Mortal Kombat has been dead to me since Mortal Kombat II.
The series that pitched itself as the hardcore, hyper-violent alternative to Street Fighter II saw the shark, jumped it, and continued sailing into the upper atmosphere sometime around the time that Animalities, a run meter, and dial-a-combos were introduced in Mortal Kombat III. In fact, save for the incredibly awesome Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks side-scrolling beat ‘em up, the franchise has been stinking up the fighting scene for over a decade.
Warner Bros. Interactive released a trailer for the latest franchise entry (simply entitled Mortal Kombat), that appears to return the franchise to its 2D fighter roots. The action looks fast, the fighting looks hard hitting, the environments look foreboding, and the fact that there appears to be a fatality that cuts through genitals is more than a little bit hilarious.
Although returning to Mortal Kombat‘s early glory would be much-appreciated by long-suffering fans, those games weren’t perfect. Here are the traps that Warner Bros. Interactive needs to avoid in order to return Mortal Kombat.
No Cutesy Fatalities
It’s obvious that Friendships and Babalities were added to Mortal Kombat II to counter the hyper-violence, but there’s no need to ever see them again. Ever. The times have changed, and American society (for better or for worse) has become more accustomed to gore in games.
No More Palette Swaps
Scorpion and Sub Zero were the Ken and Ryu of Mortal Kombat, so the palette swap was cool. Reptile was acceptable. Smoke was a waste of a designer’s time. Kitana/Mileena was also pretty lazy and shameful. Not only those characters look identical to their counterparts, they played very much the same, which leads me to….
No More Cookie-Cutter Movesets
The Mortal Kombat development team has confessed to wanting to play up powers in the early MK games, but that doesn’t mean that every fighter has to rely on sweeps and uppercuts–they all share an identical base. Implementing a varied moveset would not only give each character individual feels, but would make the gameplay less predictable.
These three suggestions are all it would take for Mortal Kombat to once again ascend into the realm of awesome. I’m hoping that Mortal Kombat will be playable on the E3 2010 floor. And I’m hoping that it’ll be good.
