Mortal Kombat 11 review: Great gameplay, excessively packaged
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I would of never guessed this is running on ue3, even in mkx ue3 looked very dated.
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So the stunning graphics and surprisingly decent story are weighed down by the violence that strikes me as the action in the movie Bad Boys 2, where you quickly find yourself sitting there thinking "Enough already!", the "Fatal blows" need to have their time divided by at least 4, if not 6, and interminable grinding.
The "ephemeral change" choice also strikes me as odd. Just issue a patch that can be applied one time and be done with it, or at least offer that option once changes are in the equation.
The "ephemeral change" choice also strikes me as odd. Just issue a patch that can be applied one time and be done with it, or at least offer that option once changes are in the equation.
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Does information like that usually end up in stories headlined "Mortal Kombat 11 review"?
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Thanks for the review, I appreciate it that Ars got someone who knows fighting games to review this.
I enjoyed the game a lot overall
I enjoyed the game a lot overall
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With as many quarters and hours I’d spent on MK II, perhaps they should offer this title to me for free?
I’ve spent very little time on any fighting game over the years. Perhaps this will bring be back (hearing “Get over here!” over and over.)
I’ve spent very little time on any fighting game over the years. Perhaps this will bring be back (hearing “Get over here!” over and over.)
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Not on the updates. While they did give people a lot of initial in-game cash / souls / hearts, they also ramped up the amount you get. You now get three hearts for a fatality, five hearts for a brutality, and three for a mercy. So you can now get eight hearts per match. Once you learn to consistently pull off a brutality, you can get those quite easily. That unlocks heart chests after about 30 fights or so, which feels a lot less grindy. Most of the soul chests are now 100, and you get 10 souls for winning a match,.
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BloodyCactus
Ars Praefectus
i get a hdr blowout vibe from a lot of the screens.
I think its 'too dialed up' for my liking.
I think its 'too dialed up' for my liking.
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I watched a video of all of the fatalities (okay, I skipped ahead when the gore just became kind of tedious) and man, if the folks who tried to ban these games Way Back When were subjected to this, I think their eyes might actually have caught fire. It's like someone perfected the technology to capture the inner working's of a thirteen year old's brain.
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No good, bad, and ugly? Ars seal of approval? Ah well.
I agree that, when it came to fatalities and fatal blows NRS was trying to hard to be... Shocking I guess? More over the top? I don't know, but I found it more distracting than anything. Fatal Blows in particular really broke up the rhythm of the fight for me as well. Also, I got to say I'm not a big fan of the monetization. While I liked the Krypt and Tower to unlock things in 9, the trickle of gems/souls/keys/whatever is super annoying as I get OCD about unlocks. I'm not going to reward NRS with buying in-game credits to help unlock it.
I agree that, when it came to fatalities and fatal blows NRS was trying to hard to be... Shocking I guess? More over the top? I don't know, but I found it more distracting than anything. Fatal Blows in particular really broke up the rhythm of the fight for me as well. Also, I got to say I'm not a big fan of the monetization. While I liked the Krypt and Tower to unlock things in 9, the trickle of gems/souls/keys/whatever is super annoying as I get OCD about unlocks. I'm not going to reward NRS with buying in-game credits to help unlock it.
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I was kind of put off MK11 from a lot of the grind talk that's been going on. I know that it's been adjusted, but instead of getting the new game, I reinstalled MK9 and played some of that. The gameplay holds up well. MKXL can be had for a song on Steam as well, so I started playing that for the first time.
The thing about Mortal Kombat is that the new characters they've added over time are either incredibly boring or trying way too hard. Pretty much anyone introduced post-MK3 (and even that is pushing it) just doesn't land for me.
The thing about Mortal Kombat is that the new characters they've added over time are either incredibly boring or trying way too hard. Pretty much anyone introduced post-MK3 (and even that is pushing it) just doesn't land for me.
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I like the gameplay in the MK games, but the violence is a bit too much for me. Everything seems so sadistic.
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The purchasing actually doesn't get you very far at all, so you can't just dump in $1000 and buy everything. You're limited to the 5 or so things on offer each day (because you can only buy time crystals, not money, souls, or hearts), so it would take you a year+ to unlock everything that way. The annoying thing for me is I'm not able to unlock stuff for the characters I want, as the rewards are random, but doing the character towers can tend to net you more rewards specific to the character.
In any case, from what I've read, the using time crystals to buy stuff was basically a token implementation to appease the publisher who wanted the monetization stuff, but is actually fairly pointless by design to discourage the purchasing and encourage actually playing to unlock stuff which is pretty much the opposite of how most games do it.
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At first, my reaction to this was "dude, that's Mortal Kombat". But it definitely has gone from a campy send-up of martial arts movies to reveling in gore. There was a sense of humor to the original games, especially with the Friendship finishing moves. Even the gory-for-the-time fatalities their severed tongues in their ripped-out cheeks.
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You start to see it in the Krypt. There is a lot of texture pop in (a common UE3 issue) and I’ve seen some weird graphical glitches here and there in the game. They may be straining their custom UE3 to its limits. It also makes porting more difficult. UE4 is a bit more scalable in that regard.
Either way the game looks gorgeous when you are actually fighting. On the PC it’s crisp and fluid, the biggest issue I’ve seen is a bit of slow down in menus, which has been an issue with NRS games since Injustice 2 at least.
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Aurich Lawson":q1l4basc said:
Could you elaborate on this?
As for the story-game disconnect, I recommend watching Yatzhee's take on that in his review of Mortal Kombat (2011), if you haven't already.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... tal-Kombat
(edit: He's also reviewed 10 and 11.)
I notice you said it's "less grindy," not "no longer grindy." Whee. As the author pointed out, the #1 premium currency in the game of life is time.
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This will be a one year later purchase for me. I do wish they wouldn't make things such a grind though in the Krypt. I liked in MK X where I would just pay 20 bucks and unlock everything in the Krypt. As far as the violence, doesn't bother me one bit. Makes me wonder what they left on the cutting room floor as far as fatalities.
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Mortal Kombat for Genesis did that decades ago. But you didn't have to pay for it.
I guess the game companies have successfully programmed this generation of gamers to expect to pay extra for a complete game.
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In the marketing videos, every time they've shown off a Fatal Blow I thought "damn, that was a pretty brutal fatality.. wait, why are they getting back up?"
I'm w/ Aurich in the most disturbing parts of this game not being the violence and gore, but the parts where kids do fatalities on their parents (or vice versa). That bothered me about MKX as well, and it seems even weirder here.
I'm w/ Aurich in the most disturbing parts of this game not being the violence and gore, but the parts where kids do fatalities on their parents (or vice versa). That bothered me about MKX as well, and it seems even weirder here.
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I agree. I loved MK 1-2, it was all great fun while the gore was just a bunch of red pixels. Nobody ever thought of taking it seriously. With this level of realism though (meaning the... organic details, not the feasibility of the moves) I find MK's violence genuinely disturbing as an adult and I worry it may desensitize kids. Yeah, I'm definitely getting old.
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I hated on MK ever since they went 3D with MK4 back in 1997. I still played and bought some of the games. I always felt the makers then Midway now NeitherRealms were out of their league when it came to developing good 3D fighters in a genre they once dominated, but were surpassed by innovators and successors, i.e. SEGA's Virtua Fighter and NAMCO's Tekken. Even Capcom's Street Fighter found it's way back into the mainstay fray of fighters choice ever since they upgraded their game style with SFIV. But MK was still lacking, polishing looks that made it a stand out among other fighters.
The change in MK11 are so great. The graphics here for first time since the digitized fighters of the old games finally have that photo realistic look again which is what I felt had been missing from the previous MKs. The Story Mode is also well done in this game, it bar far is the best in-game story I watched/interacted with for a fighting game. The fights are intermixed well into the story, the fatal blows in this game are a nice improvement from the X-ray attacks they been around since MK9. The high detailed CG attacks show off well.
I play this game on PC-Steam, where I got to use the SEGA Genesis 6-button arcade pad inspired controller from Retro-Bit, it's an 8-button variant. That works well under the Generic GamePad Configuration once you hold down the Start button to switch the D-Pad to Analog in Windows.
If you been on the fence about MK ever since they went 3D. MK11 is the redeemer, the violence and gore and realistic style game play is back, better than ever, you should pick this game up.
The change in MK11 are so great. The graphics here for first time since the digitized fighters of the old games finally have that photo realistic look again which is what I felt had been missing from the previous MKs. The Story Mode is also well done in this game, it bar far is the best in-game story I watched/interacted with for a fighting game. The fights are intermixed well into the story, the fatal blows in this game are a nice improvement from the X-ray attacks they been around since MK9. The high detailed CG attacks show off well.
I play this game on PC-Steam, where I got to use the SEGA Genesis 6-button arcade pad inspired controller from Retro-Bit, it's an 8-button variant. That works well under the Generic GamePad Configuration once you hold down the Start button to switch the D-Pad to Analog in Windows.
If you been on the fence about MK ever since they went 3D. MK11 is the redeemer, the violence and gore and realistic style game play is back, better than ever, you should pick this game up.
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I was watching the summit qualifiers yesterday and while the fatal blows are annoyingly long, tournament players are using the mechanic. The game in general seems less "fast" or as combo heavy as MKX but these are early days. I saw some pretty cool things from Dragon using Cetrion. Some really cool Scorpion stuff from Kombat. For me fighting games are about the mechanics the rest is fluff. I at least applaud NRS for putting out complete (Komplete?) games on day 1 as opposed to half-baked "we'll add most of the game though DLC later" games like SFV or MvC:I.
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Yeah anything after UMK3 and before MK9 imo was not very good. A lot of that had to do with the transition from arcade revenue to consoles. Midway was not doing very well in the transition and their only game was MK. So they decided they needed an MK game a year release schedule and that really brought the quality of the games down imo.
I remember my nephew dropped by with MK Armageddon I think, and I flat out told him "This isn't Mortal Kombat. I don't know what this is". Luckily NRS got bought by WBGames and made MK9, which sold well and was well received in the FGC. That game was ...weird, but they established their new game engine, their new fight mechanics and brought the playing field back to the 2D plane. Once they worked on Injustice they took everything they learned, all the tools they developed and the team they put together made MKX which imo was at least "classier" in presentation than MK9. They did the same here in MK11 with all the stuff they learned in Injustice 2 (including some negative things like loot and gear).
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Few things. First, having a block button is a lot easier to deal with using a shoulder button a pad, kinda always easily in reach compared to a stick. I find the directional inputs easier with a d-pad than a stick too, it's not like Street Fighter where you go down, down-forward, forward in a quarter circle. It's down, then forward. Also the way you meter burn to amplify a move a little easier with a shoulder button too.
Definitely playable on a stick, but it was really designed with a pad in mind, and I know a lot of stick players who've felt the same and are picking up pad for it.
Personal preference of course.
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I don't think the sales or the Metacritic score are particularly germane to this review, which is about the reviewer's opinions, not what everyone else thinks.
I am curious about the ending, though. I haven't heard much about it. What's racist about it?
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I tried to write this review for 'everyone', not just serious fighting game players, but as I note at the end, if you're a more serious player you should probably pick this up. It's not perfect, but for those who appreciate the nuances of fighting game play I think NRS has something. The mechanics are good.
The NLBC matches were clearly week one, but I already found them much more interesting to watch than Injustice 2 or MKX. There are still combos and rushdown still, but spacing and solid play are going to really matter I think. I'm curious to see how perfect blocking integrates when people get better at it.
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adrianovaroli
Ars Tribunus Militum
You really think the sales number should be discussed in a review of a product. You really think Jax's ending is "racist". You assume that the people score-bombing metacritic should be listened to.danann":ewmrtaj7 said:
You make it very easy, you know.
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I have no idea what you're talking about with the "blatantly racist ending". Can you elaborate?
I don't care about Metacritic scores. I have no idea what the sales are, I don't care, I wasn't reviewing the sales, or what other people thought. Nor am I a "professional" reviewer, you might note that I laid out my credentials at the start, and it was about being a fighting game player. I gave my honest opinions about the good and the bad.
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It isn't.
Jax goes back and time and stops the Atlantic slave trade, thus preventing slavery from ever being a thing in America.
Apparently a number of shitheels on the Internet believe this equates to "white genocide" and other white supremacist dogwhistles. And the comment/review bombing has already started.
ETA: more info here https://www.pcgamer.com/jaxs-mortal-kom ... al-at-all/
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I always thought that Mortal Kombat was more akin to Evil Dead where there's gore, but it has enough of a cheese factor to it that you don't take it too seriously. The newer games are more focused on close-ups and skeleton cams that it's more like Saw or Hostel (the "torture porn" sub-genre).
It might just be me, but I never thought of Fatalities as being much more than a method of rubbing salt in the wound. You beat your buddy in a match, and to really put that metaphorical cherry on top, you burn him to a crisp... or turn him into a baby ("Babality!").
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I know I'm in the minority, but since they issued the patch I'm a fan of the grind.
I'm not big on playing online with strangers, so I have a small group of friends that meet weekly to play online. Getting rare skins and the like to show off gives us a reason to keep playing and talking about the game. I find it a lot of fun. We still play Injustice 2 and have since launch because of all the stuff you can get by doing the multiverse events.
Overall this is one of my favorite games of the year so far.
I'm not big on playing online with strangers, so I have a small group of friends that meet weekly to play online. Getting rare skins and the like to show off gives us a reason to keep playing and talking about the game. I find it a lot of fun. We still play Injustice 2 and have since launch because of all the stuff you can get by doing the multiverse events.
Overall this is one of my favorite games of the year so far.
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If you're turned off by the over the top violence you should give Injustice 2 a try, its gameplay and presentation are similar but not the same. It's a fun game too.
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