Mortal Kombat 11 gameplay as seen by a 1990s arcade rat

Memories from a youth spent in arcades and the reveal of <em>Mortal Kombat 11</em>.

Read the whole story

 

[earlyberd]

I see that Aurich is a little put off by the realism with the gore, but honestly the MK series has been moving in this direction the whole time. Every new generation has tried to up the ante with the gore factor, as it's the act of being shocking and disgusting that made the series appealing in the first place.

There's no such thing as too much gore for longtime fans of the franchise. Mark my words, there will eventually be a VR Mortal Kombat where you get to watch fatalities in first person, dishing them out or receiving them. And the fans will eat. it. up.

 

[RickyP784]

I saw the headline on my phone and thought a re-mastered MK2 had been released.. Then, it registered it was an 11, not a Roman numeral and I thought, "Good God, I'm old..."
(fixed weird character error)

 

[Snarky Robot]

I see that Aurich is a little put off by the realism with the gore, but honestly the MK series has been moving in this direction the whole time. Every new generation has tried to up the ante with the gore factor, as it's the act of being shocking and disgusting that made the series appealing in the first place.

There's no such thing as too much gore for longtime fans of the franchise. Mark my words, there will eventually be a VR Mortal Kombat where you get to watch fatalities in first person, dishing them out or receiving them. And the fans will eat. it. up.

Honestly, I’m not even a fan of fighting games (mostly cause I suck at them), but that actually sounds like something fun you could do now. These are all pre-rendered sequences, so if you lose, it could just shift the camera to first person and you get to watch your beat-down from the POV of your character. VR would be fun, but there’s no reason to wait for that. I say do it now.

 

[Moonshinefe]

I was also a big MK / MK2 fan back in the day. I was also, I'm not sure I'd say "put off" by the gore when I saw the 11 preview, but pretty shocked at how realistic the gore has gotten. I can't say it'd be my cup of tea these days (I still game). But indeed, MK has always tried to push the limits of what's acceptable gore-wise in a video game. Sort of like DOOM.

 

[usamaahmad]

"The story is apparently convoluted and crazy"

So, it really is trying to hit the nostalgia in all the right places

But seriously it sounds like we had similar childhoods, except I played more console because the parents didn't love me hanging around the arcades.

I similarly came to ignore the stuff after 3, and now I'm curious about dipping my toes back in. The trailer certainly caught my eye. Still this is a game that I will need to wait for reviews on. I no longer have friends who can just come over to play, online play is a necessity and it would be really great if 5-6 people can be on at the same time and be watching and hear each other while two are playing. That would be an innovation that would be great, IMO. It would allow each of us now adults to come home from work and enjoy each other's company and do the typical "oooooohhhhh" and other noises as we see friends face off.

 

[Nacko]

For anyone wondering like I was what platforms this will be released for, the answer is all of them.

I'm kind of excited for this game now. I haven't played MK since the SNES.

 

[NaraVara]

I see that Aurich is a little put off by the realism with the gore, but honestly the MK series has been moving in this direction the whole time. Every new generation has tried to up the ante with the gore factor, as it's the act of being shocking and disgusting that made the series appealing in the first place.

There's no such thing as too much gore for longtime fans of the franchise. Mark my words, there will eventually be a VR Mortal Kombat where you get to watch fatalities in first person, dishing them out or receiving them. And the fans will eat. it. up.

Eh. Even as someone who isn't viscerally put off by the gore I feel like most of it was just pretty lazily executed. At least in MK X.

When you compare it to Injustice, where they couldn't be gory because of association with Warner Brothers, the "fatality" type cinematic attacks are all just way more creative, interesting to look at, and tied in to the character's personality and power set. The gore fixation in MK just gives them an option to do random gory stuff that's, frankly, kind of boring.


The real crime, though, is just how bad the animations are in Netherealms' games. Everyone punches like they're leaning over an obstacle. They kick by flailing their legs rather than moving their hips. It looks like they're trying to MoCap stiff people who have zero flexibility. Their movements don't even seem like those of moderately athletic people, let alone martial artists.

 

[DiavoJinx]

I saw the headline on my phone and thought a re-mastered MK2 had been released.. Then, it registered it was an 11, not a Roman numeral and I thought, "Good God, I'm old..."
(fixed weird character error)

I thought the same thing some time ago when "MK11" was trending on Twitter. You're not alone!

 

[Fatesrider]

I see that Aurich is a little put off by the realism with the gore, but honestly the MK series has been moving in this direction the whole time. Every new generation has tried to up the ante with the gore factor, as it's the act of being shocking and disgusting that made the series appealing in the first place.

There's no such thing as too much gore for longtime fans of the franchise. Mark my words, there will eventually be a VR Mortal Kombat where you get to watch fatalities in first person, dishing them out or receiving them. And the fans will eat. it. up.

Honestly, I’m not even a fan of fighting games (mostly cause I suck at them), but that actually sounds like something fun you could do now. These are all pre-rendered sequences, so if you lose, it could just shift the camera to first person and you get to watch your beat-down from the POV of your character. VR would be fun, but there’s no reason to wait for that. I say do it now.

Okay, but I will be laughing at the YouTube video of people playing these kinds of games in VR and being completely unaware that they're destined for viral video fame.

We all know that's going to happen.

 

[Rrr7]

I see that Aurich is a little put off by the realism with the gore, but honestly the MK series has been moving in this direction the whole time. Every new generation has tried to up the ante with the gore factor, as it's the act of being shocking and disgusting that made the series appealing in the first place.

There's no such thing as too much gore for longtime fans of the franchise. Mark my words, there will eventually be a VR Mortal Kombat where you get to watch fatalities in first person, dishing them out or receiving them. And the fans will eat. it. up.

The real crime, though, is just how bad the animations are in Netherealms' games. Everyone punches like they're leaning over an obstacle. They kick by flailing their legs rather than moving their hips. It looks like they're trying to MoCap stiff people who have zero flexibility. Their movements don't even seem like those of moderately athletic people, let alone martial artists.

They only did film actual actors in the original MK, and all the animated stuff that came afterwards (including this one) cannot hold a candle to it.

To think that it was made in 1992 and still way above something made a quarter century later is just crazy..

 

[SaaSaFRaaS]

It's ironic that we've gone from so much shouting and fist-pounding over silly, cartoonish violence to no one even batting an eyelid over near-photorealistic gore that would probably warrant an NC-17 rating if it were featured in a movie.

 

[PottedMeat]

the arcade i used to frequent almost always had a small crowd around mortal kombat when it first came out. usually there was one dude on one stick and on the other a line waiting to get their asses kicked (including me) for a quarter. it was fun to watch but sucked to lose so quick most of the time put me off fighting style games.

watching that gameplay reveal trailer, i guess they're running out of ideas of fatalities - 'let's pull the blood out of the guy, form spikes, impale him, then shove the last one by hand so that an eyeball pops out the back of the skull.

 

[Corporate_Goon]

I see that Aurich is a little put off by the realism with the gore, but honestly the MK series has been moving in this direction the whole time. Every new generation has tried to up the ante with the gore factor, as it's the act of being shocking and disgusting that made the series appealing in the first place.

There's no such thing as too much gore for longtime fans of the franchise. Mark my words, there will eventually be a VR Mortal Kombat where you get to watch fatalities in first person, dishing them out or receiving them. And the fans will eat. it. up.

The real crime, though, is just how bad the animations are in Netherealms' games. Everyone punches like they're leaning over an obstacle. They kick by flailing their legs rather than moving their hips. It looks like they're trying to MoCap stiff people who have zero flexibility. Their movements don't even seem like those of moderately athletic people, let alone martial artists.

They only did film actual actors in the original MK, and all the animated stuff that came afterwards (including this one) cannot hold a candle to it.

To think that it was made in 1992 and still way above something made a quarter century later is just crazy..

What are you talking about? MK 2 and MK 3 both used digitized actors, and both looked *much* better than MK1 thanks to the use of production-quality cameras instead of off-the-shelf Hi8 tape camcorders.

 

[Renzatic]

There was one thing that always made me curious. MK2. The Pit II. In the background, you see two guys facing off. There's a guy on the left, looking like he's getting pumped up, ready to fight. There's a guy on the right, engulfed in flames, and apparently not too bothered about it. They look like they're about to start swinging at any second, but they never do. Maybe they're talking smack to each other. Maybe they're having a casual pre-fight conversation. You don't know. All you know is that they never fight, and one guy's on fire.

I always wondered what the hell was going on back there.

 

[Aurich]

I saw the headline on my phone and thought a re-mastered MK2 had been released.. Then, it registered it was an 11, not a Roman numeral and I thought, "Good God, I'm old..."

MKII is to me the peak of the whole series, I wouldn't be mad at all to have some kind of remaster available.

I've played a handful of games of Mortal Kombat X, I've played a little Injustice 2, I'm not really a big fan of the way these NRS games feel. I doubt MK11 is for me. But at least for now I'm pretty excited to watch and see more, it's fun just to be on the sidelines.

 

[gaosuGonglu]

Gratuitous, photo-realisitc violence for some, FRIENDSHIP for others...

 

[RickyP784]

I saw the headline on my phone and thought a re-mastered MK2 had been released.. Then, it registered it was an 11, not a Roman numeral and I thought, "Good God, I'm old..."

MKII is to me the peak of the whole series, I wouldn't be mad at all to have some kind of remaster available.

I've played a handful of games of Mortal Kombat X, I've played a little Injustice 2, I'm not really a big fan of the way these NRS games feel. I doubt MK11 is for me. But at least for now I'm pretty excited to watch and see more, it's fun just to be on the sidelines.

I agree! I was always terrible at the fighter games, but I love watching people who know what they're doing play. In 1993, my dad worked at a bowling alley with an arcade section, and I would be glued to the MK2 cabinet memorizing character backstories and sample fight scenes hoping a wizard would come along and beat the tar out of the game. (To this day, I still have an original MK Game Boy cartridge with a GB Advance I've never beaten. I use it mostly to replay Super Mario Land 2 - Six Golden Coins and Warioland: Super Mario Land 3.)

I member the first and only time I saw a someone win...he even beat the secret level (Smoke) and knew the scene-specific fatalities! There was much euphoria that day!

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I see that Aurich is a little put off by the realism with the gore, but honestly the MK series has been moving in this direction the whole time. Every new generation has tried to up the ante with the gore factor, as it's the act of being shocking and disgusting that made the series appealing in the first place.

There's no such thing as too much gore for longtime fans of the franchise. Mark my words, there will eventually be a VR Mortal Kombat where you get to watch fatalities in first person, dishing them out or receiving them. And the fans will eat. it. up.

The VR application I'd like to see would be second person view.

In a 1 v. 1 scenario the choice of which second person perspective to use isn't such an issue(unlike, say, a second person shooter; which would probably involve a sickening amount of rapid perspective switching); and it would be interesting to see how quickly people could overcome the procioceptive cues provided by VR to identify with the perspective one inhabits and successfully direct the 'other' character to beat down 'their' character and win the game according to its rules.

You would have to strictly limit how many Fight Club references a player is allowed. "I want you, um, me to hit me, er, you, me? as hard as you, I? can." would be way less amusing the second time and beyond.

 

[Aurich]

I agree! I was always terrible at the fighter games, but I love watching people who know what they're doing play.

I'm a decent Street Fighter player. I play SFV and Third Strike regularly, I can hold my own. But NRS games are just an entirely different feel, I find them very hard to adjust to. They don't have proximity guard, and for a Street Fighter player that's pretty alien.

 

[usamaahmad]

I see that Aurich is a little put off by the realism with the gore, but honestly the MK series has been moving in this direction the whole time. Every new generation has tried to up the ante with the gore factor, as it's the act of being shocking and disgusting that made the series appealing in the first place.

There's no such thing as too much gore for longtime fans of the franchise. Mark my words, there will eventually be a VR Mortal Kombat where you get to watch fatalities in first person, dishing them out or receiving them. And the fans will eat. it. up.

The real crime, though, is just how bad the animations are in Netherealms' games. Everyone punches like they're leaning over an obstacle. They kick by flailing their legs rather than moving their hips. It looks like they're trying to MoCap stiff people who have zero flexibility. Their movements don't even seem like those of moderately athletic people, let alone martial artists.

They only did film actual actors in the original MK, and all the animated stuff that came afterwards (including this one) cannot hold a candle to it.

To think that it was made in 1992 and still way above something made a quarter century later is just crazy..

I was sure they did real actors for MK3 as well? (At least), I have seen footage of the actors playing characters that debuted in 3, "filming" scenes

 

[freaq]

I saw the headline on my phone and thought a re-mastered MK2 had been released.. Then, it registered it was an 11, not a Roman numeral and I thought, "Good God, I'm old..."
(fixed weird character error)

exact same thing happened to me xD

 

[the1zig]

I saw the headline on my phone and thought a re-mastered MK2 had been released.. Then, it registered it was an 11, not a Roman numeral and I thought, "Good God, I'm old..."
(fixed weird character error)

I've literally just tweeted a similar thing before I opened the article followed by this comment.

 

[sigma8]

I played a lot of SNES MK and MK2, and almost as much arcade MK3, and it was fun at the time. If I remember right, I even bought the Gamecube and PS3 installments of MK. They were ok.

As far as I'm concerned, Soul Calibur has seized the lead in that format of fighting game (3D fighter). The other formats are 2D (which probably goes to "something vs Capcom") and the Smash Bros style, which is a category primarily occupied and dominated by Smash Bros.

I'd give honorable mentions to the Dead or Alive games and maybe Tekken. However, the last two MK games, apart from offering up a small number of neat little things, sparked no joy for me.

 

[Hydrogen]

Oh boy, I hope they bring back tag mode. Loved to play it with my friends in 9.

 

[raxadian]

I have played the games after Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and... I don't find them worth it.

Mortal Kombat II was the best of the series and that's true even to this day.

 

[Vactus]

I'd kill for MK 1, 2, and MK 3 Ultimate Edition on my PS4. I was 10 when MK 1 came out in arcade. I remember seeing the Blood Code used for the first time during 6th grade at a friend's place. I've played the series off and on since 3, but nothing like when I used too. When I saw the announcement for 11 at the game awards last month I got that hype train nostalgia feel.

 

[raxadian]

I'd kill for MK 1, 2, and MK 3 Ultimate Edition on my PS4. I was 10 when MK 1 came out in arcade. I remember seeing the Blood Code used for the first time during 6th grade at a friend's place. I've played the series off and on since 3, but nothing like when I used too. When I saw the announcement for 11 at the game awards last month I got that hype train nostalgia feel.

That was for PS3 as Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection.

 

[Vactus]

I'd kill for MK 1, 2, and MK 3 Ultimate Edition on my PS4. I was 10 when MK 1 came out in arcade. I remember seeing the Blood Code used for the first time during 6th grade at a friend's place. I've played the series off and on since 3, but nothing like when I used too. When I saw the announcement for 11 at the game awards last month I got that hype train nostalgia feel.

That was for PS3 as Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection.

Ugh, wish I still had my PS3... I didn't know they had released that collection. Thanks for the info

 

[Aurich]

NetherRealm put up a nice 10 minute clip from their talk showing off the game and its systems, if you're curious to see more about the game this is worth a quick watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPBHbj317ro

 

[Eric Qel-Droma]

I see that Aurich is a little put off by the realism with the gore, but honestly the MK series has been moving in this direction the whole time. Every new generation has tried to up the ante with the gore factor, as it's the act of being shocking and disgusting that made the series appealing in the first place.

There's no such thing as too much gore for longtime fans of the franchise. Mark my words, there will eventually be a VR Mortal Kombat where you get to watch fatalities in first person, dishing them out or receiving them. And the fans will eat. it. up.

I'm a longtime fan of the franchise, and the realistic gore of the last couple of games really turns me off. As someone else above noted, the gore of the fatalities is too often too generic, so not only is it not appealing to some of us, it's boring as well.

I remember being thrilled by Sub-Zero's spine-rip back in the day, but I wish there were an option to turn the gorier parts of these new games off (the way you could sometimes change the blood color or turn the blood off in the old games). I have no problem with some people enjoying the games as they are, but this longtime fan would like for the games to be a little less photorealistic in some respects.

 

[Eric Qel-Droma]

I agree! I was always terrible at the fighter games, but I love watching people who know what they're doing play.

I'm a decent Street Fighter player. I play SFV and Third Strike regularly, I can hold my own. But NRS games are just an entirely different feel, I find them very hard to adjust to. They don't have proximity guard, and for a Street Fighter player that's pretty alien.

As someone who cut his fighting-game teeth on MK games, I feel the same way but reversed about Capcom's fighters. I don't get the rhythm of Marvel vs. Capcom at all, although I've enjoyed playing against the CPU on easy for years just to have Juggernaut crush people.

 

[tdlf]

There was one thing that always made me curious. MK2. The Pit II. In the background, you see two guys facing off. There's a guy on the left, looking like he's getting pumped up, ready to fight. There's a guy on the right, engulfed in flames, and apparently not too bothered about it. They look like they're about to start swinging at any second, but they never do. Maybe they're talking smack to each other. Maybe they're having a casual pre-fight conversation. You don't know. All you know is that they never fight, and one guy's on fire.

I always wondered what the hell was going on back there.

That guy on fire ended up being the big bad guy many games later. There’s a great video series on YT about the history of MK that covers it.

 

[guifa]

Honestly I've missed a lot of the more recent Mortal Kombats because of they weren't on systems I had. This is coming out on the Switch, though, so I'll probably check it out to get caught up on the series.

The customization for characters is something I'm going to be really interested in. I highly doubt it'll get quite as crazy as in Smash Bros Ultimate, but if the modifications have an actual noticeable effect on the gameplay, it could let the game stay fresh a bit longer even in single player as you figure out what things work better on opponents with certain attributes. But I haven't seen any great detail on that system yet so maybe it won't be too much beyond the cosmetic

 

[graylshaped]

All my arcade quarters went to Defender, and my fighting game love went to Soulcaliber, because I had a Genesis Dreamcast.

I may or may not have made poor choices, but I can live with it.

 

[Hidyman1]

I'd kill for MK 1, 2, and MK 3 Ultimate Edition on my PS4. I was 10 when MK 1 came out in arcade. I remember seeing the Blood Code used for the first time during 6th grade at a friend's place. I've played the series off and on since 3, but nothing like when I used too. When I saw the announcement for 11 at the game awards last month I got that hype train nostalgia feel.

That was for PS3 as Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection.

Ugh, wish I still had my PS3... I didn't know they had released that collection. Thanks for the info

Here is a link to the PC version https://www.gamersgate.com/DD-MKAK-STEA ... -kolection

 

[DRP]

I'd kill for MK 1, 2, and MK 3 Ultimate Edition on my PS4. I was 10 when MK 1 came out in arcade. I remember seeing the Blood Code used for the first time during 6th grade at a friend's place. I've played the series off and on since 3, but nothing like when I used too. When I saw the announcement for 11 at the game awards last month I got that hype train nostalgia feel.

That was for PS3 as Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection.

Ugh, wish I still had my PS3... I didn't know they had released that collection. Thanks for the info

Here is a link to the PC version https://www.gamersgate.com/DD-MKAK-STEA ... -kolection

Be forewarned, it’s terrible. It’s not actually the real first three games, but a really crappy approximation of them made in the Unreal engine.

 

[richten]

The animation seems as robotic as ever and the interruptions in the middle of the fight to show some bloody animation sequences look very distracting and annoying. Honestly behind the nostalgia and the gore there doesn't seem to be a good fighting game, which I guess is par for the course for Mortal Kombat.

 

[usamaahmad]

I'd kill for MK 1, 2, and MK 3 Ultimate Edition on my PS4. I was 10 when MK 1 came out in arcade. I remember seeing the Blood Code used for the first time during 6th grade at a friend's place. I've played the series off and on since 3, but nothing like when I used too. When I saw the announcement for 11 at the game awards last month I got that hype train nostalgia feel.

That was for PS3 as Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection.

Ugh, wish I still had my PS3... I didn't know they had released that collection. Thanks for the info

Here is a link to the PC version https://www.gamersgate.com/DD-MKAK-STEA ... -kolection

Be forewarned, it’s terrible. It’s not actually the real first three games, but a really crappy approximation of them made in the Unreal engine.

Woah thanks for the warning. I assume the PS3 version was also the same? An approximation that didn't come close? I ask because I can get a PS3 and if that was legit I would definitely snag the game.

As for now I've been getting by with Raspberry Pi running ROMs in emulators.

 

[Renzatic]

That guy on fire ended up being the big bad guy many games later. There’s a great video series on YT about the history of MK that covers it.

I just now looked it up.

That is awesome!