to series such as Tekken, Virtua Fighter, and Soulcalibur at an alarming rate. While the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat series both tried to make the transition into becoming polygonal fighters to keep up with the times, neither series enjoyed the same kind of success they had in the 2D days.

The last decade or so have been a pretty challenging time for fans of the 2D fighter. Sure, there have still been a few here and there that have helped to satiate the desires of 2D brawlers, but until recently, the big guns from the nineties were still absent. Street Fighter IV’s incredible mixture of 3D characters and 2D fighting, as well as its massive success, have seemingly signaled that it is once again time for classic 2D fighting games to reassert themselves in the genre. While Street Fighter is a great series, I’ve always been more of a Mortal Kombat kind of guy. This is part of the reason why I was so excited to see the series making a return after changing hands from Midway to Warner Bros. Interactive. The other reason is that the game looks exactly like the type of Mortal Kombat game most fans have been waiting to see for over a decade.

Upon seeing a demo of Mortal Kombat at E3, it is immediately apparent that this new title is focusing heavily on the first three entries in the series. Everything from the characters to the backgrounds that were shown was taken directly from these earlier Mortal Kombats. We were shown fights taking place at the Pit II, Dead Pool, and the Living Forest, to name a few stages. However, these stages weren’t simply cut and paste jobs, but instead have been reimagined and visually improved. For instance, when playing on the Dead Pool stage, there will be a few people hanging from hooks in the background that were lowered into and then raised from the acid pool during fights. While this was a pretty nasty sight, it fits the game well and was a nice touch.

The same goes for the various characters in the game. While these are still characters from the first three MK games, they appear huge on the screen, are more detailed than they’ve ever been in the past, and are now modeled completely in 3D polygons. The added level of detail allows for several nice touches that add authenticity to fights. As an example, characters will now take visible damage throughout the course of their fights. If you take a spear to the chest from Scorpion, you’ll have a bleeding hole in your chest from that point forward. Outfits will tear, wounds will linger, and the blood will continue to flow.

Even the characters’ innards have been fully modeled, which probably shouldn’t surprise any longtime fans of the series. This was shown off when the staff demoed one of Mortal Kombat’s completely new additions, the X-ray attacks. These are a host of character specific attacks that, when pulled off, result in an brutal assault that shows your foe’s insides being obliterated. I was able to witness one where a punch caused ribs to shatter and another that appeared to break a character’s jaw and send several teeth flying. While entertaining to watch and devastating to your opponent, these moves can’t be used all the time, keeping the game from feeling unbalanced.

To keep these over-the-top moves in check, Mortal Kombat will be making use of a multilevel power meter. This meter’s bars will charge depending on what moves you’re performing and how much damage you’re taking, filling up to three bars total. Players will only need to trade one bar of this meter to enhance a special attack, such as enlarging Sub-Zero’s ground freeze maneuver or having Reptile spew a greater amount of acid. Two bars can be exchanged for a breaker move, which will allow you to interrupt and get out of any of your opponent’s combos. However, if you want to perform one of the devastating X-ray attacks, you’ll have to earn and cash in all three bars of this meter.

Another interesting new addition to the game, two vs. two tag matches, will also be making use of the game’s new power meter. While players can swap between their two chosen characters freely at no cost, they can also choose to spend one bar to have their secondary character perform a surprise attack on their enemy. This can both provide a good way to blindside an enemy as well as perhaps to extend a combo. The tag match I was able to see looked fast-paced and hectic while also showing the variety and strategy that having an extra swappable character can provide.

As with every MK game that has come before it, fatalities will play a large role in the new Mortal Kombat title. I was able to view a few different ones during my E3 demo, and they were easily some of the most gruesome in the series, thanks to the more realistic graphics. One of my favorites was Sektor’s, which involved blasting his foe with a rocket, thereby breaking him into pieces, and then launching several more rockets that took care of the remaining pieces. Another was Kung Lao’s, which cut his enemy in half with his hat, letting their innards spill onto the ground. Of course, there were also classic stage fatalities such as the Pit fatality shown, which left Johnny Cage impaled on spikes with some of his organs remaining on their tops, like a star on a gory Christmas tree.

This new Mortal Kombat definitely seems to be going in the right direction, trying to progress the series while also staying true to what made the games so popular in the first place. Its mix of fast (claimed to be running at 60 fps) and varied combat with copious amounts of blood and gore certainly looked fun. I, for one, can’t wait to get my hands on a playable build of this game, although it isn’t slated for release until 2011. Here’s hoping the next Mortal Monday will come around much sooner than expected.

By Adam Brown
CCC News Director