You know, I swear some games use subliminal advertising or something. At first I was completely underwhelmed by Mortal Kombat 2011. Even after watching a few trailers I thought the fighting looked stiff and unnatural. But now, after visiting some MK sites and playing the demo I have caved and even accepted the absurd $69.99 price tag. I preordered this very day from BestBuy.
One thing that is still eating away at me, though, is the way Amazon.ca is handling the preorders. While Bestbuy is offering the Sub Zero Klassic skin and fatality, Amazon.ca has claimed that the preorder bonus available through Amazon.com is exclusive to them, and Amazon.ca can't offer it. Not only that, but despite the Canadian dollar currently being higher than the American, we still get to pay $10 more than the Yanks and we also miss out on the $10 off your next game purchase bonus. Thing is, I don't even want the Sub Zero Klassic skin, since his updated one is much better. Reptile, on the other hand, looks like shit in his updated skin and his Klassic skin is only available through Amazon.com. See the issue? Also, Amazon.com will not ship the game to me since I live in Canada. I'm not sure if this goes for all games, or just Mortal Kombat due to the controversy revolving around its copious use of violence, but it's still a pain in the ass.
Well, maybe I should say a little something about the game instead of the annoying process of trying to preorder and not get ripped off.
This is the 9th Mortal Kombat game, and unlike the last 3 has done away with the 3D fighting and side stepping combat. The game now controls solely on a 2D plane, the same as the first 3 games. The game is rendered in 3D and uses the Unreal 3 engine. The most notable addition to the combat would be the X-ray moves. These brutal finishers are a type of super move that can only be preformed when your special gauge is full, and involve the character preforming a combination of hits that rupture organs and shatter bones. As the name suggests, you can see the damage happening inside with a X-ray like view. There are three section of the special bar. When the first bar is filled (and with every subsequent bar), you can preform an EX variation of one of your special moves. These usually make the move cause more damage, or add follow up hits. And while the X-rays are incredibly brutal and fun to watch, seeing Sub Zero's move makes me skeptical about the research put into the accuracy of the X-rays by the Devs. When Sub Zero starts his move, the first thing he does is reach inside you, grab an organ, freeze it, then crush it. Some have called it "The Liver Crush", but that's not the liver. It's in the center and not on the right. The spleen is on the left, so that really only leaves the possibility of the bladder, or on the female characters, maybe the womb. One might argue that it could be the Dantian, the "center" in yoga and martial arts, but the Dantian isn't an actual physical organ, so I'm just gonna go ahead and say Nether Realms Studios knows sweet fuck all about anatomy.
With an April 19th release date for North America, this is shaping up to be one brutal game. Replay value seems to be through the roof, with the return of the Krypt, a 300 mission challenge tower, and a robust story mode that seems to cover the events of the first three games, along with some twists as this is one of those convoluted "Travel back in time to change history" kind of plots. There is also a fatality training mode for those that can't pull them off consistently. Oh, and there is also tag combat now.
Things are looking up for the Mortal Kombat franchise, and after the pile of steaming excrement that was Mortal Kombat V.S DC Universe, it surely needs it.
