• Review: Mortal Kombat X


    Single Issue XVII (Written by Meelis13)


    Mortal Kombat X

    Hello people, i hope you enjoy reading this review about one of bloodiest if not the bloodiest fighting game, Mortal Kombat X. Before you read on- this review can contain gory images. Played it on my PC.


    Basic introduction



    Mortal Kombat X is 10th main installation of Mortal Kombat franchise. As said previously, it is fighting game. It was developed by Netherrealm studios and High Voltage software (PC, xbox 360 and ps3) and published by Warner Bros. interactive. It was released on 7th april 2015 for iOS, 14th april for PC, playstation 4 and Xbox one, with xbox 360 and ps3 releases coming some time in Q2/Q3.

    System requirements (from Steam page):

    • Minimum:
      • OS: 64-bit: Vista, Win 7, Win 8, Win 10
      • Processor: Intel Core i5-750, 2.67 GHz | AMD Phenom II X4 965, 3.4 GHz
      • Memory: 3 GB RAM
      • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 | AMD Radeon HD 5850
      • DirectX: Version 11
      • Network: Broadband Internet connection
      • Hard Drive: 36 GB available space




    • Recommended:
      • OS: 64-bit: Win 7, Win 8, Win 10
      • Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz | AMD FX-8350, 4.0 GHz
      • Memory: 8 GB RAM
      • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 | AMD Radeon HD 7950
      • DirectX: Version 11
      • Network: Broadband Internet connection
      • Hard Drive: 40 GB available space





    Story


    Outworlders before civil war (from left)- Kotal Kahn, Ermac, Mileena (queen at the time), Reptile

    Warning- contains spoilers about first 10 minutes of story.
    Story starts 2 years after defeat of Shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat 9 (if it comes to you as spoiler, im sorry, but it is 4 years old game by now) with Shinnok, fallen elder god invading earthrealm with Netherrealm forces. That includes several earthrealm warriors who died during Shao Kahns invasion (known as revenants). Strike force manages to get into sky temple where Shinnok appetempts to steal Jinsei, earthrealm's lifeforce. After distraction, Raiden manages to get hands on Shinnoks amulet and imprison him while Quan Chi escapes.
    Twenty years later, civil war in Outworld is investigated by earthrealmers and they find out that Shinnok may not be as out as they tought...

    Anyways, story is quite decent enough- with exception of ending that you can see it basically from start, it has some twists in tale, though also bit cliche moments. You also find out more about civil war, about what happened during Shinnok's invasion, about fate of revenants and lot more. It is certainly worth playing trough, especially if you are familar with MK lore (or even when you started playing with MK9 or newcomer).

    On top of that, there are secondary storylines in traditional towers (havent gotten around playing other towers yet). In case you have played earlier mortal kombat games, its very similar concept to that- you fight 10 enemies with final 2 being always same and you get story ending after defeating final boss. Some are linked, some are not, but each one is interesting and unique.


    Gameplay

    D'vorah peforming her X-ray on Tanya


    As stated previously, Mortal Kombat X is fighting game. Concept is simply 2 fighters going against eachother with all they got, doing combos and special moves. Not much to mention about that other than special moves are even better to pull off and combine than in MK9, which was best to date in that respect. That in turn allows you to rack up nice combos with less button mashing. Its rather safe to say that if you know one special move in one character, you can pull special moves on most characters- very positive aspect in my opinion. Every character also has 3 unique fighting styles, which gives you 3 times more options than there are characters- quite literally. There are also several characters who are DLC characters, such as Goro or Tanya. You can still test them out in living towers apparently before you get dlc, so that definetly helps to avoid buying characters you never use.
    First- fatalities. Mortal Kombat has always been known for its gory fatalities that even helped creating ERSP rating (infamous sub-zero head rip with spine back in Mortal Kombat 1) and Mortal Kombat X... it takes it to new level. If you remember Mortal Kombat 9, it was rather gory, but you didnt see lot of inside aftermath of fatality, but Mortal Kombat X shows you brains falling out, head inside stomach, chewed out face, in other words every bit of fatality aftermath and you have to stare at it about as long as it gives you option to skip viewing your stats. Every characters fatalities are well tought out, including personal touches, such as Cassie Cage's fatality-selfie. Whats bit bad, however, is that you cant peform stage fatalities or babalities anymore- it was always fun to see what one or other baby character would've done.
    What developers did give us to remedy that are brutalities which are less gory than fatalities, but not less deadly. You have to pull them off in last hit, with conditions of brutality being met, which makes it bit harder, as some demand player being below certain health peforming certain combo and finishing with given move. It can be harder, if you try specifically pull them off, but you can easily do them accidentally.
    And last but not least on deadly department, we have faction kill, which is specific to faction you are in and what rank you are. They are easiest to peform and also least gory.
    As i already mentioned, this game introduces faction system, which is that you pick faction (White Lotus, Black Dragon, Special Forces, Lin Kuei or The brotherhood of the shadow) and after that each match you play is for your faction. You dont have to use say, White lotus fighters if you have selected it, but just each game you play counts towards that faction. Each week one of factions is invaded by Netherrealm. Also each week, combined points of players in factions are summed up and winner of faction war gets reward (i think its crypt koins, havent won yet as i play in special forces which is always last).
    One thing reintroduced in MK series since MK4 (i think) is that you can interact with map (think Injustice: Gods among us), giving you way out of corner or option smacking enemy with old lady/piece of streetlight. I think this is great addition that really adds to arsenal.
    X-rays also make return from MK9, with them being rather bloody and i often wondered how the heck that move didnt kill them. However, i do find its part of MK charm.
    Special shoutout to Ferra and Torr for being first 2 characters in MK series that are individuals, but fight as 1 character.
    Internet play is also seemingly good, at least i havent had single dropped match yet, so people who were afraid of lag and such, dont be afraid.


    Sound & Graphics

    Sword, meet Quan Chi, Quan Chi, meet sword. Now kiss.


    Voice acting and sounds are definite step up from MK9, with voice acting being better in most cases. But what makes this game shine are graphics- its visually stunning even on rather low settings (which i had to use due to my weaker end average video card). Characters and backrounds are very detailed, such as you can see detailed skin. It is bit choppy at some points though, but overall impression covers it- from brains to x-rays to normal fight, its impressive. Do not get fooled by my screenshots however, as i took them with lower (some may be even lowest possible) quality due to me having mediocre graphics card.
    I do have gripe of this game for it being rather difficult to properly tune in terms of brightness, as parts of screen are brighter ingame than most and it makes quite difficult for me to tune it so that i can see whats going on without it being too dark or too bright.



    Extra notes
    Mortal Kombat X suffered few problems at launch- for one, steam tried new system, where you got main portion of game and rest came as installation DLC-s (its bad word for most gamers, though its worth to note that not all DLC-s cost money) so people could play it while it was still downloading. Problem rose, however, from fact that many people did not get those DLC-s and people who did had to enable them all from DLC menu. Was it good idea? In theory, yes, in practice, not really. This caused many people to have crashes and such, extremely bad launch (though still better than simcity launch).


    Summary

    Mortal Kombat X is great fighting game that delivers everything that it promised. It still feels bit sloppy at some points, as well as choppy and had bad launch. Still, it has great story, lots of action and gore, interesting fatalities/brutalities and lot of variation in fighting styles even within character that is topped off with several singleplayer and multiplayer gamemodes to choose from.
    Decent fighting game. I reccommend to buy.
    Rating: 9/10


    Gallery


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: