game corner

Game Corner [MK Month]: Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate (Xbox One)

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To celebrate the simultaneous worldwide release of Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1992) on home consoles, 13 September 1993 was dubbed “Mortal Monday”. Mortal Kombat’s move to home consoles impacted not only the ongoing “Console War” between SEGA and Nintendo but also videogames forever thanks to its controversial violence. Fittingly, to commemorate this game-changing event, I’ve been dedicating every Monday of September to celebrating the Mortal Kombat franchise.

Released: 17 November 2020
Originally Released: 23 April 2019
Developer: NetherRealm Studios
Also Available For: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Xbox Series X

The Background:
Mortal Kombat was a phenomenal success for Midway; thanks to its controversial violence and unique digitised graphics, the game stood out from the likes of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Capcom, 1991). While the franchise went from strength to strength during the 2D era of gaming, Mortal Kombat struggled to really stand out amidst a slew of revolutionary 3D fighters and, following the lacklustre release of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Midway Games, 2008), the series looked to be in serious trouble after Midway went bankrupt in 2010. Thankfully, Warner Bros. Interactive stepped in and the Mortal Kombat team was rebranded as NetherRealm Studios. Their first order of business was to get their violent franchise back on track, which they did with Mortal Kombat (NetherRealm Studios, 2009), a particularly well-received reboot of the surprisingly convoluted lore. This gritty, violent reboot again stirred controversy but sales of the game alone were enough to cover the costs of Midway’s acquisition and work on a follow-up soon began.

After the disappointing Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, Mortal Kombat made an impressive comeback.

Mortal Kombat X (ibid, 2015) instantly impressed and out-did its predecessor in every way, being both the most violent entry and having the biggest launch in the franchise’s long history at the time. Mortal Kombat X also scored very well and the success of the game earned it not just a host of additional downloadable content (DLC) but also an expanded version, Mortal Kombat XL, in 2016. Keen to capitalise on the good will they had earned back with these releases, NetherRealm announced the development of Mortal Kombat 11 at the Games Awards 2018, a game that saw the triumphant return of actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa to the role of Shang Tsung and sold over eight million copies by October 2020. Like its predecessors, Mortal Kombat 11 received an expanded addition that included all of its DLC fighters and even additional story mode content and was met with favourable reviews, though some criticised the randomisation of the game’s unlockables and the overreliance on grinding, mechanics that, for me, affected the appeal of Injustice 2 (ibid, 2017).

The Plot:
After the defeat of Shinnok at the conclusion of Mortal Kombat X, Raiden has become corrupted by the Elder God’s amulet and, angered at the Thunder God’s repeatedly meddling in the fabric of space and time, the keeper of time (and Shinnok’s mother), Kronika, plots to rewrite history to erase Raiden from existence. With past versions of classic Mortal Kombat characters showing up all over the place, and Earthrealm’s most dangerous and long-dead enemies forging an alliance to usher in Kronika’s “New Era”, Earthrealm’s Special Forces and allies face a battle against time itself to keep the realms from being torn asunder.

Gameplay:
As you might expect by now, Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate is a 2.5D fighting game in which players can pick from one of thirty-seven characters and battle through the game’s single-player story mode, fight one-on-one against another player or computer-controlled opponent, battle their way though a variety of arcade-style towers, or challenge other players to a variety on online battles. Battles take place in a best-of-three format and against a time limit, though you can alter these settings (and many others, including the difficulty of computer-controlled opponents) from the game’s comprehensive menu to speed up gameplay or make it more accessible.

One of the things I love about Mortal Kombat is that gameplay and combos are generally easy to pick up.

As in the other 3D Mortal Kombat fighters, fights in Mortal Kombat 11 are extremely accessible and easy to master. You can attack your opponent with punches with either X or Y, kicks with A or B, block with RT, throw (again, this is more like a grapple) with LB or X and Y and a directional input, and interact with the game’s environments when indicated with RB. You can also dash towards and away from your opponent, jump in or crouch down to attack or avoid projectiles, and string together combos by pressing the attack buttons and using directional inputs quickly. The game features a comprehensive tutorial mode that teaches you all of the basics and intricacies of the game’s combat, which gets deeper and more complex depending on your skill level and who you play as but is still extremely easy for even novice players to pick up and pull off a few simple combos.

In addition to trademark special moves, characters can also pull off gruesome Fatal Blows.

Each character also boasts a number of special moves, also pulled off by a few simple button and directional inputs (back, forward, X, for example, or forward, down, B); these can be stringed together with combos and augmented with a well-timed press of RB (this will, however, drain a meter at the bottom of the screen but this will quickly refill in time). Unlike in the last two games, though, you can no longer build your meter towards a gruesome X-Ray move; instead, when your health is sufficiently depleted, you’ll have the option of pulling off a “Fatal Blow” once per fight (not per round) to mash your opponent into mush. While these are suitably impressive, violent, and gory, I have to say that I miss being able to build up to and pull off a momentum-changing special move whenever I want rather than when I’m near death. While special moves are pretty easy to perform, you can review them at any time from the pause menu and even “tag” team so they appear onscreen for easy reference, but I would have liked the option to pick and choose which ones are displayed for quick reference.

Fatalities are more visceral and gory than ever and see you dismembering and eviscerating your opponent.

As horrific as the Fatal Blows can be, though, the real star of the show is, once again, the game’s Fatalities, the trademark of the franchise. At the end of the deciding round (usually round two), you’ll be told to “Finish Him!!” (or her…) and given a short period of time to stand in a specific spot and enter another button combination to tear your opponent to pieces, usually resulting in their guts, brains, and eyes bursting from their body or them being shredded and blown apart. Every character has three Fatalities available to them: one that is readily available, one that is locked and must be unlocked in the Krypt (or looked up online…), and one that is assigned to pulling off special Fatalities in certain stages (“Stage Fatalities”, like the classic uppercut into an acid pit) and you can also find (or purchase) “Easy Fatality Tokens” to pull them off more easily and practice them in the Fatality Tutorial.

There’s more than one way to finish your opponent, including a couple of non-lethal options.

Fatalities aren’t the only way to finish your opponent, though; by following a specific set of instructions during a fight (such as not blocking or hitting a certain number of moves and ending the decisive round with a specific attack), you can once again end your foe with a “Brutality” (although, as Factions are no longer included, Faction Kills are also not present this time). You can also pull off a non-lethal “Friendship” if you don’t wish to eviscerate your opponent and even replenish a small portion of their health by showing “Mercy” to allow the fight to continue a little longer. There are benefits to finishing off your opponent, though, as this will award you Hearts, one of four different forms of in-game currency, additional Koins (the primary form on in-game currency), and contribute to your player level and allow you to unlock additional bonuses.

Once again, it’s going to take a lot of grinding to earn enough to unlock everything in the game.

One of the biggest complaints I had about Injustice 2 was the sheer abundance of different in-game currencies and the unfortunate emphasis on grinding for levels and unlockables and the randomness of the game’s loot crates. Sadly, Mortal Kombat 11 carries a lot of this forward; there are numerous customisation options available to you, from backgrounds and icons for your gamer card to individual gear and skins for each character but pretty much all of them are locked behind the game’s time-consuming grinding system. You earn Koins, Soul Fragments, Hearts, and Time Crystals by playing every single one of the game’s modes; while each of these can be spent in the Krypt to unlock chests and release souls (which will net you additional currency, skins, gear, augments, and Konsumables), Time Crystals can be spent in the in-game shop but, as items in the shop at so expensive, you’re encouraged to spend real world money to unlock additional stuff.

Battle through Klassic and online towers to earn rewards, see character endings, and unlock gear.

Unfortunately, while each character has a whole load of gear and skins and customisation options available to them, these are locked behind grinding; you can find many of these in the Krypt but others are unlocked by playing story mode, completing the character tutorials, or besting the game’s many towers. As in the classic 2D games, you can once again pick between three different towers (Novice, Warrior, and Champion); which tower you pick determines the amount of fighters you’ll face and the degree of the rewards you’ll earn from completion. You can also take on the Endless tower to face and endless number of opponents until you quit or are defeated and the Survival tower in which the damage you receive from each fight carries over to the next. Similar to Mortal Kombat X and Injustice 2, you can also challenge a number of different online towers, the “Towers of Time”; these provide you with a variety of challenges but are only available for a set amount of time before they’re replaced with a fresh challenge. However, you even access this mode you first need to clear a number of tutorials first, which seemed a bit redundant, and you will need to pay and also perform certain tasks (such as a certain amount of attacks or specials) to complete each character’s specific tower and unlock more gear and skins for them.

Timelines collide in the story mode, which occassionally asks you to pick between two fighters.

A big part of the game is its story mode; once again, the story is broken down into twelve chapters, with each chapter assigned to at least one character but, every now and then, you’ll be given the option of picking between two characters. It doesn’t really matter which character you pick, though, as you don’t even need to tick off all of these options to 100% the story mode and it hardly affects the narrative at all. Despite the fact that you can’t finish off and kill your opponents, the story mode is a great way to earn Koins and gear and get to grips with each character; the story sees characters from the past return to life as Kronika attempts to rewrite history, which effectively undoes a lot of the development done to the series in Mortal Kombat X but it’s a good excuse to have classic characters return to the series. You can set the difficulty setting for the story mode whenever you like but there are no Achievements tied to beating it or any of the other mode son higher difficulties but you do generally earn better rewards for taking on more difficult challenges.

Graphics and Sound:
Mortal Kombat 11 looks fantastic; character faces still look a bit shiny and odd at times (particularly the females) but there’s even less distinction between the in-game graphics and the many cutscenes you’ll see as you play through the story. Every character is full of life and little quirks, such as Liu Kang constantly hopping from foot to foot in true Bruce Lee style, Kano nonchalantly spitting on the floor, and Skarlet cutting herself open. If the winning fighter is too close to their fallen foe when a round ends, they’ll back away with their own unique animation and voice clips and taunts can be heard throughout each fight as you pull of special moves, combos, and gain victories. Unfortunately, as always, the developers continue to render the character’s different endings using a motion comic aesthetic and voice over rather than utilise the full motion CGI cutscenes used to great effect in the game’s story, which continues to be a disappoint for me and I’ve never really understood this choice.

While environmental interactions seem limited, they’re still a great way to deal some damage.

Where Mortal Kombat 11 fails a little bit is in the stages; stages are a big part of any fighting game but especially Mortal Kombat and NetherRealm Studios’ recent efforts since they introduced the concept of interacting with various parts of the environment. This returns again, allowing you to skewer opponents with spears, throw bodies at them, wall run out of harms way, or toss or wield a variety of weapons (such as a chainsaw and a sledgehammer) to deal additional damage. These will often finally utilise the gruesome x-ray feature that was a big part of the last two games (which can also be triggered with certain special moves and augmented specials) but it feels as though there are a lot less opportunities to interact with the background and pull off Stage Fatalities than normal, making environments look and feel very alive but being disappointingly light on interactive elements despite all of the cameos and interesting elements at work in the background.

The game goes to great lengths to recreate iconic environments and locations from the first two games.

One thing I did like, though, was the return of some classic stages from past Mortal Kombat games, such as the courtyard and the dead pool; the best stage for this is, easily, the Retrocade stage, which randomly generates pixel-perfect recreations of classic Mortal Kombat stages complete with music. The game also goes above and beyond to recreate Shang Tsung’s island in immaculate detail in the Krypt; not only does it feature every stage from the first Mortal Kombat but it also recreates scenes and locations from the brilliant Mortal Kombat (Anderson, 1995) and cameos and references to numerous Mortal Kombat characters, which makes it a fantastic area to explore that is sadly let down by how confusing the Krypt’s map system is. Not only that but Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa lends his voice and likeness to Tsung once again, adding his unmatched gravitas to the character, and you can even buy a skin pack that adds skins for Sonya Blade, Johnny Blaze, and Raiden that adds three more likenesses and voices from the film.

As gruesome and visceral as the Fatalities are, the Fatal Blows are gloriously rendered in macabre detail.

While the game does excel in its many cutscenes and does a great job of telling its story with just the right level of cheese and seriousness, the main draw of the game is in its violence and gore and Mortal Kombat 11 certainly delivers in that respect. Skin is literally peeled from the bones, eyeballs fly in geysers of blood, bodies are dismembered, split into pieces, dissolved, and shredded, and limbs are torn apart in a variety of ghastly ways and it’s always a joy to see the horrifying ways characters are going to mutilate their opponents. The Fatal Blows are sometimes just as good, if not better, as any of the game’s Fatalities, with characters being stabbed, shot, and blasted in ways that would surely kill them only for the characters to hop right back up afterwards. While character’s clothes and accessories don’t rip or tear during the fights, they do seem to get stained by blood at times and skin can be seen baring wounds and scars from battle.

Enemies and Bosses:
As a fighting game, every single character in Mortal Kombat 11 is your enemy and you’ll be forced to do battle with all of them at least once, at some point, as you play through the story mode and arcade towers. Because every character controls and fights a little differently, with some focusing on ranged attacks or brawling while others emphasis slow but hard-hitting attacks, it’s best to sample each for yourself and to get an idea of your favourite character’s different abilities and variations in order to achieve success. Also crucial is mastering a handful of the game’s combos; many are as simple as X, X, Y or X, Y, X but others require directional inputs, longer button presses, and the co-ordinated stringing together of frame-perfect attacks and special moves. Luckily, though, every character usually has one or two simple combos for you to master so it’s simple enough for players of any skill level to pick up and play.

Your attack strategy may have to change depending on who you are fighting or playing as.

Some characters, though, play a little differently to others and this affects not only how you play but also how you fight them. Shang Tsung, for example, can not only steal the soul of his opponent, which not only drains their health but also has him assume their form and moveset for a short period, but can also morph into various masked ninjas from the franchise; Shao Kahn primarily attacks with his massive hammer, which can make his attacks slower; Jax Briggs can charge up his metal arms with punches and other attacks, which allows him to pull off his projectile attacks; and Erron Black can whip out a shotgun, which allows him to fire at and melee attack his opponent but also needs reloading and to be manually put away. Other opponents can be a lot cheaper than others; Noob Saibot, for example, is always a bit of a pain because of his vast array of teleporting attacks and the same applies to Mileena, who’s capable of quickly teleporting about the place and launching sais at you. There are also some returning favourites you’ll have to watch out for, such as Sub-Zero’s ice ball, Scorpion’s kunai spear, and Liu Kang’s lightning quick kicks and fireballs but the new characters have their own tricks to watch out for, too. Geras, for example, loves to spam his little sand pit trap and Certrion will spawn elemental hazards out of thin air to trap and hurt you.

Cyrax and Sektor can only be fought in the story and you’ll face tough boss battles in the Towers.

When playing through the game’s story mode, you’ll also have to fight a couple of familiar faces in the form of Cyrax and Sektor. These cybernetic ninjas sadly don’t make the cut this time around so they essentially fill the role of mini bosses, in a way, despite appearing quite early on in the story mode. In addition, there will also be time sin the story (and in certain towers) where you have to face two opponents in a handicap match very similar to the “Endurance” matches from the first game, which see your opponents automatically tag into battle once their comrade has fallen while you’re forced to continue with whatever health you have left. When taking on the Towers of Time, you’ll get to battle against a character that has been augmented to “boss” status; this means that you can’t use Konsumables and that your opponent will be super tough, requiring multiple players to take on the challenge while its active to help bring them down and earn rewards.

After Kronika is defeated you must choose between facing Fire God Liu Kang or Shang Tsung.

When you play the story mode or battle through one of the other towers, your final opponent will be Kronika, an unplayable boss character who presents a unique challenge compared to the likes of Shinnok and Shao Kahn. The battle against Kronika takes place in one round but is split between three fights against her and three different locations and time periods, with each phase seeing you having to battle a randomly generated opponent. Unlike other characters, Kronika cannot be thrown, staggered, or hit with a Fatal Blow; when you try any of these attacks and certain combos, she’ll take damage but you won’t see the usual animations play out, which can leave you open to one of her devastating attacks. Kronika likes to teleport around the arena and summon energy balls and projectiles but her most lethal attack is a time warp that renders you helpless and drains a massive chunk of your health bar, which basically means that it’s best to reach her final phase with as much health as possible or else you have to replay the entire fight from the beginning. At the conclusion of the Aftermath story mode, you have the choice of facing either Shang Tsung (who has usurped Kronika’s powers) or “Fire God” Liu Kang (a merged form of Liu Kang and Raiden) as your final opponent. Unlike Kronika, though, these are standard battles and subject to all the normal gameplay mechanics, meaning you’re free to hit your Fatal Blows and augmented special moves and combos without fear of being left vulnerable. Indeed, as long as you’re proficient enough with a few combos and special moves, these fights should be noticeably easier than the one against Kronika though be wary as Shang Tsung and Liu Kang are also much more versatile in their attacks than Kronika, who favours bursts of temporal energy over combo strings.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Like in Injustice 2, each character has a number of gear that can be equipped but, thankfully, unlike in that game, these do not affect the character’s stats or abilities and are merely cosmetic. As you battle with your character, their gear will level up and unlock up to three augment slots and you can then equip augments to their gear to increase their special attacks, defence, and other attributes to make them more efficient. Similar to Mortal Kombat X, each character has a number of variations available to them but, this time, it’s up to you to equip and assign these variations to each character; these are limited to three slots, which allow you to assign different special moves and abilities to each character to differentiate them (you can have Scorpion, for example, focus on flame or kunai attacks, or mix and match them). You can also assign different intros and outros for each variation (once you unlock these) and tweak their artificial intelligence (A.I.) stats to make them more focused on reversals or brawling, for example, or a more balanced fighter when taking part in A.I. Battles.

Equip Konsumables and augments to give you buffs and power-ups and make Towers a little easier.

To help you clear these modes, you can choose to have the computer battle through each tower on your behalf and also use up to four Konsumables to tip the odds in your favour. These allow you to flick the right analogue stick and call upon assistance from other characters or effects (such as a brief acid rain, missiles, or similar projectiles) and/or earn additional rewards from battle or performing finishers. Other times, especially in the Towers of Time, your opponents will have access to similar Konsumables and augments, which essentially recreates the Test Your Luck feature from Mortal Kombat (2009), and you’ll again have the option of teaming up with others to take on super tough boss battles.Each time you take on a tower, you’ll be asked to take on a number of “Dragon Challenges”; these appear at the bottom of the screen and ask you to do such tasks as switching stance, ducking, jumping, or performing (or not performing) a certain number of actions throughout the fight and the more you complete, the more additional Koins you can earn so I recommend drawing the fight out so that you can pull off as many as possible.

Additional Features:
There are fifty-eight Achievements on offer in Mortal Kombat 11 and, unlike most games, most of these are tied to repetitive actions rather than playing though the story mode. You’ll earn an Achievement for pulling off a certain number of Fatalities and Brutalities, one for performing two Fatalities with every character who isn’t a DLC fighter (which is a good way to test out each fighter), using a certain number of Konsumables, and opening a certain number of chests in the Krypt, for example. You’ll also earn Achievements for clearing the Klassic Tower with first one and then ten characters (why not all of them is beyond me), running five miles in the Krypt, and for taking part in A.I. and online battles and clearing half of (and all) of the main story mode.

All of the DLC is included as standard but, sadly, there are no additional Achievements tied to these.

Sadly, however, the Achievements do not extend to any of the DLC fighters or story content; there are no Achievements to be earned from clearing Aftermath or specifically tied to any of the DLC fighters, which is a real shame when you’ve got RoboCop and the Terminator in your game and when you consider that Mortal Kombat XL had sixty Achievements to earn, with an extra thirteen added with its DLC fighters. On the one hand, this does mean that it’s a lot easier to get Achievements in Mortal Kombat 11 since there are far less devoted to online play but, on the other, I was disappointed that the Achievements didn’t encourage more replayability and variety; instead, it’s all repetitive actions and nonstop grinding and I’d be pretty pissed off to have paid £40-odd for the Aftermath DLC and all those fighter packs only to find that they don’t come with any extra Achievements.

Some familiar faces and movie icons feature as guest fighters…and also the Joker, who I could live without.

Speaking of which, Aftermath and all of the DLC fighter packs and skins are included in Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate (…except for those released after the game) but you should be aware that your previous save data from the base Mortal Kombat 11 is not compatible with Ultimate. This means that you can play Aftermath right away, if you want, and thus complete the actual story since the main story just kind of ends unresolved. The additional fighters include the likes of Spawn, RoboCop, the Terminator, and even John Rambo (with Keith David, Peter Weller, and Sylvester Stallone all lending their voice talents (and likeness, in Rambo’s case) to the game. You can also play as returning characters such as Sindel, Fujin, and one of my favourites, Rain though I question the inclusion of the Joker as I really think Pennywise the Dancing Clown would have fit a lot better. There are also a number of cheeky DC Comics skins and gear to equip that turn Cassie Cage into Harley Quinn, Geras into Darkseid, Kitana into Catwoman, and Baraka into Killer Croc and you can even dress Jacqui Briggs up in Spawn’s costume.

The Krypt is full of Easter Eggs and references to both the 1995 movie and the franchise’s long histor.y

Aside from fighting, much your time is also spent exploring the Krypt and spending all of your hard-earned currency on skins, gear, augments, and the like. The Krypt is the biggest it has ever been, encompassing the entirety of Shang Tsung’s island and is full of treasure chests, death traps, and references to the videogames and movies. Unfortunately, though, as great as the Krypt is for Easter Eggs and such, it’s a bitch to navigate; you can create shortcuts by smashing through walls and pulling levers and such but the map is dreadful and it can be extremely difficult to get to where you need to be as it relies on an awkward coordinate system. It’s also ridiculously expensive to open the chests, which can lead to you spending over 10,000 Koins just for some useless icons and concept art and it’ll cost you 100 Soul Fragments and 250 Hearts every time you want to open one of those chests. There’s a lot to see and do, though, with new areas to stumble across and fun little Easter Eggs to find but, again, no Achievements really tied to this; when I find the statue of Reptile’s reptilian form from the movie or examine Drahmin’s mask or find Goro’s corpse, I’d expect at least a fun little 5G Achievement but…nope.

The Summary:
I knew that we would eventually be getting Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate and specifically held off from purchasing the base game or Aftermath while waiting for this release, which bundles 99% of the game’s content all onto one disc (well…technically it’s two…) for you to play at your leisure (after the lengthy download and installation process, of course). In many ways, I wasn’t disappointed; Mortal Kombat has never looked better, with blood and guts and gore being rendered in exquisitely visceral detail and the recreation of Shang Tsung’s island for the Krypt is stunning, full of little details and references that really reward my many years of fandom. Equally, the story mode and fights are brought to life fantastically and the scaled back approach to gear and customisation is appreciated since it means I don’t have to worry about my character being underpowered if they look how I want.

Mortal Kombat has arguably never looked better but the emphasis on grinding lets the game down.

Unfortunately, though, there are a few things that let it down. The Fatal Blow system is great but seems catered more to new players and a defensive playstyle; tying so much of the game to online servers results in a lot of dodgy slowdown and loading on the menus at times; locking everything behind the towers and such is fine but forcing players to grind for in-game currency to spend on even challenging those towers is not; the handful of Achievements might be pretty simple to get but there’s not a lot of variety or fun to them; and I question some of the choices made for the roster. First of all…why thirty-seven fighters? Why not go all-in and bring it up to a nice, even forty? Where are Takeda Takahasi and Kung Jin, the actual descendant of the Great Kung Lao? They weren’t exactly my favourite characters from Mortal Kombat X but they were just as important to the “new generation” of fighters as Cassie and Jacqui but they’re missing yet that lumbering oaf Kotal Kahn is still there. In the end, there’s a lot of fun to be had in Mortal Kombat 11 but it’s notably more finite and time-consuming than in the last two Mortal Kombat games; it’s not as bad with the randomness and loot boxes as Injustice 2 but some of the better skins and gear and such is still annoying locked away and will take a lot of time and effort to unlock, which is especially aggravating when the game uses four different types of in-game currency and yet your options for actually purchasing new stuff in-game are severely limited.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What are your thoughts on Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate? Did you wait for this version to come out or did you buy the base game and DLC separate? Either way, do you think there was enough value for your money or, like me, were you disappointed to find the DLC didn’t have any new Achievements to earn? Which fighter in the game (or the franchise) is your favourite and why? What did you think to the story mode and the use of competing timelines to bring back classic characters? Were there any characters or features missing from the game for you? What did you think to the online options and the different towers the game had to offer? Which Mortal Kombat game, movie, comic, or other piece of media is your favourite? Whatever your thoughts on Mortal Kombat 11, or Mortal Kombat in general, leave a comment down below.

Game Corner [MK Month]: Mortal Kombat XL (Xbox One)

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To celebrate the simultaneous worldwide release of Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1992) on home consoles 13 September 1993 was dubbed “Mortal Monday”. Mortal Kombat’s move to home consoles impacted not only the ongoing “Console War” between SEGA and Nintendo but also videogames forever thanks to its controversial violence. Fittingly, to commemorate this game-changing event, I’ve been dedicating every Monday of September to celebrating the Mortal Kombat franchise.

Released: 1 March 2016
Originally Released: 13 April 2015
Developer: NetherRealm Studios
Also Available For: PlayStation 4 and Xbox Series X (XL Edition); PC and Mobile (Standard Edition)

The Background:
After gaining equal parts success, popularity, and controversy thanks to its peerless use of gore and violence and unique digitised graphics, the Mortal Kombat franchise (Various, 1992 to present) offered not only the first real competition for Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Capcom, 1991) but also redefined videogames (especially fighting games) for years to come. After the series hit its peak in the mid-to-late nineties, Mortal Kombat struggled to find a footing in the emerging 3D fighter arena; however, after recovering from the poor reception of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Midway Games, 2008) and bankruptcy, Midway was bought by Warner Bros. Interactive, rebranded to NetherRealm Studios, and successfully got their ultra-violent fighting game franchise back on track after Mortal Kombat (NetherRealm Studios, 2011) was very well-received for its “back to basics” approach.

After MK9 breathed new life into the franchise, Mortal Kombat X took the story in a new direction.

Production of the next game in the series began in 2012 and much of the hype and marketing focused on the game featuring the most brutal and gruesome Fatalities in the series to date. Mortal Kombat X expanded upon not only the mechanics and story of its predecessor but also the content, featuring a wealth of new online modes that would come to be a signature of NetherRealm Studios, alongside far more downloadable content (DLC) than its predecessor. Sales and reviews of the game were incredibly strong, leading to the release of the XL version of the game about a year later; this version included all of the DLC and additional content released and continuing the game’s strong critical response and all but guaranteeing the production of the eleventh entry in the series.

The Plot:
Although Shao Kahn and his Outworld forces were defeated in Mortal Kombat (2009), much of Earthrealm’s forces were killed and enslaved by Quan Chi’s dark sorcery and put in service of his master, the fallen Elder God Shinnok. After Johnny Cage uses his mysterious latent powers to defeat Shinnok and many of their friends and allies are restored, a new generation of Earthrealm warriors are forced to put aside their egos and arrogance in order to prevent Shinnok’s resurrection and continue the uneasy truce Earthrealm has forged with Outworld.

Gameplay:
Like its predecessor, Mortal Kombat XL is a 2.5D fighting game in which players select one of thirty-three characters and take on the game’s single-player story mode, battle one-on-one against another player or computer-controlled opponent, or challenge a variety of arcade-style towers or other players in a variety of online battles. As is the Mortal Kombat tradition, fights take place in a three round format and against a time limit, though you can customise these settings (and many others, such as the difficulty of computer-controlled opponents) from in game’s options to speed up gameplay or make things more accessible.

While the controls stay the same, the overall fighting mechanics have been improved upon considerably.

Essentially, the game’s fighting mechanics are exactly the same as in the last game but tweaked and improved in numerous ways. You can throw punches with either X or Y, kicks with A or B, hold RT to block, perform a grapple-like throw with LB (or X and Y and a directional input), dash towards or away from your opponent (or hold RT to run, though this consumes the new stamina meter), jump in or crouch to attack or avoid projectiles, and string together combos by pressing the attack buttons and using directional inputs quickly. The game also expands on the tutorial of its predecessor to teach you the basics of the in-game combat, which gets deeper and more intricate as you learn more about the game’s combo system and stringing together basic attacks, combos, and special moves but, thanks to a refined and simplified control scheme and a much more user-friendly move list that is accessible by pausing a fight at any time, it’s very easy for even new players to perform a few simple combos and succeed in most fights.

You can now select three different fighting styles and X-Rays are more brutal than ever!

With a few simple directional and button inputs, you can also pull off a number of special moves, ranging from projectiles to grapples and elemental or telekinetic slams. This time around, though, every character has at least three different “variations” that alters their special moves and fighting style; this adds a great deal of variety to the game’s fights and means that you can focus on ranged attacks, grapples, or even summon minions to provide a modicum of assistance and can help make each character accessible to your fighting style. As you perform combos, special moves, and absorb damage, you’ll once again fill up the Super Meter at the bottom of the screen; this meter fills much faster than in the last game, allowing you to enhance your special moves with RT and pull off combo breakers much faster and more frequently. Once it’s completely full, you can once again pull off a devastating X-Ray move but, this time, you also have the option of enhancing your moves further with another tap of RT (though this will burn up your meter) and perform reversals and “block breakers” without draining your meter.

Grab an interactable object to put beat your foe and then rip their head off in gruesome fashion.

While the tag team system has been completely abandoned in Mortal Kombat XL, there are numerous opportunities in every stage for you to interact with the environment with a press of RB. This allows you to swing from vines, flip up walls, throw innocent bystanders, or use weapons to avoid incoming attacks or dish out a bit more damage to your opponent. Most stages have at least three of these but some have more, or less, and you can even set the game up to give you an audio indication of when you can interact with the environment or turn them off completely (though I don’t get why you’d do that). Of course, once you’ve drained your opponent’s health bar completely and won the decisive round of the fight, you’ll be given the chance to finish off your foe; by positioning yourself correctly and inputting some directional inputs and button presses fast enough, you’ll pull off a gruesome Fatality that will leave your opponent dismembered (usually with their brains, eyes, and/or other organs spilling from their remains).

Brutalities and Faction Kills offer new and horrific ways to leave your opponent a mangled corpse.

Every character has at least two Fatalities (in addition to special “Stage Fatalities” that can be performed on certain stages) available to them and, while you’ll have to unlock their inputs in the Krypt or look them up online in order to pull them off, you can view them at any time from the pause menu, practice them in the Fatality Tutorial mode, and earn (or buy) “Easy Fatality Tokens” to assist you. While “Babalities” (and all silly elements) are no longer present, Mortal Kombat XL sees “Brutalities” return to the franchise; by following a specific set of instructions during a fight (such as ending the fight with a throw or a stage interaction or performing a certain number of attacks during the final round), you’ll mutilate your foe with a sudden, vicious kill move. Another new addition to the game is that you’ll be asked to join one of four “Factions” for the purposes of online play; as part of this, you’ll also be able to pull off one of five “Faction Kills” by standing a jump distance away from your opponent during the “Finish Him/Her!!” command, holding block, and entering specific directional inputs.

Mortal Kombat XL expands upon your options for on- and offline play to add a lot of variety.

Every time you win a fight, you’ll earn Koins to spend in the Krypt, experience points (XP) to level up your user profile (which can also be customised with unlockable icons and backgrounds by winning fights, exploring the Krypt, and completing simple daily challenges), and points to aid your Faction. This allows you to increase your rank in your Faction, unlock access to more Faction Kills, and help your Faction to beat the others in an ongoing struggle for dominance. This is further aided by full on Faction War through a variety of towers and the regular Invasion of a super tough boss character that everyone in your Faction has to work to whittle down for more rewards, and you can change your Faction at any time to explore their different Faction Kills. Towers themselves are greatly expanded this time around; the traditional arcade ladder still has you tackling eight random opponents before battling Goro and Shinnok and unlocking your character’s ending but you can also take on daily, hourly, and premium challenge towers, and Test Your Might returns (though the other “Test” mini games are absent) in the tower mode as well. You can also tackle an Endless tower and a Survival mode that sees any damage you take carry over to the next fight and you can even create Tower Challenges for your friends to try out.

The story is a generational tale of new warriors rising up to combat the resurrected Shinnok.

Mortal Kombat (2009) sought to revitalise the franchise by retelling the events of the first three games in a cohesive way and making big changes for the series and Mortal Kombat XL’s story expands upon this greatly. Essentially a retelling of the events of Mortal Kombat 4 (Midway Games, 1997), the story deals with the emergence of a new generation of fighters and the building of inter-realm relations between Earthrealm and Outworld. Divided into twelve chapters, the story again has you playing as one character for each chapter, which continues to be an effective way of getting to grips with a wide variety of the game’s roster (though, again, you still can’t perform Fatalities in the story mode), and you can replay them at any time. While you won’t have to worry about fighting two characters at once this time, you will have to be on your toes as you’ll be asked to perform a handful of quick-time events (QTEs) during the story, which also features cameos not only from unplayable characters like Sareena, Li Mei, and Smoke but DLC characters like Tanya and Bo’ Rai Cho. Because the last game left many of the series staple character undead minions of Quan Chi, much of the story’s focus is on Johnny Cage rather than Liu Kang and the new generation of fighters (Cassie Cage, Kung Jin, Takeda Takahasi, and Jacqui Briggs) but, sadly, a lot of the unique appeal of these new characters is somewhat undermined by the inclusion of their parents (the more popular series staples like Johnny, Sonya Blade, and Jax). Equally, the story immediately backpedals on a lot of the changes made in the last game; Sub-Zero is no longer a cyborg, Scorpion is human now, and both of them (and Jax) have been freed from Quan Chi’s influence, which is a shame as it would have been cool to see a streamlined design for Cyber Sub-Zero but it is cool seeing Scorpion’s human form.

Graphics and Sound:
As great as Mortal Kombat (2009) looked, Mortal Kombat XL is a massive step forwards in terms of its graphics, presentation, and gore; character faces can be a bit shiny and unnerving in the story mode cutscenes but you won’t really notice this minor issue when locked in combat. Similarly, there’s basically no distinction between the cutscenes and in-game graphics, with only a change of lighting and camera positioning separating the two.

Mortal Kombat has never looked better but these improvements still don’t carry over to the endings.

This means that the game is presented so convincingly that it’s basically like playing a high quality CG cutscene and the character’s little quirks and mannerisms are emphasised even further; the winning character will back away from their fallen opponent between rounds, characters spit taunts after landing combos and special moves, and each one is injected with a high degree of personality to make them shine (Ferra and Torr, being two characters fighting in tandem with each other, are the perfect example of this but you’ll also get little moments like characters reloading or straightening their outfit). Even better is the fact that pre-fight introductions have been greatly expanded; characters will now trade dialogue with their opponent, which changes depending on who you’re facing and leads to some interesting references to previous games and rivalries. It thus remains a shame that NetherRealm Studios continue to offset all these impressive graphics with the motion comic-like sequences used to convey each character’s ending.

Stages come to life through numerous interactable elements, which also offer more unique Stage Fatalities.

Mortal Kombat XL’s stages are equally far more detailed and full of even more life than ever before thanks to the wide variety of stage interactions on offer. Aside from the returning Pit stage (which still has random fighters battling it out in the background), stages in Mortal Kombat XL are both new and immediately familiar; the Dead Woods and Sky Temple stages recall the Living Forest and the Courtyard, respectively, for example. You’ll also battle on a boat in the middle of a tumultuous storm as bodies rise and fall with the waves in the background, outside of the Lin Kuei palace, in the middle of a dense jungle, and even before the very life force of Earthrealm itself. Each stage has a fantastic field of depth and brought to life through the different interactions and Stage Fatalities on offer, which allow you to bash your foe’s skull in, toss hot coals at them, uppercut them into the sights of a machine gun, or feed them to a hungry kraken. 

X-Rays and Fatalities are more gruesome and disgusting than ever and emphasise dismemberment.

Characters still carry cuts and the wounds from their battle but their clothing no longer rips or tears as fights progress. However, the game’s graphical upgrade does mean more gore and more brutal Fatalities and X-Ray moves. X-Rays now lose the distorting x-ray effect and clearly show bones, muscles, and arteries snapping and splitting in gruesome, over the top detail as characters stab their foe through the eyes and deliver bone-breaking shots to their limbs. Similarly, Fatalities are much longer and gorier than ever and make Mortal Kombat (2009)’s look tame in comparison: Kung Lao forces his opponent face-first into his razor sharp buzzsaw-like hat, Kenshi cuts them into little bloody chunks with his telekinetically-controlled sword, Takeda and Ermac uses their whip and psychic powers, respectively, to rip out their opponent’s insides, and Reptile dissolves his foe in pools of acid. The game takes full advantage of its greater processing power to show guts and brains plopping out from their dismembered remains and characters being torn apart in explicit, sickening detail and there’s a definite sense that Mortal Kombat XL’s Fatalities were purposely designed to be as entertainingly disturbing as possible.

Enemies and Bosses:
As before, every character in Mortal Kombat XL will be your enemy at some point as you play through the story mode and many different towers; this time around, though, you don’t just need to worry about the fact that every character plays and controls a little differently but also has a variation that can fundamentally alter the way they fight. You might be expecting Scorpion, for example, to fight with his trademark kunai and fire breath but one of his variations adds additional sword attacks and another allows him to toss demons at you or hold you in place. This means that you’re asked to adapt your playstyle on the fly and experiment not only with different characters but their different variations as well; Kotal Kahn might be a lumbering, unwieldy lug but his War God variation affords him greater reach with his sword and D’Vorah might be a massive pain in the ass of a character but her different variations give her different rush and projectile attacks. It’s all about experimenting and seeing which variation of which character best suits your play style and finding ways to counteract the different moves and abilities afforded by your opponent’s variations.

The new characters are okay, if a little redundant and underwhelming, with Takeda shining the most.

Of course, there are quite a few new characters on offer in Mortal Kombat XL but, as unique as characters like Erron Black and Takeda are thanks to their long-range weaponry and whips, respectively, characters like Cassie and Jacqui are merely faster, weaker shadows of their parents (Johnny, Sonya, and Jax). Personally, as much as I like Johnny, Sonya, and Jax, I feel like the game missed a trick by not removing them from the roster and simply having their moves represented solely in the variations of their kids as it would help them stand out more but, as it is, I’d always pick to play as the iconic and capable Johnny than Cassie. Kung Jin, despite being related to Kung Lao, is basically a new version of Nightwolf, which hurts him a little, and Ferra/Torr (despite their unique symbiotic gameplay) are little more than an ape-like beast. Of all the new characters, Takeda was my favourite to play as thanks to how overpowered and versatile his whips were but the four generational characters left a lot to be desired in terms of their design and attire (but then, to be fair, Johnny also gets a pretty disappointing default attire this time around).

While there aren’t any secret fighters, Goro has been tweaked to be less of a cheap spam artist.

When playing the story mode, you’ll have to battle against Tanya at one point, which was the first hint towards some of the DLC characters that would round out the game’s roster. Similarly, originally, Goro was only available as a pre-order bonus and would await you as the penultimate boss in the traditional arcade ladder. Thankfully, Goro is nowhere near as cheap or as tough as in Mortal Kombat (2009); a far more balanced character, he still tanks your attacks with armour and is capable of dishing out a great deal of damage but it doesn’t feel like the game (and the character) has suddenly been ramped up when you face him (you can even perform finishing moves on him this time around). Fighting Goro really helps to emphasise how much fairer Mortal Kombat XL is over its predecessor; Breakers and parry moves are still a pain in the ass but the computer no longer hides behind their blocks and is nowhere near as cheap and frustrating as in Mortal Kombat (2009).

Even in his most demonic form, Shinnok is no Shao Kahn, which a good thing as the fight is actually fair!

At the conclusion of the story mode (and waiting at the end of the classic tower) is Shinnok (who is, unlike Shao Kahn in the last game, also a playable character). The fight against Shinnok is a standard two round affair that is far easier than battling Shao Kahn; first of all, you don’t have to worry about Shinnok hiding behind armour and spamming moves that drain half or all of your health in a few attacks and can freely jump in and attack Shinnok with a string of combos rather than camping out at the far edge of the screen and spamming your projectiles. Defeat him, however, and he transforms into the boss-exclusive “Corrupted Shinnok”, a demonic form that looks far more intimidating than it actually is. You are still free to attack at your leisure and however you prefer, which makes beating the arcade ladder much easier and far less frustrating than in the last game. Sadly, though, there are no secret or hidden fights to be found this time around, which is a shame.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Although it scales back on the available mini games and distractions, Mortal Kombat XL sees the return of the Test Your Might mini game and the Test Your Luck mode. Test Your Might is now confined to the towers and has you, once again, mashing buttons until the targeting reticule is in optimum position so you can hit LT and RT to smash a variety of materials. This quickly becomes incredibly difficult, though, and sees you frantically mashing buttons only to fail and see your character being killed as a result. Test Your Luck allows you to have up to seven different modifiers that will randomly select your opponent and cause a number of positive and negative effects to alter the fight; this can cause acid to rain down, Cyrax’s bombs to fly into the fight, dashing, blocking, or Breakers being disabled, an instant boost for your Super Meter or health, or characters to randomly fall asleep among many others. It remains a very fun and entertaining additional mode that adds a lot of chaos and variety to the game and there’s even a whole tower dedicated to this mode to really spice up your fights.

Test Your Luck and Dragon Challenges help to spice up fights considerably with random elements.

When tackling the Living Towers (either as part of a Faction or the timed tower challenges), you’ll also be tasked with completing a “Dragon Challenge” as indicated by an ethereal dragon flying around your next fight. This gives you the option of performing a specific task (such as landing certain attacks or not blocking) during the fight to earn additional Koins, XP, and points for your Faction. When tackling the Living Towers and Faction Towers, you’ll also find that your opponents are far more capable than in the regular arcade ladder on the easiest setting and that fights are often subject to Test Your Luck-style modifiers and, though Kombat Kodes are no longer a thing, you can evoke the spirit of those codes using the Kustom Kombat mode to set modifiers and fight-altering effects when fighting against a friend.

Additional Features:
Mortal Kombat XL offers sixty Achievements for you to earn, with only two being directly tied to the completion of the story mode. The others encourage you to experiment with all the different characters, variations, and game modes on offer, giving you Achievements for winning fights with every character variation, completing towers, performing jumps, throws, and Fatalities, and battling online. Best of all, the developers added thirteen additional Achievements when they released the DLC packs, with many of these directly tied to the DLC fighters, though a great deal of the game’s Achievements are tied to battling online, which can be tricky given how stupidly good players always seem to be online.

Mortal Kombat XL‘s guest fighters were a mixed bag but included some fun, smart, and fitting choices.

As in the last game, the DLC characters unfortunately don’t come with additional costumes but their appearance does change when you select their variations (Alien has a variation that spawns Baraka’s trademark arm blades, for example; both Jason Voorhees and Leatherface’s appearances alter to reflect their looks in different movies, and you can even choose to play as Cyber Sub-Zero by pressing up twice when selecting Triborg’s variation). The DLC fighters are an…interesting bunch; on the one hand, the game offers what I would consider to be underwhelming characters like Tanya and Bo’ Rai Cho (I seriously don’t get why Rain wasn’t upgraded to the main roster after the last game) while also bringing back an obscure character like Tremor and making the brilliant decision of combining the cybernetic ninjas into one character. Then there are the guest fighters; Predator was an awesome, inspiring inclusion (as was the skin packs that accompanied him) and including Alien was a logical choice but, as great as Jason is (one of his variations has him returning to life with a small bit of health after being defeated), it feels like a missed opportunity to have him in a game where Freddy Krueger is absent. Leatherface is a decent enough inclusion, to be sure, but hardly conjures the same visual as Freddy when set against Jason.

Explore the bigger, more detailed Krypt to spend your Koins on finisher inputs, concept art, and more.

Thankfully, though, the DLC characters aren’t completely mute this time around and there were loads of additional skins released for the game (some that were only unlockable by linking up to the mobile game) that include classic outfits (and Fatalities) and character cosplay. All of these are included as part of the XL version of the game but NetherRealm Studios did release a few additional skins after the XL edition released so, while it is the definitive, most complete version of the game, it’s not got 100% of the content as a result. Returning from Mortal Kombat (2009) is the Krypt, which is now a far more elaborate first-person jaunt through spooky, gothic environments; this time, you can also acquire a number of iconic items (such as Reptile’s Claw, Scorpion’s Spear, and Raiden’s Staff) to open up new areas and explore further. In the Krypt, you’ll be able to spend your Koins opening a whole bunch of chests to unlock concept art, finishing moves, and other goodies but, if that’s all too much work for you (and, honestly, it can be), you can pay real-world money to unlock everything in the Krypt.

There’s a lot of variety on offer thanks to Factions, online modes, and ever-changing towers.

Otherwise, you’ll earn rewards and Koins the old-fashioned way: grinding. Lots and lots of grinding. You’ll do this primarily by besting the game’s many towers with each fighter, performing finishing moves, and battling online. Online fights include standard one-on-one affairs and the “King of the Hill” mode where you sit and watch other players fight until it’s your turn and offer (and receive) “Respect” points. Sadly, however, I found online play far too difficult to be enjoyable; I don’t know what it is but online players always seem to move at lightning speed, stringing together nearly endless combos and attacking with an aggression that makes it almost impossible for you to win without a bit of luck and a lot of spamming. There is some attempt to encourage collaboration through the Faction mechanic but it’s tentative, at best; when an Invasion Boss becomes available, you’ll battle them alone rather than directly alongside other players and your Faction can easily win (or lose) without you being involved in any of the decisions at all.

The Summary:
Mortal Kombat XL takes everything that worked in Mortal Kombat (2009) and ramps it up to eleven; not only are the graphics leaps and bounds beyond the last game, the gameplay mechanics have been tweaked and adjusted and expanded upon to make the game far more accessible and enjoyable. The inclusion of intractable stage elements adds an additional layer to every fight and increases your immersion in the game and, thanks to the Super Meter filling faster and the wide array of offensive and defensive options available to you, fights are faster and more entertainingly gruesome than ever. Best of all, even with the continued inclusion of Breakers, parries, and having to hold block to press up for some finishing moves, the computer-controlled opponents are far less likely to hide behind their block or just smack you out of the air so fights are much more fun rather than becoming frustrating or annoying.

For me, Mortal Kombat XL is the best of NetherRealm Studios’ revived Mortal Kombat titles by far.

There’s very little at fault in Mortal Kombat XL for me; of all the NetherRealm Studios Mortal Kombat games, it’s easily my favourite and expands the story into new territory. While it’s a shame that some story elements were abandoned and a lot of the new characters are a bit underwhelming, the benefits on offer far outweigh the negative. Mortal Kombat XL also comes before NetherRealm Studios got greedy and locked everything behind numerous in-game currencies, grinding, and real-world purchases; the DLC was really well done and actually included additional Achievements, I enjoyed all of the different skins, and the game expands upon the Challenge Tower of the last game into a wide variety of different gameplay modes to keep you coming back for more (as if the horrific Fatalities weren’t enough).

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

What did you think to the XL edition of Mortal Kombat X? Did you buy the base game and all the DLC packs separately or, like me, did you wait for this complete edition to release before buying the game? What did you think to the DLC characters this time around and the additional Achievements and skins made available? What did you think to the game’s story; did you like it as a retelling of Mortal Kombat 4 and an expansion into new territory or were you disappointed by the new fighters? What did you think to the new features, like the variations, Factions, and Living Towers, and which Faction was your preference? Were there any characters or features missing from the game for you? Which Mortal Kombat game, movie, comic, or other piece of media is your favourite? Whatever your thoughts on Mortal Kombat XL, or Mortal Kombat in general, leave a comment down below.

Game Corner [MK Month]: Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition (Xbox 360)

Dr. K6 Comments

To celebrate the simultaneous worldwide release of Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1992) on home consoles, today, 13 September 1993, was dubbed “Mortal Monday”. Mortal Kombat’s move to home consoles impacted not only the ongoing “Console War” between SEGA and Nintendo but also videogames forever thanks to its controversial violence. Fittingly, to commemorate this game-changing event, I’m dedicating every Monday of September to celebrating the Mortal Kombat franchise.

Released: 28 February 2012
Originally Released: 19 April 2011
Developer: NetherRealm Studios
Also Available For: PC, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita

The Background:
Thanks, primarily, to its focus on gore and violence and unique digitised graphics, Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1992) was a phenomenal success for Midway and offered some real competition for Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Capcom, 1991) in arcades and on home consoles. However, while the series seemed unstoppable during the 2D era of gaming, Mortal Kombat struggled to find a footing in the emerging 3D fighter arena and, thanks to the poor reception of Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Midway Games, 2008), was in serious jeopardy after Midway went bankrupt in 2010. Luckily, Warner Bros. Interactive stepped in and the team, now rebranded to NetherRealm Studios, immediately set about getting their violent franchise back on track.

As good as some of the 3D games were, the series floundered compared to its former glory.

Simply called Mortal Kombat, the ninth entry in the franchise sought to return the series to its mature, bloody roots and was developed with a very “back to basics” approach in mind. Some of the more ridiculous elements from the series were removed and the game was developed to be both accessible through its fighting mechanics and technically impressive with its physics and gore. Although this once again stirred controversy, the game was incredibly well-received and its sales were enough to cover the costs of Midway’s acquisition. So popular and critically lauded was Mortal Kombat (2009) that the team were able to offer a number of additional fighters and skins in the form of downloadable content (DLC) and re-release the game with all these extra inclusions and this Komplete Edition was equally well-received upon release, effectively bringing new life into what looked to be a dead franchise.

The Plot:
Faced with defeat and Shao Kahn’s ultimate victory after the malevolent emperor lays claim to a God-like power, Raiden sends a message back through time to his younger self warning him of the coming events. This leads to a divergent timeline in which Raiden desperately attempts to interpret this grim warning of death and destruction whilst also coaching the Earthrealm warriors through slightly altered versions of events from the first three videogames.

Gameplay:
Like basically every single 3D Mortal Kombat title, Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition is a 2.5D fighting game in which players pick from one of thirty-two characters and battle through the game’s single-player story mode, fight either one-on-one or two-on-two against another player or computer-controlled opponent, battle their way through an arcade ladder, or take on a series of increasingly difficult challenges and mini games based on your ability to follow an eyeball or mash buttons. Fights are preset to take place in a best-of-three format and against a time limit but you can alter these settings (and many others, including the difficulty of the game) from the game’s main menu to speed up gameplay or make it more accessible.

Pummel opponents with a simple, but surprisingly deep, array of combos and attacks.

Unlike the 3D Mortal Kombat fighters that preceeded it, which featured two different fighting styles and a weapon style for each character, Mortal Kombat goes back to its roots with simple, but surprisingly complex, fighting mechanics. You can attack your opponent with punches using X or Y, kicks with A or B, throw (more of a grapple, really) them with RB, and block incoming attacks by holding RT. You can also dash towards and away from your opponent, jump in or crouch down to attack or avoid projectiles, and string together combos by quickly pressing the attack buttons alongside directional inputs. The game includes a tutorial mode that teaches you all of the basics of the game’s combat, which is more complex depending on how skilled you are and which character you play as.

The game’s unique X-Ray feature allows you to see, in graphic detail, the damage your attacks inflict.

Each character comes loaded with their own unique special moves that you can perform using simple button and directional inputs (back, back, A, for example, or left, down, right, X); these can be stringed together with combos and enhanced with a well-timed press of RT when your “Super Meter” has reached the first tier. This will add a bit more impact and flair to your special move but, if you let the meter fill to the next tier (by landing special moves or taking damage), you’ll be able to pull off a “Breaker”, which will interrupt the opponent’s combo or attack if you manage to press RT and a direction at the right time. When the meter fills completely, you can blow the whole thing by pressing RT and LT at the same time to pull off a spectacularly gruesome “X-Ray” move that will see your character dealing massive damage with bone-breaking attacks. Be wary, though, as sometimes you need to be in a specific situation to pull these off; Cyber Sub-Zero’s X-Ray, for example, is performed in mid-air and Johnny Cage’s only works as a parry to incoming attacks.

Finish off your opponent by performing a Fatality and leaving them a dismembered, mutilated mess.

As you might expect, X-Rays are only outdone by the series’ trademark Fatalities; at the end of the deciding round (usually round two), you’ll be ordered to finish your opponent and given a very brief window of opportunity to stand in a specific spot and enter another button combination to tear your opponent to pieces, usually resulting in them being dismembered or beheaded or blown to shreds. Every character has at least two Fatalities available to them (in addition to a “Stage Fatality” that sees you ending your opponent using the environment in specific stages) but some have a third based on their classic Fatalities from the first game. One of the benefits to owning the Komplete Edition is that every Fatality is available right from the start, though you can still purchase them using the Koins you earn from fights in the game’s Krypt and can practice them to your heart’s content in the Fatality Tutorial. If you feel more like humiliating your opponent, though, you can choose to pull off a Babality instead, which will see you reduce your opponent to a crying infant. While these aren’t as horrific or entertaining as the gory Fatalities, you are awarded more Koins for pulling these off so there is an incentive to finishing your opponent as the more Koins you have, the more bonus content you can unlock in the Krypt. Noticeably, though, I found that combos, special moves, and especially finishing moves were actually harder to pull off here than I remember in the PlayStation 3 version and subsequent Mortal Kombat titles; often, my character would jump or dash when I pressed left or right and some of the button inputs are more difficult to pull off compared to later games because they require you to input more directional commands and even press up (which, to pull off, you need to hold down RB).

Team up with another player, or go it alone, to form a tag team and pull off tag team moves.

Unlike its subsequent titles, you don’t need to worry about amassing a bunch of different currency or unlocking a bunch of extraneous gear for your characters. Every time you perform certain combos, win fights, or complete challenges, you’ll earn Koins that can be spent in the Krypt to unlock concept art and such. When you complete the sole arcade ladder included in the game (which, despite having different difficulty settings, always has you fighting ten opponents), you’ll unlock your character’s ending and an alternate costume (though, again, these are all accessible right from the start in the Komplete Edition but still need to be unlocked/purchased to earn an Achievement). One thing that does separate Mortal Kombat from its successors is the inclusion of an optional tag mode; this allows you to tag between two fighters with a press of LB and even pull off tag team assist moves and have another player fight alongside you. You can even take on the arcade ladder in this mode, unlocking two endings for the price of one, and, while I usually dislike tag or team fighters, I give this one a pass as it’s an optional gameplay mode and not forced upon you.

The story mode contains familiar elements but also new events that changed the franchise’s direction.

Of course, one of the primary attractions of Mortal Kombat is its single player story mode that picks up right after the ending of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Midway Games, 2006) and sees you playing through an altered version of the first three games as the series goes back to its roots and, for the first time, details these events in a coherent and decisive way. The story is split into chapters, with each chapter dedicated to one of the Earthrealm warriors as they battle against the forces of Outworld (and even their own teammates at times). This is a great way to allow you to familiarise yourself with the vast majority of the game’s fighters and their unique combos and special moves and a great way to make some headway towards the game’s Achievements, though you cannot perform Fatalities or Babalities when playing the story mode. At times, you’ll also be tasked with fighting two opponents by yourself, which can be a bit unfair since you’re only given a single character and life bar and the game’s difficulty can be frustratingly unreasonable as the computer-controlled characters love to block and jump-kick you out of the air or pull off a devastating combo or X-Ray attack when you least expect it.

Graphics and Sound:
When I first played Mortal Kombat, it was a very impressive title and the most graphically advanced of the series up to that point. looking back at it now, it’s obviously not going to look as good as, say, Mortal Kombat 11 (NetherRealm Studios, 2019) but it still holds up really well, I think. Some character models (like Liu Kang, especially) are a little off but there’s very little distinction between the in-game graphics and those featured in the story mode’s cutscenes and characters are full of life and little quirks, like Reptile being hunched over and slobbering, the females all having amusing jiggle physics, and Kabal adjusting his breathing apparatus between rounds. Sadly, the developers chose to forgo full motion CGI cutscenes for the characters’ endings and, instead, utilise a motion comic-like aesthetic and voice over, which is a bit of a letdown considering how good the cutscenes are in the game.

The game recreates classic stages, including some of my favourites from Mortal Kombat 3.

Still, Mortal Kombat more than makes up for this with the variety and detail of its stages; while you can’t interact with your environment like in later games or smash your opponent into new areas, the game features lovingly realised recreations of stages from the first three games. You’ll battle in Shang Tsung’s courtyard while monks cheer you on, above a spike-filled pit while fighters can be seen battling in the background, and in Shao Kahn’s arena and throne room as he launches jeers and praise your way. One of my favourite Mortal Kombat games is Mortal Kombat 3 (Midway, 1995) and I’m happy to say that a lot of that game’s stages feature here as well, meaning you’ll not only once again battle in the city streets and in the subway but also on a rooftop while the city is being attacked and destroyed by dragons and other monstrosities in the background.

Stages come to life for certain Fatalities and characters shine in the story mode.

There’s loads of little details in the backgrounds of stages to liven things up and catch your attention; you’ll see random fighters and captives going at it, traffic and trains flying past, trees roaring at you, sacrificial rituals being performed, and even spot a few Easter Eggs and cameos if you look hard enough. Many of these come to the forefront when you perform a Stage Fatality, which sees you leaving your opponent in the middle of the road to be decapitated by an oncoming car, splattered against a subway train, careening down to a spiked pit, dunked into acid, or having their face melted off by the molten lava of the NetherRealm. Equally welcome are the many remixes of classic Mortal Kombat tracks, which do a great job of setting the mood and ambience for each stage, and the quality of the voice acting in the story mode’s cutscenes (with Johnny Cage being a particular highlight).

X-Rays display damage in graphic detail and characters carry the scars of battle as fights progress.

Such gruesome features are, obviously, a highlight of Mortal Kombat and only further emphasised through the game’s unique X-Ray mechanic. When you pull off your character’s X-Ray move, the game goes to great lengths to show the damage and brutality of your attacks on your opponent, meaning you’ll see ribs splinter, organs burst, and blood spew like a geyser. Even better, when characters take damage or are splattered by viscera this is reflected in their character models; as a result, at the end of a particularly gruelling fight, you’ll see that your character has bruises and cuts and that your clothes are torn and ripped (resulting in Scorpion’s exposed skull being visible, for example). Things only escalate when you pull off your character’s Fatality moves; while not as elaborate or horrific as those seen in subsequent Mortal Kombat games, these were easily the most realistic and gruesome seen in the series at the time. Perhaps inevitably, given how big the roster is, some are better than others but it’s fantastic seeing Noob Saibot literally tear his opponent in two, Scorpion melt his foe with his classic “Toasty!” Fatality, or seeing your battered opponent dismembered in a shower of guts and gore. Skin is peeled and melted away from the bone, limbs and heads are torn off with reckless abandon, and bodies are mutilated with a simple effectiveness that is the perfect way to put the exclamation point on a particularly gruelling fight.

Enemies and Bosses:
Being that it’s a fighting game, every character will be your enemy at some point and you’ll inevitably be forced to do battle with (and against) all of them at least once when you play through the story mode or take on the arcade ladder and Challenge Tower. Naturally, every character controls and fights a little differently; some are better suited to projectile-based attacks, others can snatch opponents out of the air with mid-air grabs, while others can turn invisible, intangible, or teleport across the arena to avoid attacks and land blows from behind. Therefore, you’re better off playing through the story mode and getting an idea of how many of the game’s characters play to see who works best for you; some characters, for example, might have trickier combos or special moves, while others might have parry attacks to help you interrupt combos and incoming attacks, but generally I find that you can usually find some simple combos and special moves that you can easily master for every character (and, if you ever need help, you can easily view your character’s moves from the pause menu at any time).

Experiment and gain experience fighting with, and against, each fighter to prepare yourself.

Again, it’s perhaps inevitable that some characters are more capable (or broken) than others: Kabal, for example, boasts a rush move that leaves your opponent spinning on the spot and open for an attack alongside two really good ranged attacks; Sub-Zero can, as always, freeze his opponent in a variety of ways; Shang Tsung is able to restore a little bit of health with his Soul Steal ability and even briefly morph into other fighters, giving him access to their specials and X-Rays at the same time; Noob Saibot can use portals to teleport behind you; and characters like Quan Chi and Sheeva can leap off the screen and come crashing down on your head. Then you get a guy like Kano, who can perform really useful cannonball rolls and air grabs but these can be tricky to pull off; similarly, Jax has a lot of grapple moves at his command but they require you to get quite close to your opponent so there’s some risk involved there. Other characters like Sindel are afforded great range thanks to her versatile and hip-like hair, and Ermac and the aforementioned Quan Chi can use their telekinesis and hypnotism, respectively, to disorient their opponent.

Goro and Kintaro pose a significant threat thanks to their sheer power and ability to tank your attacks.

When playing through the game’s story mode and the arcade ladder, you’ll also battle against a handful of unplayable boss characters. Two of the most prominent are Goro and Kintaro, massive four-armed half human dragons who can blast you with devastating fireballs, crush you from above, and deliver massive damage with just a few swings of their arms. These guys are made even more tank-like by their annoying ability to gain armour, rendering them largely immune to your attacks, shrugging off your offense, and being able to absorb a great deal of punishment. For these guys, I tend to favour leaping in with a jump-kick, landing a quick combo, and then hopping out of harm’s way; this is essential as it’ll help you to avoid the shockwaves of their ground attacks and gives you the chance to kick them out of the air and avoid their projectiles and X-Ray moves. Things get even more difficult, though, in the story mode and Challenge Tower missions that force you to battle both Shokan warriors in a one-on-two tag battle but, with clever use of your enhanced special moves and quick combos, they’re not too difficult to put down.

Stay far away from Shao Kahn and strike with projectiles or when he’s taunting.

The shit really hits the fan when you face off against Shao Kahn, however. Like Goro and Kintaro, Shao Kahn can tank your attacks with armour, spams his devastating moves like a newbie, and is capable of absorbing a great deal of punishment even on the game’s easiest setting. Shao Kahn will toss a spear at you, charge at you with his spiked shoulder, and wallop you with his devastating hammer, which can leave you dizzy and vulnerable and mean your health bar will be drained to nothing in just a few hits (or, like with the Shokan, basically instantly drained if he lands his X-Ray attack). However, Shao Kahn is also an egotistical blowhard and will often stop to taunt or laugh at you, leaving him wide open for a combo, X-Ray, or enhanced special. By far the easiest solution to defeating Shao Kahn, though, is to keep your distance at the far side of the screen and just spam your projectile attack, hitting an enhanced special as and when they’re available, and just staying the hell away from him. It’s cheap, and not very satisfying, but no cheaper than Shao Kahn and it gets the job done.

Four super tough secret fighters await you in the arcade ladder and will truly test your skills.

When playing through the single-player arcade ladder with more than one round activated, and after fulfilling certain conditions, you’ll also get the chance to battle against four hidden fighters. These guys are palette swapped variants of Reptile, Noob Saibot, Smoke, and Jade that, like in the first two games, boast the special moves of characters like Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Kitana, and Mileena and can only be fought against if you fight on specific stages and meet specific criteria (not blocking, winning rounds without taking damage, performing Fatalities, and so forth). The effort you have to go to, and the luck required, to even face these hidden fighters is matched only by their sheer difficulty; Noob Saibot and Smoke, especially, are lighting fast, love to block (even more so than your usual opponents), can tank your attacks even better than Shao Kahn, and will devastate you with their enhanced special moves. Sadly, even to this day, I’ve been unable to access the fight against Jade but I imagine she’s no walk in the park either after I was thoroughly trounced by Noob Saibot.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Since it lacks many of the features and customisation options of its successors, there’s not really a lot of in-game power-ups on offer in Mortal Kombat; some characters, like Noob Saibot and Quan Chi, can buff themselves and debuff their opponents with some of their special moves, which adds an extra wrinkle to the gameplay, but the main way that you’ll see power-ups granted to you is if you play the “Test Your Luck” mode or during the versus screen for a two-player fighter. Here, each player can press buttons on their controller to input a variety of “Kombat Codes” (which can be unlocked in the Krypt or found online) to change the parameters of the fight; this means you can disable blocking, power bars, throws, and specials or even fight without arms or heads!

Test Your Luck offers a great deal of entertainment and variety to the usual fights.

Similarly, in Test Your Luck, you’ll randomly be forced to fight with a variety of different effects in play, many of which are similar to those activated by the Kombat Codes. This means you can end up fighting with reduced health, upside down, as zombies, without arms or heads, or in pitch black while flames burst from the floor. It’s honestly one of the most entertaining additional modes in the game and really helps to spice up two-player fights as you never know what sort of effects are going to be activated, meaning that even seasoned players can be thrown off their game by the mode’s many different effects.

Additional Features:
As alluded to above, Mortal Kombat comes with fifty Achievements for you to earn; two of these are awarded just for playing through the story mode but you’ll get three more for beating the arcade mode once, with every fighter, and with a tag team. Other Achievements include performing every character’s X-Ray, Fatality, and forwards and backwards throw, unlocking every alternate costume, and spilling 10,000 pints of blood, all of which are pretty easy to do as you play through story mode and the arcade ladder. Some are tied to the game’s online modes, though, and are thus trickier to obtain now but by far the worse Achievements are ‘My Kung Fu is Strong’ and ‘My Kung Fu is Stronger’, which require to you gain mastery of first one and then every fighter in the game, which basically equates to many hundreds of hours of gameplay and is, frankly, pretty ridiculous.

The Challenge Tower hosts a wide variety of increasingly difficult challenges.

Unlike NetherRealm Studios’ later efforts, Mortal Kombat is actually quite light on additional gameplay modes; you can battle against other players online in ‘King of the Hill’ matches and the like but, rather than taking on ever-changing arcade towers, Mortal Kombat offers only the one Challenge Tower. This is a series of fights that begins as an extended tutorial and soon evolves into a variety of unique and increasingly difficult tasks; although you can skip the challenges by spending some Koins, you’ll need to best them all to unlock a super sexy alternate skin for Mileena and obtain 100% completion but this is easier said than done. Challenges range from simply defeating an opponent, completing a mini game, or taking part in a more unique task such as using (or spamming) a character’s projectile attack to take out waves of enemies. You’ll face off against a number of opponents not seen in the playable roster, which adds a bit of variety to the proceedings, but things quickly become increasingly difficult, frustrating, and down-right insane as you’ll eventually be asked to battle incredibly powerful versions of the likes of Goro, Kintaro, and Shao Kahn in a gauntlet and with only a single life bar, which frankly just isn’t worth the aggravation.

Complete mini games, spend your Koins in the Krypt, and view stats and models in the Nekropolis.

Outside of this mode, you can also take on classic Mortal Kombat mini games like “Test Your Might” as well as the very similar “Test Your Strike”. Both to these will see you mashing buttons until a bar fills up and then pressing LT or RT at just the right moment to smash a variety of materials. These start off easy enough but soon become incredible difficult and you’ll find yourself furiously mashing away only to fail at the last second when the bar dips too low. There’s also the “Test Your Sight” mini game, which sees you picking which cup hides a severed eyeball and is, comparatively, far less aggravating but, to complete all of these challenges and get 100% completion, you’ll need to play through the Challenge Tower. Then there’s the Krypt; unlike the elaborate, third-person quasi-adventure mode of later games, the Krypt here is a first-person jaunt through four nightmarish landscapes littered with gravestones, bodies, and tortured souls for you to free at the cost of some Koins. This will unlock concept art, renders, Fatality and Babality inputs, Kombat Codes, and alternate costumes, all of which you can view in the Gallery within the game’s Nekropolis. The Nekropolis also allows you to view the stats for each fighter (including total play time, blood spilt, Fatalities performed, and such), their endings, and their models. You can even apply various stages of battle damage to each model, which is kind of cool, and will gain a special item for each character when you complete the arcade ladder with them or unlock their alternate costume from the Krypt.

All four DLC fighters are included as standard but have no extra costumes or Achievements.

In the regular version of Mortal Kombat, you would unlock two additional fighters (Quan Chi and Cyber Sub-Zero) by completing the story mode but both of these are included right off the bat in the Komplete Edition. The inclusion of a cybernetic variant for Sub-Zero was interesting at the time but, sadly, was quickly undone in the very next game, as were many of the major ramifications of Mortal Kombat’s story. Finally, there’s the inclusion of every single downloadable fighter (apart from the PlayStation 3-exclusive Kratos); Mortal Kombat had some interesting DLC at the time, which included classic costumes (and Fatalities) for the likes of Sub-Zero and Scorpion, a brand new character based on a rumoured secret fighter, Skarlet, a surprise addition in the form of Kenshi, and one of my favourite ninja characters, Rain. It also set the trend for NetherRealm Studios’ later games by including a guest fighter from outside of the franchise, in this case Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare on Elm Street films (Various, 1984 to 2010). Sadly, however, none of the guest fighters speak (not even Freddy, despite the fact that Robert Englund provided the grunts and vocals for the character and his penchant for dark humour) or have alternate costumes and there are no additional Achievements tied to their inclusion; the Komplete Edition doesn’t even expand/update the player select screen to include them, which is a bit of a shame.

The Summary:
I have very fond memories of playing Mortal Kombat on the PlayStation 3; the fantastic retelling of the first three games was a great way to continue the franchise’s convoluted story while also streamlining it and making it cohesive for a change and the emphasis on unrepentant gore and violent combat was just the kick up the ass the series needed after getting sidetracked with all kinds of needless gimmicks. I remember the game being easy to pick up and play, with a surprising amount of depth to it, and offering a decent challenge the more you played and the more you tried to progress. Coming back to it with the Komplete Edition, much of my opinion remain the same; combat is fast and fluid, Fatalities and X-Rays are gruesome to behold and satisfying to watch, and the story does a great job of setting the stage for a new generation of fighters and new stories to be told.

While frustrating at times, Mortal Kombat did wonders for the series and finally got it back on track.

Sadly, though, there were some things that soured the experience for me: it’s clear that NetherRealm Studios refined the engine and the mechanics in the next game as the button inputs can be really finicky and aggravating at times; stages are nice and detailed but also lack an interactive elements outside of Stage Fatalities (even Mortal Kombat 3 let you smash your opponent into new areas); bosses like Goro, Kintaro, and Shao Kahn are super cheap and ridiculously annoying at times; and the computer just blocks way too often even on the easiest difficulty. This wouldn’t be so bad but you’re at risk of being hit with a Goddamn Breaker if you attack while they’re blocking; add to that the frustrating parry mechanics of guys like Liu Kang and Cyber Sub-Zero, Mileena and Noob Saibot’s overpowered teleport attacks, and the game not properly registering my inputs and it was needlessly exasperating at times. There’s still a lot to like here and it’s definitely worth your time but it clearly set the groundwork for bigger and better things in the far superior sequel, in my opinion.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What are your thoughts on the Komplete Edition of Mortal Kombat? Did you hold out for this version of the game or did you just get the base version and buy the DLC later? Were you a fan of how the game went back to basics and explored the roots of the series in a coherent and decisive way or would you have preferred to see the game try something truly new? Which fighter in the game (or the franchise) is your favourite and why? What did you think to the DLC characters and the game’s X-Rays and Fatalities? What did you think to the online options and the different towers the game had to offer? Which Mortal Kombat game, movie, comic, or other piece of media is your favourite? How are you celebrating Mortal Monday today? Whatever your thoughts on Mortal Kombat, leave a comment down below and check back in next Monday for more Mortal Kombat content.

Game Corner [MK Month]: Mortal Kombat Trilogy (PlayStation)

Dr. K12 Comments

To celebrate the simultaneous worldwide release of Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1992) on home consoles, 13 September 1993 was dubbed “Mortal Monday”. Mortal Kombat’s move to home consoles impacted not only the ongoing “Console War” between SEGA and Nintendo but also videogames forever thanks to its controversial violence. Fittingly, to commemorate this game-changing event, I’m dedicating every Monday of September to celebrating the Mortal Kombat franchise.

Click here to watch my playthrough

Released: 10 October 1996
Developer: Avalanche Software
Also Available For: Game.com, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC, R-Zone, Playstation 4, PlayStation 5, SEGA Saturn, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X

The Background:
Cast your mind back, if you possibly can, to the 1990s when arcades were in full force. Competitive fighting games were suddenly all the rage thanks, largely, to the many iterations of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Capcom, 1991), a title that also saw great success on home consoles and had players queuing in droves to get a chance to play the arcade cabinet. Intending to compete with Capcom’s popular brawler, developers Ed Boon and John Tobias took inspiration from seminal fantasy and martial arts movies like Enter the Dragon (Clouse, 1973), Bloodsport (Arnold, 1988), and Big Trouble in Little China (Carpenter, 1986) and utilised unique, state of the art digitised graphics to bring their concept of an ultra-violent tournament fighter to life. Almost immediately, Mortal Kombat changed the genre with its simple fighting mechanics and over the top violence, which caused a great deal of controversy that led only to more extreme Mortal Kombat titles being produced.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy was the culmination of over five years of success for the franchise.

By 1996, it’s fair to say that the Mortal Kombat franchise was on a high; the live-action movie had released to surprising success the previous year, an animated series was due to air soon and a live-action series was on the horizon, and the games had seen great success on home consoles and many different iterations in the arcades. Mortal Kombat Trilogy was the culmination of the franchise’s 2D success; essentially an expanded version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Midway Games, 1995), Mortal Kombat Trilogy assembled the biggest roster of fighters the series had ever seen and mashed together all of the stages, finishing moves, and stories of the first three games. Released exclusively on home consoles, each version of the game contained a number of differences that affected gameplay and player options and was received differently depending on which platform it was played. Given that my favourite release from the classic Mortal Kombat titles is Mortal Kombat 3 (Midway, 1995), Mortal Kombat Trilogy was a must-buy when I started collecting PlayStation games thanks to its expansive roster and sheer amount of ridiculous finishing moves but it can’t be denied that it was released at a time when Mortal Kombat fatigue was beginning to set in so it’ll be interesting to see how it holds up today.

The Plot:
Unlike other “Trilogy” videogames, Mortal Kombat Trilogy is simply an expanded version of Mortal Kombat 3 and, thus, has very much the same plot. Having lost to Earthrealm in the ages-old tradition of Mortal Kombat, Outworld emperor Shao Kahn has his wife, Sindel, resurrected on Earthrealm, thus weakening the dimensional barriers and allowing him to embark on an all-out invasion campaign! In a desperate bid to oppose him, the Thunder God Raiden assembles a team of fighters to push back the Outworld forces and safeguard the realm.

Gameplay:
Since I grew up mostly playing Mortal Kombat 3  on the Mega Drive and PC, Mortal Kombat Trilogy is about as classic as classic can be for me when it comes to the old school, 2D style of the original games. Mortal Kombat Trilogy brings together every stage, finishing move, and character from the three (well, four if you count Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 as a separate game) original games, transplanting their moves and appearance into Mortal Kombat 3’s game engine for the biggest and most expansive Mortal Kombat ever produced at that point. Players can pick from one of a whopping thirty-seven different fighters and battle their way through one-on-one arcade ladders in best of three-style bouts or form teams of two or eight to take on another player in team-based fights; if players want to fight one-on-one, though, a second player will have to press the start button when player one begins their journey up one of the game’s four different towers.

Combat couldn’t be simpler in Mortal Kombat Trilogy, awarding victory with minimal effort.

One of the things that I’ve always loved about Mortal Kombat is how much easier it is to pick up and play compared to Street Fighter II; you don’t need to worry about “frame cancels” or anything like that here. You simply pick a character and they all control exactly the same except for their special moves: Triangle and Circle allow you to kick, Square and X punch, you jump by pressing up on the directional pad (D-pad), block with L1 or R1, and can close the distance towards your opponent by holding down L2 or R2 to run (which is limited by a small stamina meter beneath your health bar). By pressing the D-pad in conjunction with these buttons, you can pull off combinations of attacks or send you opponent flying with a roundhouse kick or uppercut; you can also throw your opponent when you attack up close and can enable automatic combos from the game’s main menu to make combos even easier to pull off.

Characters are separated by their unique special moves, which can be chained together with combos.

Unlike modern fighters, Mortal Kombat Trilogy is quite barebones in terms of offering any kind of move list, tutorial, or practice mode. Thankfully, you can generally get by simply by mashing buttons and performing jumping attacks and by experimenting with the D-pad and buttons to pull off each character’s special moves. The usual button inputs are your best bet (down, forward, X or back, down, Triangle) but, if you’re struggling or new to the games, you can always look up the character’s special moves online. As every character basically controls the same (the only ones that are actually slower and more powerful are the boss characters like Goro and Shao Kahn), your preference will come down to who looks the coolest and who has the most accessible special moves; personally, I’ve always been a Sub-Zero guy. Mortal Kombat Trilogy offers two versions of the ice ninja, with each featuring slightly different moves and animations to separate them, but you might prefer to play as Jax (who has more grapple and stun options) or Sheeva (who can crush her foes beneath her feet) or characters like Raiden and Kung Lao who have a teleport ability. No matter who you pick, you have access to a projectile attack and numerous ways to pummel your opponent so it all comes down to who you like best and who you are most comfortable with.

There are now many different and brutal ways to finish off your opponent.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy is absolutely jam packed when it comes to finishing moves; every single character has two Fatalities, a non-lethal Friendship, an Animality, a Babality, can show Mercy to their opponent (thereby restoring a small slither of the opponent’s health), and can pull off a Brutality when the deciding round is over and you’re ordered to “Finish Him!” (or her, obviously). Some stages also allow you to pull off a “Stage Fatality” that will see the opponent sent plummeting to their death or thrown in front of an oncoming train but you’re only given a short window of time to enter the button combination for these moves and, if you miss it or are standing in the wrong place, you’ll be denied witnessing your opponent’s gruesome end. Sadly, there’s not a massive amount of variety on offer in Mortal Kombat Trilogy when it comes to gameplay. The first game broke up the mindless brutality with its “Test Your Might” challenges and Mortal Kombat 3 featured hidden mini games after you amassed a number of wins but neither of these features are present here. The “Endurance Round” makes an unwelcome return, however; when you play through the arcade ladder, you’ll have to endure at least one of these, which pits you against two opponents with two separate life bars while you only have one. You can experience this yourself in the game’s “2 on 2” mode, where you and another player pit teams of two against each other but, unfortunately, this mode can only be played with another player. Similarly, you can only play the “8 Player Kombat” mode (which is essentially a standard tournament bracket) against another human player, which is a bit of a shame as it would have been nice to take on both of these additional modes against computer-controlled opponents.

Graphics and Sound:
For me, it’s hard to beat Mortal Kombat Trilogy in terms of the classic, 2D, digitised look of the original games. Midway had really perfected the procedure by this point and the sprites are much more detailed and varied with some fun little touches (like Cyrax, Sektor, and Smoke’s throws all being this little mechanical arm that comes from their shoulders). Sure, there are a lot of palette-swapped ninjas and cybernetic characters but they all have different special moves and finishers and it never really felt that lazy to me (though, admittedly, that could be the nostalgia talking). As I mentioned, every character from the previous games features here but you’ll notice that Johnny Cage’s sprite has been completely redone from scratch and that he is missing his patented “nut punch” move due to legal issues with the original actor and the new characters lacking the appropriate reaction frames, respectively. Other characters, like Baraka, Rayden, and Stryker, actually gained additional moves to flesh out their moveset but, sadly, the developers didn’t go to the same amount of effort to animate some Fatalities, like Sub-Zero’s classic spine rip.

Sadly, some finishing moves are lazier and less impressive than others.

As you fight, character animations are still quite limited and you’ll notice that they often use the same types of punches, kicks, and postures for pulling off their moves or reaction to attacks. They become a lot more expressive when performing their finishing moves, however, with Kabal ripping off his face mask to reveal his disgusting visage, Sheeva stripping characters to the bone, and Liu Kang dropping a Mortal Kombat arcade cabinet on his opponent. Given that the game has such a large roster of characters, though, a lot of the Fatalities can be a bit lazy and boil down to a character being beheaded or exploding into a ridiculous amount of bones and skulls. Similarly, the Brutalities are just a long combo string that sees you pummel the opponent until they explode in gore and it definitely seems like the developers were beginning to run out of ideas for unique Fatalities for all the newer characters so I recommend sticking with characters who were in the original games as their finishers tend to have a bit more creativity involved.

Animalities are fun, if a bit inconsistent, but lazy Babalities exist just to humiliate your foe.

The Animalities, though, are notably ridiculous; characters will transform into glowing, ethereal creatures to kill their opponent but the actual animal transformation is generally the best part of these finishers as most of the actual deaths again boil down to a decapitation or explosion. Additionally, characters added after Mortal Kombat 3 oddly transform into more realistic looking creatures and Scorpion’s absence from that game means he doesn’t even turn into a scorpion, which is pretty crazy and I’m sure it couldn’t have been that hard to swap the code around to allow this. Friendships tend to be a bit more visually interesting and entertaining, though, featuring the likes of Kid Thunder and Kung Lao using his hat to play fetch with a doggy. Babalities are easily the laziest of the finishers, though, as the baby sprites don’t move and just sit there crying but I appreciate all of the variety on offer and it’s pretty easy to just stick to the more impressive finishers.

Stages old and new appear but I have a lot of nostalgia for the Mortal Kombat 3 stages.

Stages (actually referred to as “Kombat Zones”) are equally varied; you have to jump through a small hoop to actually pick which one you want to fight on but all the stages from the first there games are back, with a few minor changes (Shao Kahn replaces Shang Tsung in the background, for example). This is great for me as I always loved the stages in Mortal Kombat 3, which brought the series into more urban environments; many of these also feature stage transitions that allow you to uppercut your opponent up into another stage, which I always found massively satisfying. Otherwise, there’s not much you can interact with but there’s a fair amount of variety and interesting stuff in the stages to keep you occupied (the Soul Well, for example, or Cyrax being stuck in Jade’s Desert, the developer’s names appearing on tombstones, and the infamous fight between Hornbuckle and Blaze in the background of the Pit).

Story and endings are mostly relegated to simple text but the music and sound effects are top notch.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy is a little cheap when it comes to telling its story, however; the game’s plot is told through simple text at the start of the game interspersed with character biographies that you cannot freely view anywhere else in the game and, when you clear the arcade ladder, your character’s ending is conveyed through text and either a big character sprite that is simply their versus screen picture or a unique piece of artwork. The game makes up for this in the music and sound department, though; characters yell and grunt and scream, Shao Kahn narrates every fight and choice you make, and Dan Forden pops up to yell “Toasty!” from time to time as you land uppercuts. The music, which is all primarily from Mortal Kombat 3, is also some of my favourite; it’s very catchy and has a good beat and rhythm to it to help keep fights engaging and fun but I found that it cuts out if you pause the game for too long in mid-fight. There are also some noticeable load times between bouts, when performing finishers, and when Shang Tsung performs his morph ability (though you can toggle this in the options to reduce load times).

Enemies and Bosses:
Take another look at Mortal Kombat Trilogy’s large roster of character because you’ll be fighting every single one of them (with only three exceptions) at some point when playing through the arcade ladders. Similarly, you’ll have to learn the ropes for each of them if you want to see every character’s ending or try out a new fighter and you may find you favour some you wouldn’t expect (as a kid, I often played as the rather bland-looking Stryker simply because his Fatality was easy to pull off, for example). Every time you select one of the arcade ladders, you’ll face off against a number of random opponents one after another before being faced with at least one Endurance Round and the battle against the game’s two main boss characters. For the first two or three fights, you’ll probably find you can handle yourself pretty well, especially if playing on Very Easy (there’s no reason not to as you get to see the ending regardless), but the computer is no slouch and underestimating them can easily lead to your downfall.

Enemies each have their own attacks and techniques you’ll need to be aware of to succeed.

Your first few opponents may not attack much but, as you progress up the ladder, they’ll start busting out all kinds of combos to knock you off balance and drain your health faster than you can think. Blocking is your only real defense here and it’s sometimes better to be for defensive than offensive; I often struggle against Sonya Blade and Kano, two characters perfectly capable of attacking from a distance and juggling you with their special moves. Then there are fighters like Noob Saibot, Ermac, and Mileena; characters like these seem much more aggressive and cheap and are able to chain together teleports, combos, and special moves faster than you can press buttons. Baraka and Kitana are also annoying opponents to face later on as they can catch you off guard at seemingly any time with their blade slices or fan twirl, respectively, while Shang Tsung can easily sap your health if you get caught in his rising or horizontal fireballs (which often come in threes). Reptile and Smoke offer unique challenges in their ability to turn invisible; Sub-Zero can freeze you in place with an ice blast or an ice clone of himself, and Kabal is not only able to spin you dizzy with a rush attack but he can also fire bolts from his eyes and send a bladed saw spinning your way. All of this means that you can’t always approach every fight in the same way, especially on higher difficulty levels or as you progress as the computer doesn’t hesitate to throw everything it has at you even on the easiest difficulty setting.

Endurance Rounds will test your mettle against two fighters!

Unlike in other Mortal Kombat videogames, there are no secret fighters to battle in this game’s arcade modes, which is a bit of a shame. Instead, you’ll have to take on at least one Endurance Round; if you’re very unlucky, you’ll face two troublesome opponents here (like, say, Kitana and Sektor) and since you only have one life bar and the opponent has two, these can be quite the gruelling battles to get through. I will say, though, that on my last playthrough I was able to get past the one Endurance Round I had a lot faster and easier than the fight I had against Kano alone, so it could be that the computer’s aggression is tweaked a little in your favour for these bouts but, again, I wouldn’t rely on that.

Motaro is big and incredibly powerful but not very fast and quite a large target.

Although you can freely choose to play as Goro, Kintaro, Motaro, and Shao Kahn in this game, only Motaro acts as the penultimate boss and this massive centaur who is capable of teleporting around the screen, blasting or tripping you with his tail, knocking you silly with a mule kick, or smashing you across the screen with a single punch. Motaro’s strength is equalled only by his resilience and ability to reflect your projectiles back at you seemingly at random (sometimes I could freeze him with Sub-Zero’s ice blast and others times it bounced back at me; I think it happens when you attack as he’s teleporting). However, Motaro’s biggest weakness is in his sheer size; far bigger than Goro or Kintaro, he’s not especially fast and makes for a much bigger target, meaning that it’s easier to dive in with jump kicks, maybe a quick combo, and uppercut him as he’s pouncing around. Again, though, underestimate him at your peril as it only takes a few shots from him to drain your life bar completely.

Shao Kahn is the game’s toughest, cheapest opponent and is able to drain your health in just a few hits.

Finally, you’ll face off against the Outworld emperor, Shao Kahn, in the game’s toughest, cheapest, and most ridiculous battle by far. Any semblance of skill and strategy is rendered completely moot by Kahn’s awesome power and his annoying tendency to spam his moves over and over. Kahn can charge at you with a shoulder dash, smash into you with a knee attack, fire energy bolts from his eyes, and leave you stunned and staggered from a blow of his massive war hammer. He can also tank your attacks like a champ, blocks like a motherfucker, can send you flying with a single kick or punch, and doesn’t get staggered or stunned at all so you can jump in for a combo only to be defeated in a split second as he breaks through your attacks. The one saving grace is his arrogance; Kahn will stop to laugh or actively taunt you, which leaves him wide open for your attacks, but you can just as easily get your head caved in by his hammer as you move to take advantage of this brief window. It might just be me being paranoid but the computer’s aggression seems to dial up to eleven if you manage to win a round against Kahn; don’t be surprised if he suddenly spams his charge or eye blasts and drains your health in just a few hits and, honestly, every time I’ve managed to beat him as always felt more like luck than anything else.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Being a simple one-on-one fighter, there aren’t really any power-ups to be found as you play through the game. The only advantage you have is the inclusion of the “Aggressor” bar; as you attack your opponent, the word “Aggressor” spells out, fills up, and begins to glow at the bottom of the screen and, once it’s completely full, your speed and attack power are greatly improved. This can be the difference between victory and defeat but it doesn’t last long and your opponent can also build up their own Aggressor meter but you are able to toggle it on and off in the options. Otherwise, you’ll be left relying on the game’s “Kombat Kodes” to spice up your battles; when you and a friend begin a fight, you’ll see little symbols at the bottom of the vs. screen that change as you press buttons. Input the right button presses and you can disable blocking, combos, throws, music and effects, health bars, and have the victor face certain boss fighters or other fighters. You can also enable special messages, mini games, explosive kombat, and unlimited run energy, all of which can make battles against friends a bit more fun and random.

Additional Features:
There’s not much else on offer in Mortal Kombat Trilogy; if you have a friend, you can battle against them in one-on-one, two-on-two, or in a tournament and there are a variety of options available in the game’s settings. Here you can select a difficulty level or disable blood, the in-game timer, and the vs. screens if you feel like it. Although there are no locked or unlockable characters this time around, you can press “Select” to select Rayden, Jax, Kano, and Kung Lao to play as their Mortal Kombat II (ibid, 1993) counterparts, which is a nice touch.

Enable one-button finishers or play as the Chameleon and Mortal Kombat II variants using button codes.

From the options menu, you can also input a button code to access some special options. Sadly, these aren’t as extensive as those in Mortal Kombat 3 but they can help make battling through the arcade a little easier as you can reduce the attack power of the bosses and enable one-button finishers and regenerating health (oddly, this regenerates both your health and that of your opponent, which is really annoying when facing Shao Kahn). Finally, I said there are no unlockable characters but that’s not entirely true; by pressing and holding certain buttons when selecting a male ninja, you’ll play as Chameleon, a semi-translucent ninja who randomly cycles through the colour schemes and attacks of the male ninjas. Kombat Kodes also exist to showcase all of the game’s finishers and such, which is cool, and you’ll get to play as the female Khameleon if you’re playing the Nintendo 64 version.

The Summary:
If you’re looking for the quintessential classic Mortal Kombat experience, it’s tough to get much better than Mortal Kombat Trilogy; the game takes all the advances and advantages of the more up-to-date game engine and mechanics and fills it with every single character, special move, and Fatality you could ask for. All of the stages, music, and characters are present and accounted for, making this the biggest and most ambitious Mortal Kombat videogame of its time, and it’s a must-buy for any fan of the series. Sadly, though, it’s not perfect; the game’s difficulty curve is steep and drastic, the loading and musical glitches were a bit annoying, and the lack of extra modes and options was disappointing. I like that they mashed everything together into one game but I can’t help but think that the developers missed a trick by not at least adding arcade towers to represent Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 if not have the three games included as part of the package. Instead, what we have here is, essentially, ULTIMATE Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, a massive expansion of the third game rather than a true collection of the Mortal Kombat trilogy. Still, if you only want to buy one classic Mortal Kombat game, I would definitely recommend this one, especially if, like me, you’re a fan of Mortal Kombat 3. Those who prefer the first two games, though, may find it a little lacking and it’s a shame that there aren’t more options and variety on offer.

My Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Pretty Good

What are your thoughts on Mortal Kombat Trilogy? How do you feel it holds up today and when compared to the Mortal Kombat games that preceded it? Which of the three versions of Mortal Kombat 3 is your favourite? Perhaps you prefer a different Mortal Kombat game; if so, what is it? Which of the game’s roster and many finishing moves was your favourite? Would you like to see these classic Mortal Kombat  games re-released and remastered for modern consoles? Whatever you think about Mortal Kombat, leave a comment below and check in again next Monday for more Mortal Kombat content.

Game Corner [Sonic CDay]: Sonic the Hedgehog CD (Xbox One)

Dr. K27 Comments

Sonic the Hedgehog CD (Sonic Team, 1993) released on this day back in 1993. Produced alongside the blockbuster Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (SEGA Technical Institute, 1992), Sonic CD expanded upon the Blue Blur’s original debut title with lush graphics, a time travel mechanic, gorgeous anime cutscenes, and introduced players to Metal Sonic (one of Sonic’s most popular and enduring rivals) and Amy Rose. Considered by many to be one of the best of the classic Sonic titles, Sonic CD might not be one of my favourites but it’s still a classic in it’s own right and it’s worth looking back on today of all days.

Released: 14 December 2011
Originally Released: 23 September 1993
Developer: Christian Whitehead
Original Developer: Sonic Team
Also Available For: GameCube, Mega-CD, PC, PlayStation 2, SEGA Mega Drive Mini II (Original); Mobile, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox 360, Xbox Series S/X (Remaster)

The Background:
Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic Team, 1991) was specifically created and marketed as SEGA’s Nintendo-beater and, thanks to selling over 15 million copies, succeeded in its goal. Naturally, SEGA were eager to produce a sequel but, rather than create one game, they ended up making two! With Sonic creator Yuji Naka having moved to America to work on Sonic 2, Sonic’s designer, Naoto Oshima, spearheaded an entirely separate title built on the bones of the first game that would be exclusive to SEGA’s ill-fated CD add-on for the Mega Drive.

Sonic CD is largely known as one of the best Sonic games and was made widely available in 2011.

With Sonic 2 more focused on speed, Oshima placed Sonic CD’s focus more on platforming and exploration with its speed-based time travel mechanic (which was cut from Sonic 2) and included gorgeous anime cutscenes from Toei Animation (which would later be the basis for the feature-length original video animation). Artist Kazuyuki Hoshino designed Sonic’s metallic doppelgänger and biggest fan, Amy Rose (though that character actually debuted, in a slightly different form, in a 1992 manga), both of which were as pivotal to the game as the time travel elements. Despite the game’s U.S. release being delayed for an entirely new soundtrack, Sonic CD was met with widespread critical acclaim but, for many such as myself, the game was somewhat elusive since no one I knew had a Mega-CD and it just wasn’t the same playing the PC version. I first played the game properly when it was included in Sonic Gems Collection (Sonic Team, 2005) but jumped at the chance to play the HD remaster when it first dropped on the PlayStation 3. Developed by Christian Whitehead, this new version of the game was widely available, included Achievement support, numerous bug fixes, and a whole host of new elements that make it the definitive version of this cult classic entry in the franchise.

The Plot:
When the mysterious Little Planet has makes its annual appearance, Sonic travels to Never Lake but finds the planet has been overtaken by Doctor Eggman’s Badniks! When Sonic’s number one fan, Amy Rose, is kidnapped by his robotic doppelgänger, Metal Sonic, Sonic must race across time itself to keep Eggman from polluting the past, recover the seven Time Stones, and ensure a good future for Little Planet!

Gameplay:
Sonic CD is a 2D, sidescrolling action platformer that once again sees you guiding the titular blue hedgehog across seven stages (known as “Zones”), each split into three parts (simply called “Zone 1” to “Zone 3” rather than being called “Acts”). At the end of each third Act, Sonic must battle Eggman in one of his contraptions but there’s quite a twist this time around. This time, as well as passing Lampposts to create a checkpoint, Sonic will also run past special signposts; once one of these has been triggered, Sonic will begin to sparkle as he runs and, if he builds up enough uninterrupted speed, he will travel to the past or the future depending on which post he activated. While the general layout of the Zone remains the same in the past, present, and future, there are numerous aesthetic and difficulty differences in each one. The past is generally much more lush and vibrant, lacking many of Eggman’s traps and Badniks; the present is a standard-fare Sonic stage; and the future is a pollution and hazard-infested mechanical hell. When in the past, Sonic must search high and low for a Robot Transporter and a holographic projection of Metal Sonic; destroying both in Zone 1 and 2 ensures that Zone 3 earns a good future, which strips it of all Badniks and hazards and even makes the boss battles noticeably easier.

Sonic CD‘s biggest gimmick is the speed-based time travel mechanic.

If you’ve played the first Sonic game then you’ll be immediately familiar with Sonic’s controls and physics. Sonic’s speed, jumping power, and abilities all carry over, making him as tight and responsive as ever, but he is afforded two new abilities. One is a variation on the Sonic 2 Spin Dash (it’s not quite as useful or as fast as in that game, though) and the other is Sonic’s Super Peel-Out manoeuvre, which sees Sonic rev up his legs until they become little more than a blurry figure eight and then rocket ahead at full speed, which is perfect for the few instances where you have the room to travel fast enough to time travel. Sadly, there’s not always the opportunity to do this; like in the first game, Sonic has to earn his breakneck speeds and, all too often, you’ll go running or rolling ahead in a blur of spikes only to slam head-first into a wall, a pit, a bumper, or poorly-placed enemies and hazards. This makes the time travel much harder to pull off than it needs to be as you’ll constantly be fighting to find a long enough stretch of ground or the right opportunity to build up your speed only to accidentally screw up the attempt at the last minute. Similarly, there’s a much greater emphasis on exploration and platforming this time around; every Zone feels like a mixture of speed, loops, and obstacles and the level design is questionable at best and haphazard at worst, with Golden Rings floating inside of the environment and your progress to the many alternate paths either blocked or protected by dead-ends and endless loops. As a result, when you travel back to the past, it can be extremely difficult to navigate through the Zones to find the Robot Transporters and projectors even in the more linear Zones; the bigger, more complicated Zones like Wacky Workbench and Metallic Madness make it nearly impossible to do without a guide or copious amounts of trial and error.

There’s still plenty of opportunities to be bounced around despite the many stage hazards.

Still, speed is a prominent factor in the game; thanks to the Super Peel-Out and new gameplay mechanics, Sonic is much faster than he was in the first game and is still bounced all over the place like a pinball in Zones like Collision Chaos. Indeed, there are technically two ways to play; the slow, methodical Sonic CD way which has you hunting down objects in the past or the faster, more Sonic 2 way which has you racing through Zones as fast as possible and completing them holding fifty Rings or more to enter the game’s Special Stages. Once again, Golden Rings act as your protection from damage; they’ll scatter everywhere when you’re hit and, as always, Sonic is in danger of drowning when underwater in the distinctly Labyrinth Zone-like Tidal Tempest but, thankfully, you don’t seem to spend anywhere near as much time underwater in this Zone. As is to be expected, every Zone has different gimmicks (such as moving or crumbling platforms, tubes, conveyor belts, bumpers, and the like) but these actually change when you travel through time, meaning different routes become accessible in each time period. Zones also take on more and more gimmicks (most of them very dangerous) as you progress but even the first Zone, Palmtree Panic, is crammed full of different ways to navigate. As a result, you’ll be bouncing all over the place in Wacky Workbench but fighting against treadmills and cogs in Quartz Quadrant, racing along tunnels and vast stretches of ground in Stardust Speedway, and dodging spikes, buzzsaws, and a bevy of hazards in Metallic Madness (which also features a unique shrinking mechanic). Thankfully, bottomless pits are a rarity in Sonic CD but crushing weights, sudden spikes, electrified coils, and falling boulders and stalactites more than make up for that! Also, Sonic CD is as difficult as you make it be; if you choose not to try and take the higher, easier, and faster routes or purposely visit the bad futures, then you’re going to have a much tougher time of it than if you actively try and create a good future. This places much more emphasis on your actions actually having consequences as, normally, you only restore (or fail) the world when you lose all of your lives or fail to collect all the jewels but, in Sonic CD, you can actively affect and improve each Zone on a case-by-case basis by collecting the Time Stones or destroying Eggman’s machinery in the past.

Graphics and Sound:
Thanks to the graphical enhancements of the Mega-CD, Sonic CD may very well be one of the most visually striking and vibrant games in the franchise, especially amongst the classic titles. Every Zone is awash with colour and life and full of little details and background elements; every time you travel to the past or future, the Zone gets a complete facelift and takes a much more verdant or ominous light depending on how well you play which really adds to the replayability of the game as every Zone has, essentially, four parts to it (past, present, good future, and bad future) that all present a different aesthetic and challenge while still maintaining the basic structure of the Zone.

Zones are packed full of details and vibrant colours but can look a little busy at times.

Zones have a real depth to them, allowing you to see into the distance and take in just how badly Eggman has affected each environment. You might see a vast sea full of ruins in the past of Palmtree Panic but all you’ll see is pollution and machinery in the bad future; similarly, Tidal Tempest is an unblemished cave in the past but has been transformed into a mechanical base in the future. Zones are also full of interesting and unique graphical mechanics, such as the pseudo-3D ramp at the start of Palmtree Panic, the Mode-7-like Special Stages, how a certain tube in Palmtree Panic will send Sonic smashing through the background and leave a Sonic-shaped hole in his wake, and the way graphics change size as you bounce and run all over the place. Unfortunately, though, I often find Sonic CD’s Zones to be a little too busy; there’s a lot going in the background and foreground, a lot of competing, clashing colours (especially in the garish pink of Collision Chaos), and it can be difficult to keep track of where you are and what’s going on sometimes.

The power of the Mega-CD makes for some gorgeous and well-animated sprites.

The sprites have, however, benefitted greatly from the graphical upgrade; Sonic has more animation frames and a more dynamic moveset and seems far more lively and energetic despite the majority of his assets being lifted from the first game. Sonic also speaks a little bit, shouting out “Yes!” when he grabs and extra life and “I’m outta here!” when left idle for a few minutes (which causes an instant game over). Other sounds, however, are not quite as appreciated, such as the sound Sonic makes when he jumps (which is decidedly squeakier and much more annoying and it also bugs me when it is recycled in both fan-made and official Sonic games). The bosses, too, are bigger and more elaborate than in the first game, requiring actual strategy on your part to defeat and even Amy Rose gets a lot of personality as she follows Sonic around like a love-sick puppy, desperately trying to hug him while love hearts adorably fly from her head.

The anime sequences really bolster the game’s appeal and capture Sonic’s essence.

Of course, you can’t talk about Sonic CD without mentioning the anime cutscenes and the soundtrack. The opening and ending of the game features gorgeously animated anime sequences that showcase Sonic at his best, in my opinion; I loved that these were expanded upon in Sonic the Hedgehog (Ikegami, 1999) and I would absolutely be over the moon if they were brought back for future Sonic games. Sonic CD’s soundtrack is also one of the most beloved and contested in the franchise; many prefer the original Japanese soundtrack and, while that is good, it’s much more peppy and vibrant and happy-go-lucky than Spencer Nilsen’s version for the U.S. As a result, while I prefer some tracks from the Japanese soundtrack, overall I prefer the U.S. one; the invincibility music is better, the boss theme is better, and the U.S. soundtrack is much more in the style of rock and metal than anything else, which I prefer.

Enemies and Bosses:
Once again, Sonic must contend with Eggman’s Badniks; unlike in the majority of the classic Sonic titles, Badniks don’t drop cute woodland critters and, instead, blossom flowers upon defeat (again tying into the game’s overall theme of restoring Little Planet to health) and, honestly, they’re far less prominent than in other 2D Sonic titles. Indeed, Sonic CD’s Badniks mainly exist to screw up your run-up to a time travel attempt and cost you your hard-earned Rings right before the goal and they’re probably some of the most unremarkable in the original games. Eggman’s theme this time around is definitely geared more towards bugs than anything else as needle-nosed Mozzietrons try to skewer you from above, Arachnisprings jump out at you, Damsiltron and Buzz Bomber 2s hover overhead and take shots at you, and Poghoppers bounce around the place on their springy bases. Probably the worst enemies are the Snail-Spikers due to their spikes, Motherbombs (which are invulnerable to your attacks and explode into a shower of projectiles), and the Flashers, which must be hit at just the right time to avoid taking damage from their laser beams. Your main opponent, though, will be the abundance of spikes, springs, bumpers, and other obstacles that mess up your momentum and cost you valuable Rings.

The first boss is, quite possibly, the easiest of any of the classic Sonic videogames.

The bosses, though, are a completely different story. Sonic CD features some of the biggest and most unique and interesting boss battles of all the classic games and, while each boss only takes three hits to defeat, they all require different strategies on your part and are affected by whether you battle them in a good or bad future. The first time you battle Eggman, he’s inside of his EGG-HVC-001 mech, which is either a striking pink or an ominous red and sports spikes on the feet. Eggman protects himself from attacks with two bumpers but, after a couple of hits/bounces, these will break off and allow you to land the decisive blow. It’s, quite possibly, the easiest first boss in any Sonic game as even Sonic 2’s Eggmobile took eight hits to defeat.

Bosses require a bit of strategy on your part but are extremely fragile once you get your hits in.

In Collision Chaos, Eggman hides at the top of a giant pinball table and drops weighted balls down at you that can force you to drop down to the lowest level or into some annoyingly-placed spikes. The whole battle is structured very similar to the Star Light and Casino Night Zones and is a clear precursor to Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball (SEGA Technical Institute, 1993) in that players must make use of the flippers to bounce Sonic up each level of the arena, ricocheting off of bumpers and such to ram into Eggman’s machine three times. Your enjoyment of this boss may vary as it all depends on how well you get on with the pinball-based Zones and mechanics of Sonic games; for me, this meant it was quite an annoying boss as it can be tricky to get the angle of your trajectory right to go where you need to. At the end of Tidal Tempest Zone 3, you’ll have to chase Eggman around a short maze similar to the end of Labyrinth Zone; unlike in that encounter, though, this time it’s a simple loop that repeats until you land a few hits and you don’t need to worry about spikes or other hazards. Also, after Eggman flees, he floods the area and surrounds his craft with air bubbles and shoots projectiles at you; in order to finish Eggman off, Sonic has to suck up a couple of the bubbles to make a gap in his defences, which is certainly a unique spin on Sonic’s notorious underwater mechanics.

Compared to some of the other bosses, the final battle is a walk in the park!

Probably one of the more frustrating bosses is encountered in Quartz Quadrant; here, Eggman hides behind a giant piston and Sonic is forced to perpetually run on a treadmill lest he be skewered by spikes on the far left of the arena. Unlike the other Eggman bosses in Sonic CD, this boss isn’t about attacking but surviving as Eggman drops bombs onto you, which must be avoided, and you have to wait for the friction of the treadmill to destroy Eggman’s machine and defeat him. Because of how difficult it can be to maintain your speed and footing when avoiding the bombs and their projectiles, this can be a particularly challenging boss for your patience, if nothing else. In comparison, the final boss is a fairly anti-climatic and simple affair; Eggman surrounds his craft with four blades and hovers in a slow pattern around the arena, shooting them at you or occasionally spinning your way. However, it’s ridiculously easy to attack between the blades and, each time you land a hit, he loses one of them so, even though he speeds up and becomes more erratic, he’s made more vulnerable to attack and, honestly, this final boss is easier than the one in the first game!

The race against Metal Sonic might be Sonic CD‘s most iconic, and annoying, boss battle.

Of course, the most iconic boss battle of Sonic CD comes in Stardust Speedway where you’re forced to race against Metal Sonic! This is a thrilling, if frustrating, experience as Eggman flies along behind you firing an instant-death laser and it can be difficult to get up a good run of speed because, again, of spikes, obstacles, and sudden drops or edges in the path. Metal Sonic is completely invulnerable to harm and will charge at you full-speed or electrify its body, which is helpful for breaking spikes and clearing a path for you. Because of the way the screen is locked, though, this isn’t quite the fast-paced experience it’s often thought and interpreted as and is, instead, a strangely-paced, annoying affair that generally comes down more to luck than anything else. The best thing to do is to stay ahead where you can, jump over Metal Sonic, and then blast past it at every opportunity so that you’re on the right side of that wall when it comes crashing down.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As is the standard for most Sonic games, a number of power-up monitors are scattered throughout the game’s Zones. Unfortunately, though, there are no new or exclusive items to be found in Sonic CD; instead, you’ll have to make do with either ten Rings, a shield that protects you from damage for one hit, an extra life, speed-up shoes, or a brief invincibility just like in the first two games.

Additional Features:
Sonic CD has twelve Achievements for you to earn, some of which are pretty simple; you’d be hard-pressed to play through the game without travelling through time, for example, and you’re guaranteed to get a hug from Amy after defeating Metal Sonic. Others, though, are a bit trickier, requiring you to collect two hundred Rings rather than the usual one hundred, or to find the upper goal signpost in Collision Chaos 2 and a hidden angel statue in Wacky Workbench. Probably the most troublesome Achievements, though, involve beating Metal Sonic without being hit and destroying all of the Robot Transporter and holograms in the past.

Conquer the seven psychedelic Special Stages to get the Time Stones and the best ending.

As in the first game, finishing every Zone except the third with fifty Rings or more allows you to enter a Special Stage by jumping through a Giant Ring. These Special Stages are much more elaborate than in the first game, though, and arguably a bit more forgiving than in the second; here, you must race around a flat area against a tight time limit, avoiding water and other obstacles as you hunt down and destroy a number of UFOs. If you land on water, or similar surfaces, your time will drain exponentially so be sure to avoid these at all costs but don’t go too fast on the booster pads as it can be very difficult to make tight turns. As you destroy UFOs, you can earn Rings and even a time bonus, which is helpful, but while fans can be used to float into UFOs, spiked grates will cost you valuable time. Depth perception is a real issue here as you have to be very precise with your jumps but, if you see your time is about to run about (when it hits, say, ten seconds), you can pause and quit to the main menu and then retry the Special Stage from your save slot, meaning you basically have unlimited tries at each Special Stage and can easily grab all seven Time Stones and get the best ending.

The Xbox Live version of the game includes a host of bonus features, including a playable Tails!

I mentioned before that this was the definitive version of the game and it’s true; you can pick from a variety of display options in the menu, choose between the U.S. and Japanese soundtracks (but can’t mix and match, unfortunately), choose which Spin Dash you want (I recommend the superior Sonic 2 one), and have access to four save slots. Unfortunately, these don’t work like in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (SEGA Technical Institute, 1994), meaning you can’t pick and choose a Zone to replay, which is disappointing. You can, however, unlock a stage select, D.A. Garden (basically a sound test which you can also use to enter a variety of cheats, though Achievements can’t be earned this way), and “Visual Mode” (a gallery for viewing the anime scenes) by completing the “Time Attack” mode fast enough. Perhaps the most notable addition to this version of the game is that you unlock Miles “Tails” Prower after beating the game in any way; Tails controls exactly like he did in Sonic 3, meaning he can fly and swim, but Achievements are disabled when playing as Tails as it’d be too easy to get around Sonic CD’s more annoying level layouts.

The Summary:
Sonic CD is an absolutely gorgeous game; it took everything that worked about the first game and expanded upon it wonderfully, bringing a much greater sense of speed and liveliness to the core gameplay and really utilising the power of the Mega-CD to its fullest with its anime sequences, animations, music, and unique time travel mechanic. Yet, as much as I love how visually appealing the game is, I find it lacking in a lot of ways; it’s frustrating at times, the level layouts are massively annoying for a game whose main mechanic is based on speed, and the amount of exploration and trial-and-error needed can get annoying at times. Still, I love how every boss battle is unique and how your actions have actual, visible consequences as you play; it really invites multiple playthroughs to see what each Zone looks like in different situations but, similar to the first game, I find myself less excited to replay Sonic CD and more aggravated as it can be a chore at times. When it shines, it shines brightly and I’d love to see more of this style of 2D Sonic in the future but its more irritating features and mechanics definitely need polishing up first.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Did you enjoy Sonic CD? Did you own this, and a Mega-CD, back in the day or did you first experience it on PC or through some other port? What did you think to the game’s presentation and which of the two soundtracks is your favourite? Were you a fan of the level layouts and time travel gimmick or, like me, do you think they could have been better implemented? Which of the game’s Zones and bosses is your favourite? Are you a fan of Metal Sonic and Amy Rose? How are you celebrating Sonic CD’s anniversary this year? Whatever your thoughts on Sonic CD, or Sonic in general, feel free to leave a comment below.

Game Corner: Terminator: Resistance (Xbox One)

Dr. K2 Comments

Released: 15 November 2019
Developer: Dlala Studios and Rare
Also Available For: PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5

The Background:
The Terminator franchise (Various, 1984 to 2019) has quite a long history with videogame adaptations; every film in the franchise has been adapted to at least one videogame over the years and the franchise even crossed over with RoboCop (Verhoeven, 1987) back in the day. Just as the movie rights continually get shopped around Hollywood, so too have the videogame rights done the rounds in the industry; in 2013, though, Reef Entertainment purchased the Terminator rights and their original plan was to create a videogame tie-in to the classic Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Cameron, 1991). Poland-based developers Teyon came onboard to develop the game which, after a delayed North American release, was met with generally unfavourable reviews.

The Plot:
On August 29th, 1997, computer defence system Skynet became self-aware and initiated a massive nuclear strike against humanity, who form a fragmented resistance under the command of John Connor. After his entire unit is wiped out by a mysterious new infiltration unit, a T-800 Terminator, Resistance fighter Private Jacob Rivers is forced to ally himself with scavengers to survive and reunite with the Resistance and continue opposing their mechanical enemy.

Gameplay:
Terminator: Resistance is a first-person shooter (FPS) in which you are placed in the role of Private Jacob Rivers, a Resistance fighter in the war against the machines in a war-ravaged future. Unlike many FPS protagonists, Rivers can actually talk, which greatly helps to flesh out the story and his characterisation, which is also dictated by the choices you make during the story. In terms of controls, it’s all pretty standard FPS fare: A allows you to jump (which is mainly to clear some low obstacles or to hop out of some glitchy parts of the environment), B puts you into a stealthy crouch, Y sees you swinging a metal pipe in a melee attack, and you can press in the left analogue stick to run indefinitely. It takes some time for you to acquire a firearm but, once you do, you can hold the Left Trigger to aim, press in the Right Trigger to fire, and use Y to reload and, in a nice change of pace, you can hold up to four weapons at any one time. You can also throw a variety of explosives and other weapons by pressing the Right Bumper and bring up the weapon wheel with the Left Bumper to switch weapons on the fly (though be warned as this doesn’t pause the in-game action so it does leave you vulnerable).

Combat and controls are all pretty standard FPS fare, though you can hold more than two weapons.

The first portion of the game is extremely light on combat and is focused more on stealth, survival, and scavenging; Rivers can pick up a whole bunch of junk (or “Trade Resources”) and other items that are used in the game’s rudimentary crafting system to create explosives, Medkits, ammo, and other items but, while it is worth searching high and low and all around to find these items, you can only carry so many in your inventory and, to be honest, I never really found myself lacking for ammo and Medkits and such. In the early going, though, your greatest ally (besides your trust metal pipe) is your ability to stay out of sight; Skynet’s machines will detect you if they spot or hear you, so you must sneak around them and keep an eye on the Motion Detector bar if you don’t want to get into a fight. It’s easy enough to pick off the small Spider Scouts but, when the T-800s come onto the scene, you won’t stand a chance and they’ll hunt you down relentlessly, smashing through doors and choking the life out of you if you’re not careful.

The Ultravision Goggles and comprehensive in-game map help you to track your objectives.

To aid you in getting about during these vulnerable times, you can press in the right analogue stuck to use the Ultravision Goggles, which let you see through walls to a limited extent, point our nearby machines, and show you their health and current weapon (though, annoyingly, you can neither attack or run while using these goggles). You can also enter vents to get around, close and barricade doors to slow the machines down, and toggle a torch (or “flashlight” for you Americans) by pressing down on the directional-pad (D-Pad). A helpful mini map is located in the very clean and limited heads-up display (HUD) and you can bring up a bigger map of the immediate area, and a list of your current objectives and side quests and such, by pressing ‘Select’. Eventually, you do acquire firearms which, like the enemies you encounter, start small and ramp up as the game progresses; you start off with a pistol and a shotgun battling smaller machines or drones, before eventually acquiring the iconic Phase Plasma Rifle and battling variations of the T-800s. Every time you destroy a machine, complete side quests or missions, or find notes and Skill Books you can increase your skills by spending experience points (XP) on one of three skill trees: Combat (which increases your stealth and allows you to utilise better, more powerful weapons), Science (where you can increase your lockpicking, crafting, and hacking skills), and Survival (which increases the size of your inventory, your health bar, and how quickly you level-up). The maximum level you can reach is twenty-eight and you’ll need to reach level twenty-four to unlock everything but, as long as you stay the course and engage enemies and complete your quests, that’s pretty easy to do.

A couple of mini games help to break up the sneaking and shooting mechanics.

Once you become better equipped, your combat options become much more versatile and you can be much more proactive against the machines. Still, you can’t just go in all guns blazing against rooms full of T-800s and may have to content with multiple different enemies in a single environment, meaning you’ll have to switch between staying out of sight of HK-Aerials, picking off Silverfish with your sound decoys, and blasting T-800s in the face from behind or around cover. If worst comes to worst, though, you can always try to run past enemies but a lot of the time your objectives are directly tied to clearing areas of enemies. Luckily, other Resistance fighters are often on hand to offer back-up (or be invulnerable human shields) but make sure they don’t steal your kills (and, thus, your XP in the process). It’s not all sneaking about and combat, though; often you’ll need to use a lockpick to open doors. Lockpicks can be found and crafted and you’ll need a lot of them as they tend to break on the harder games and because the controls are so finicky; basically, you have to rotate each analogue stick to find the sweet spot, which can be tough the first few times but then either you eventually get into the rhythm or the game just decides to let you win (though you can also try to force the lock, which is generally easier despite the higher risk of the pick breaking). You’ll also make use of a hacking device to hack turrets (which is super useful as they’ll attack other machines on your behalf) or open doors, especially in Skynet bases and facilities; these mini games are basically a horizontal version of Frogger (Konami, 1981) and see you moving a small, 8-bit dot across moving pathways while avoiding collisions.

There’s a heavy emphasis on character interactions, which will determine events and endings.

One of the big mechanics of Terminator: Resistance is the emphasis on story and character interactions; you’ll talk to a wide variety of non-playable characters, from scavengers to children and other Resistance fighters and commanders, all of whom have their own stories and opinions. Often, you’ll be asked to pick from a couple of options and what you choose depends on how close your relationships with these characters grow and the endings you’ll get. As there are no Achievements tied to these interactions, you can simply skip through all the dialogue and pick whatever you want and the only real consequence will be that some characters live, die, or fuck you depending on how well you do. These NPCs will also set you optional side quests, which are generally easy enough to accomplish so it’s worth taking the time to complete them if only to take in more of the game’s environments and earn some more XP; in fact, there’s only one point where you absolutely will fail one of two side quests as you’re given the option of killing a man or sparing him, which is a bit of a black mark on your record.

Graphics and Sound:
In many ways, Terminator: Resistance does a fantastic job of recreating the look, feel, and atmosphere of the Future War scenes of the first two Terminator movies; environments are a mess, with bodies, skulls, debris, wreckage, and smashed up cars and buildings all over the place. Every area is a bleak, desolate location where humanity is holding on by the skin of its teeth, with rundown interiors, gaping holes, exploded buildings, and all kinds of post-apocalyptic horror strewn all over the place. In a common issue with the Terminator films, though, it’s odd how many buildings are still standing, vehicles still work, and technology that still operates with little issue but, for the most part, it definitely sets the mood for the game and works best in the night-time sequences.

The game includes some welcome, and surprising, faithful references to the first two films.

The best thing about this is when the game includes references to the first two films; you’ll spend a lot of time in Pasadena, a common location from the films, including paying a visit to Big Jeff’s (Big Buns is even standing right outside of it) and what appears to be Miles Dyson’s house, and, while Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t make an appearance, a body in the hospital bares more than a little resemblance to Robert Patrick’s T-1000. The desolation of the world is juxtaposed with Skynet’s smooth, shiny, horrific technology; Skynet encampments can be infiltrated here and there and large mechanical prisons and structures are all over the place, all of which are highly technologically advanced and stand out from the misery and suffering of other recognisable environments, such as the Resistance base.

Sadly, as good as the machines look, the human character models leave a lot to be desired.

Sadly, though, while a lot of the environments look great, they’re very drab and grey and, while the T-800s and other machines are faithfully recreated, character models look absolutely dreadful; they, and the game in general, resemble something more suitable for the Xbox 360 and I can imagine people who paid full price for the game were quite disappointed with these graphical features. Since story and character interaction is a big part of the game, it’s very noticeable during gameplay even with the comparative lack of cutscenes and no amount of awkward first-person sex scenes can really save that. I also noticed a fair amount of graphical issues, such as renderings and items popping up and a delay in them loading properly and, as if some long load times weren’t bad enough, I also had a weird moment where the game crashed on me. There are also some odd grammatical errors in a lot of the dialogue sequences (“you’re” instead of “your”) but where the game excels is not only recreating the bleak Terminator mood and allowing you to take part in the penultimate campaign against Skynet’s defence grid but also in the use of music and sound effects ripped straight from the films. The ominous T-1000 theme, especially, stood out to me as a highlight during the more action-packed moments and the iconic “duh-duh-dun-da-dun” plays frequently throughout the game, which never gets old, though I found the user interface to be a little too boring and simplistic.

Enemies and Bosses:
One thing I really enjoyed about Terminator: Resistance is that, unlike some other games I could mention, you never had to fight against human enemies (though you can kill any of the really shittily animated rats you find for a Trade Resource); it’s fitting that, even though the human survivors don’t always agree or even like each other, they’re still united against the common, prevailing threat Skynet poses. Instead, you’ll battle a range of mechanical enemies; the first you’ll encounter are the Spider Scouts, which are small spider-like machines that zap you with an electrical blast if you come too close but are easily smashed into junk with your lead pipe or some pistol bullets. Scout Drones hover overhead and protect their vulnerable “eye” with their armoured flaps and Armoured Spiders scuttle about and blast at you from their twin guns; again, the key here is to target the red eye when it’s exposed and shoot from behind nearby cover. Silverfish pose a bit more of a problem as they pop out of their metal hidey-holes and roll at you in a suicide run (you can coax them into destroying themselves, though, with a sound decoy and they’re easy enough to pick off with a shotgun).

At first, you’ll need to hide from the T-800s but, by the end, you’ll be blasting them to smithereens.

Eventually, of course, you’ll come up against the Plasma Rifle-wielding T-800s; these horrific mechanical endoskeletons patrol around and relentlessly clomp after you to blast you to smithereens or crush you to death and must, initially, be evaded or put down with pipebombs until you acquire Plasma Rifles of your own. You’ll also encounter slightly different variants of these machines which utilise flamethrowers, more powerful Plasma Rifles, or even dual-wield weapons, though they’re often indistinguishable from each other beyond the number of weapons they use and the colour of their laser blasts. Terminator: Resistance is surprisingly light on boss battles; you’ll have to hack into and destroy Skynet outposts by overloading the main console and will come up against larger versions of the T-47 Walker every now and then. These like to fire rockets or plasma blasts at you but, because they’re so big and clunky, it’s pretty easy to pick them off from a distance and from behind nearby cover and it’s definitely worth doing for the XP and to take them off the battlefield. Later on, though, you’ll have to battle them alongside other machines and multiple Walkers at once, though your more powerful weapons and explosives will turn the tide in your favour.

The T-850 infiltrator is a far more formidable killing machine, but easily duped.

You’ll also do battle against the T-850, which is the infiltrator model of the T-800, covered in human flesh, and wields a far more powerful Plasma Rifle. The T-850 can also absorb a great deal of punishment (with more and more of its exterior suffering damage as the fight goes on), retreats behind cover and out of range, and even throws pipebombs at you from a distance. Eventually, you’re left to finish it off by yourself, which can be a daunting battle but it’s also ridiculously easy to trick it into going around in circles around parts of the environment. Later in the game, you’ll be stuck in a narrow corridor with only a few pillars for cover and trapped in the burning remains of the Resistance base but, in both cases, you’ll have access to far more powerful weapons to make short work of the T-850.

The final mission sees you storming the defence grid in a massive campaign against Skynet.

A persistent threat in many of the game’s missions is the iconic HK-Aerial; similar to when you first encounter the T-800, at first all you can do is hide when this flies overhead and you can only bring them down when you get your hands on a rocket launcher and the game’s more powerful plasma weapons. One of the standout boss battles is against the titanic HK-Tank; though completely stationary, it will unleash a barrage of plasma shots at you if it spots you and you’re forced to desperately run around the ruins of the environment, grabbing rockets and stunning it with shots to its head to score a damaging blow at its exposed generator. It’s quite a harrowing battle, made all the more tense by waves of different machines that distract you from your main objective. Terminator: Resistance is at its most enjoyable when you’re out in the field trading shots against a variety of metallic machines and the game’s final mission is all about that. Loaded up with the most powerful weapons, with a Resistance-piloted HK-Tank at your back, you’ll blast down every single variant of Skynet’s forces as you help to smash through the defence grid, including T-800s, T-850s, HK-Aerials, and another HK-Tank, all of which are reduced to mere cannon fodder by this point thanks to the weaponry at your disposal and makes for a thrilling conclusion to the game.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As you explore the game’s various bleak or ruined environments, you’ll pick up all kinds of junk and other items that can either be used to craft useful resources or traded with other survivors for ammo and weapons. When you destroy machines, you’ll be able to loot them for weapons, ammo, items, and chips; these can be grafted to the Plasma-based weapons to power them up, increasing their fire rate, ammo capacity, handling, and damage output, but must be placed in a specific order so that they actually work. Weaponry is largely tied to your current level, the progression of the story, and how you unlock upgrades through the skill tree. At first, you’ll have your lead pipe, pistol, shotgun, and rapid fire weapons like the uzi and machine gun but, eventually, you’ll be able to wield a far more powerful Plasma Rifle that will even the odds against T-800s and Skynet’s more powerful machines.

Your standard firearms soon get replaced by heavy-duty plasma weapons to deal serious damage.

A major plot point of the story is the acquisition of the VSB-95 plasma minigun (as seen in the first film) and, while you can eventually wield this beast of a weapon, you can also acquire other plasma-based weapons, such as a sniper rifle-esque gun and more powerful plasma weapons. The most powerful of these don’t require reloaded but will overheat if overused, which adds an extra dimension to combat as you’ll be left vulnerable while waiting for the weapon to cool down but can blast the machines to smithereens in seconds on the flip side. Rivers can also utilise a number of sub weapons, such as pipebombs like in the first film, decoys to take out Silverfish, and more powerful explosives. You can also pick up and craft Medkits to replenish some, or all, of your health and also acquire (or, again, craft) a series of stimulants that will give you an edge in combat by temporarily slowing down the action or increasing your attack and defence. Then there’s the so-called “Termination Knife”, a specially crafted electrical shiv that will instantly dispose of a Terminator if you manage to sneak up behind them for an instant kill move.

Additional Features:
Terminator: Resistance features twenty-five Achievements for you to earn, most of which are tied into story progression. Although there are four difficulty modes, no Achievements are tied to them so you may as well play through on ‘Easy’ to sweep them up, but I’d advise upgrading your lockpicking skills to the maximum as quickly as possible as you can miss the ‘No Hope’ Achievement otherwise. Other Achievements include setting off a boombox to annoy an NPC, destroying the T-47 in Pasadena, and simple things like hacking a device or crafting items so it’s pretty easy to get all of the Achievements on offer. Sadly, there’s no a lot of incentive to replay the game beyond reliving some of its more entertaining moments; when you finish it, there’s no ‘New Game+’ mode and, while you can reload previous chapters to try out different dialogue options, endings, and grab a few missed Achievements, none of your skills or weapons carry over. There’s also no multiplayer option but a later update does allow you to download “Infiltrator” mode that puts you in the shoes of the iconic T-800 and sets you against the human resistance. Unfortunately, there are no save points, no new Achievements, and you have to plough through the mode in one sitting, with few opportunities to replenish your health and a surprisingly fragile T-800 at your command.

The Summary:
Terminator: Resistance is probably the best and most accurate Terminator videogame ever made; it perfectly captures the atmosphere and mood of the first two movies and recreates some of the dread and tension of the first film alongside the action and desperation of the second film. Numerous references and allusions to the first film help to emphasise the legitimacy of the title, which does a much better job of continuing the franchise than the last movie, and the game does a great job of bringing the machines to life even without some of the more iconic celebrity licenses. Sadly, though, the game’s graphics, character models, and glitchier moments let it down; it feels like a step back, technologically speaking, and, while it’s not a game-breaker, it was noticeable. It’s also little more than a fairly bog standard FPS; the stealth elements and tenser moments of the early going were an interesting change of pace and I was happy to see that the crafting system was nice and simple, but there’s a lot of extraneous collecting and some wasted potential here and there (particularly in the branching story paths) that also bring the game down a bit. Without the Terminator name attached to it, it would be little more than another unremarkable FPS title but, as it is, it’s enjoyable enough if you pick it up cheap.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Have you ever played Terminator: Resistance? If so, what did you think of it and how do you think it holds up against other Terminator games and FPS titles? What did you think about the game’s graphics and its attempts to recreate the look and feel of the Future War? Did you enjoy the stealthier sections or are you more a fan of the more action-orientated parts of the game? Do you feel like it failed to properly live up to its potential or do you think it’s decent enough for what it is? Would you like to see more Terminator games in the future and which Terminator videogame is your favourite? Whatever your thoughts on Terminator: Resistance, feel free to leave a comment below and be sure to check back in next Sunday as I’ll be celebrating Judgment Day!

Game Corner: South Park: The Stick of Truth (Xbox One)

Dr. K1 Comment
GameCorner

Released: 13 February 2018
Originally Released: 4 March 2014
Developer: Obsidian Entertainment
Also Available For: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360

The Background:
Back in 1992, Matt Stone and Trey Parker took some glue, construction paper, and an old 8 mm film camera and created The Spirit of Christmas, a short animated film in which four young boys accidentally bring to life a killer snowman. A Fox Broadcasting Company executive then commissioned the duo to create a follow-up short, Jesus vs. Santa, in 1995, which quickly became one of the first viral videos and led to the commission of a full series airing on Comedy Central. Originally entirely hand-animated, the duo (now joined by team of around seventy employees) soon switched to replicating their cardboard cut-out aesthetic using computers and managed to produce episodes within just a few days to stay right on the pulse of current events. Since then, South Park has expanded not just in its animation and cast but also into a whole host of other media, however South Park’s history with videogames has been…tumultuous, to say the least. Unlike previous games inspired by the show, The Stick of Truth was created with the direct involvement of Stone and Parker, who insisted that this new title actually mirrored the look of the show and would be a role-playing adventure game that utilised the duo’s script and ideas.

South Park had a number of videogame spin-offs, most of them ugly and pretty bad.

Unfortunately, however, the game ran into difficulties after THQ (who had agreed to help work on the game) filed for bankruptcy in 2012; the rights to the game were then bought by Ubisoft, who delayed the game’s release date to make significant changes to its direction. South Park: The Stick of Truth finally released in March 2014; although the game was heavily censored in Europe, it became the best-selling game available within its first week of release here in the United Kingdom and, by February 2016, had shipped over five million copies. Reviews were generally favourable, despite some criticism of the game’s mechanics, but the game performed well enough to earn a sequel in 2017. I, personally, first played through The Stick of Truth on the PlayStation 3 and loved its simple, yet surprisingly deep mechanics, its graphical fidelity to the source material, and its outrageous sense of humour so I jumped at the chance to cash-in a free download code for the Xbox One version to relive the original title in all its sardonic glory.

The Plot:
A new kid has moved to South Park and quickly finds himself drawn into a fantasy role-playing game the kids are playing involving control of the all-powerful “Stick of Truth”. However, after an alien spacecraft crash-lands in the small mountain town and toxic waste from the ship begins infecting citizens and wildlife, the new kid and his newfound friends suddenly find themselves embroiled in a very real fight for their very lives!

The Gameplay:
South Park: The Stick of Truth is a 2.5D, sidescrolling action/adventure game with heavy elements of role-playing mechanics and an emphasis on story, character interactions, side quests, and acquiring new weapons, armour, and buffs. When you first start the game, you’re tasked with creating your avatar, the otherwise-entirely-silent “New Kid”; here, you’re given a few options to customise the New Kid’s hair, skin tone, clothing, and other elements before you’re thrust into the game’s story and tasked with exploring the quiet little mountain town of South Park.

Customise your avatar and choose from four classes, each with their own unique abilities.

Luckily, you live next door to one of my favourite characters in the series, Butters Stotch, who introduces you to Eric Cartman and the game the kids are playing; a role-playing fantasy game very much inspired by the likes of Dungeons & Dragons. As a result, you’re quickly asked to pick from one of four classes: Fighter, Thief, Mage, and Jew. While each has its own specific abilities, positives, and negatives, weapons and armour and such aren’t limited to each class so you can pick a Fighter and still focus on Mana-based attacks like a Mage if that’s your bag. However, unlike in the sequel, you cannot switch or mix and match classes in this game so, once you pick a class, you’re locked into it for the rest of the game.

Be sure to explore thoroughly before a new day starts or else you might miss collectables.

Stick of Truth divides its story up into days, rather than chapters; you’re free to explore the town as much as you wish but certain areas and houses and such are either locked or barred off until you complete story quests, side quests, or learn new fart-based magic. As a result, it’s entirely possible to explore a good percentage of the town on the first day, meeting people and getting side quests going, uncovering loot and as much as you possibly can before night falls and you enter certain areas that can’t be revisited. This means it’s advisable to explore every inch of your environment in case you miss something because you might not be able to go back and grab it when the sun rises.

Combat is a simple, but surprisingly deep, affair.

The game has a difficulty slider for you to utilise but there are no Achievements associated with playing the game on a harder mode so the only reason you’d turn this is up is if you found the game’s combat too easy. And, to be fair, that’s entirely possible; as you explore, you’ll come up across fellow kids, rabid dogs, drunken vagrants, and Nazi zombies (you know, the usual) around town; you can easily bypass them but then you won’t earn experience points (EXP) or level-up. Luckily, though, you can strike them on the overworld to gain an advantage in combat. Battles take place on a traditional 2.5D battlefield and are entirely turn-based; you can wait as long as you like to take your turn without fear of being attacked, which is nice, and can select your character’s abilities or use an item as well as cast magic or attack, meaning you generally always have the advantage. Battles usually boil down to selecting an attack and pressing either A, X, Y, rotating the analogue stick, mashing buttons, or a combination of all of these elements to land attacks. Before you strike, your weapon will flash; pressing the right button at this time will unleash a stronger attack, or allow a combination of moves to be performed. It’s pretty simple to get the hang of and you can buff your attacks with equipment patches and farts to deal additional damage.

Each of your buddies has their own attacks and abilities to help you in and out of battle.

Generally speaking, though, combat comes down to how easily you adapt to the wheel-based menu (which can be a bit janky at times) and how accurate you are at pressing A; when an enemy attacks, you’ll have a small window to press A to defend yourself and reduce the damage done to you or keep yourself safe from status effects. This window can be very small at times so you’ll need to have your wits about you but, luckily, you are joined by a number of buddy characters in battle who have abilities and capabilities of their own (or act as a punching bag, if necessary). Butters, for example, can heal you without you having to waste an item, while Kenny McCormick continuously resurrects after death and Kyle Broflovski can increase your attack power. Additionally, you can switch your buddy at any time in battle at the cost of a turn, instantly allowing you to have a fresh buddy ready to lend a hand.

You can inflict multiple status effects on your enemies to aid you in battle.

Combat is simple to learn, easy to master, and fun to experience; with patches and perks, you can make your character incredibly overpowered in a very short period of time, dealing multiplier status effects to your enemies (such as bleeding, burning, and grossing them out), regenerating health (HP) or Power Points (PP), and dealing additional damage or upping your abilities or defences. It’s pretty easy to double up these effects with the natural abilities of your weapons to wipe out your enemies, even when they armour up or reflect and deflect your ranged or melee attacks.

Interact with your environment to take out enemies quickly and efficiently.

The New Kid has quite a few resources at his disposal to make things even easier as well; often, you can shoot or fart on objects in the overworld to either damage or defeat enemies and you can learn various types of fart-based magic to open up new areas or aid you in battle. These are sometimes cumbersome, however, as they require some tricky or imprecise movements of the right analogue stick to pull off and are made even more inconvenient by the fact that your Mana Meter doesn’t automatically refill after a battle like your HP and PP. This means that you have to buy and consume Mana-restoring food to keep it up (but not too high, lest you shit your pants in battle); luckily, though, as I said, HP and PP are restored and all status effects wiped away once a battle ends, allowing you to keep HP and PP restoring items for the more difficult boss battles.

Use your hard-found cash to buy weapons, armour, and other wares.

As you explore South Park, it’s recommended that you attack and interact with everything you see to find new armour, patches, weapons, items, junk, and cash. Fittingly, the game’s money is measured in small amounts; you’ll generally find a few cents lying around and resources only cost a few dollars or so but you can sell your useless junk or unwanted items to make more money. When you venture to Canada, though, you’ll have to contend with their higher prices and exchange rate but I never found myself strapped for cash or wanting for resources; if your inventory is full, you can usually return to the item chest or location and pick up whatever you couldn’t carry later on if you really want to.

The New Kid gains numerous abilities to help him progress further and access new areas.

The New Kid also gains access to a few additional abilities to help him out; when you’re abducted by aliens, you’ll get an anal probe inserted into you that allows you to access alien tech to open doors or teleport around the map. Later, when you meet the Underpants Gnomes, you’ll also gain the ability to shrink to access new areas, in addition to using the New Kid’s fart abilities and various buddies. This latter aspect was significantly expanded upon in the sequel and it can sometimes be unclear exactly what you need to do and with which buddy. The entirety of the town in accessible and faithfully recreated, though (except for Mephisto’s laboratory and the Mall…), which really adds to the game’s level of detail and fidelity and you can use Timmy to fast travel across the map (though I found myself running about the place more often than not to find more loot and level-up through battling).

Talk to, and befriend, everyone in South Park.

You’ll also gain EXP by completing the many and varied side quests that The Stick of Truth has to offer; at any one time, you can have as many as ten quests on the go at once, including those that are story-based, and you can keep track of these at all times using the New Kid’s phone and Facebook feed. Much of the game’s plot revolves around rallying others to your cause or making Facebook friends with the townsfolk so you’ll need to talk to everyone you see to gain followers and be given side quests to complete to earn EXP, get more followers, and even acquire certain iconic South Park characters as Summons to help you out in battle.

The story is as wacky and crude as you would expect from South Park.

The game’s hilarious and multi-faceted story, which involves all the familiar faces of the show and even recycles or addresses jokes and loose ends from the episodes, is just as wacky and insane as the show has become over the years; what starts as a simple (yet surprisingly elaborate) war between Cartman’s human forces and those of Kyle’s elf-kind quickly escalates into a battle against Nazi zombies and gun-toting government agents looking to destroy the town. After both groups are betrayed by Clyde, the New Kid has to travel to Canada to translate a message; this is where the game’s presentation takes a sudden and hilarious left turn as Canada is rendered through traditional 8-bit graphics, complete with an 8-bit rendering of “Blame Canada” and the Canadian national anthem. It’s a hilarious and mental detour that, sadly, doesn’t last as long as it could do (though, thankfully, you can return to Canada to fight Dire Wolves whenever you want). Ultimately, all of the kids you’ve befriended lay siege to Clyde’s elaborate dark tower and you end up having to disarm a nuclear bomb inside of Mr. Slave’s ass, battle a zombified Chef, and finally defeat Kenny after he claims the Stick as his own and transforms into a Nazi zombie himself.

Graphics and Sound:
The Stick of Truth is beautiful in its simplicity; in every respect, it looks exactly like an episode of the popular cartoon show, with the entirety of the town and its many houses, areas, and districts rendered in the finest cardboard cut-out-style 2.5D available. It’s literally like you’re playing an extended episode of the show as you’re able to visit the school, the houses of all the show’s popular characters, and the many businesses and iconic locations South Park has to offer.

The entirety of South park is recreated in stunning detail.

I honestly cannot gush about this presentation enough; too often, videogames based on cartoons (especially the South Park titles) slap an ugly, polygonal 3D effect on the presentation that ruins the game’s look and feel. Here, though, everything is just as crude and charming as in the cartoon; weapons and armour all look distinctly child-like, as though cobbled together by kids, and the way the game incorporates its more elaborate elements into the show’s aesthetic is impressive. Add to that the fact that the game not only uses music from the show but the voices of the entire cast and you’ve got a really special package and the result is a game adaptation that is more than 100% faithful to its source material, utilising so many jokes, characters, and words of dialogue that it’s actually quite mind-boggling.

Enemies and Bosses:
As you explore the town, you’ll get into fights with other kids and wild dogs in the game’s early going; these battles generally take place in a two-on-two format but you’ll face groups of about six at some points as well. Each of your enemies has similar abilities to you, meaning they can cast magic to slow you down, cause you to bleed, set you on fire, or gross you out but enemies will also enter a “Riposte” stance to automatically counter a melee attack or a “Reflect” stance to automatically parry ranged attacks. Enemies can also armour up and erect shields, which must be broken through with regular attacks before you can deal real damage, or have healers on hand to replenish their HP or remove status effects.

Enemies soon become hilariously ridiculous.

Later in the game, the townsfolk become infected with alien goo and become Nazi zombies; unlike other enemies, these guys will resurrect after a few turns, meaning you need to either end battles against them quickly our utilise attacks that hit multiple foes to clear their corpses from the field. When you reach Canada, you’ll have to contend with Dire Wolves, Bears, and Snakes, all of which are a bit more formidable than the town’s usual foes and can infect you with “Dire AIDs” if you’re not careful. Generally, though, battles against common enemies are pretty much a foregone conclusion; you’ll be so overpowered and have mastered the battle system so well that even groups of difficult enemies will be no match for you with the right setup.

Watch out for your Dad’s swinging balls when you’re battling the Gnome Warlock!

Of course, you’ll also have to take part in a number of more challenging boss battles throughout the game’s story. Stick of Truth’s boss battles involve a lot of variety compared to regular battles and have you performing slightly more complex actions, such as resisting the sleeping effects of Jimmy Valmer’s stuttering limericks, keeping the Hallway Monitor from calling your parents, and dodging the swinging testicles of your father as you battle the Gnome Warlock.

Al Gore is a serious pain the ass as both a character and a boss.

One of the game’s more difficult and annoying bosses is former Vice President of the United States Al Gore; after a long side quest involving Gore’s vendetta against “ManBearPig”, you’ll enter a lengthy and difficult battle against Gore and his bodyguards where the former Vice President will try to put you to sleep with a presentation on global warming, up his attack and regenerate his health, and bombard you with rapid slaps all while his constantly-respawning bodyguards take shots at you. It’s a tough fight but one that can be completely avoided (though you’ll lose out on Achievements if you do skip it) and made easier by having Jimmy as a buddy. You’ll battle Al Gore again later on, this time when he is under the guise of ManBearPig, but this is a walk in the park compared to the first fight.

Despite the censoring, Stick of Truth goes above and beyond to shock and entertain.

Things continue pretty smoothly until a breakout of the Nazi zombie virus as the Unplanned Parenthood facility; here, you’ll have to battle a gigantic Nazi zombie foetus, which has a staggering amount of HP and comes alongside an umbilical cord that leeches your HP. Because of this, it is absolutely essential that you destroy the umbilical cord first and remove it from the battlefield, avoid trying to gross the foetus out (as zombies are resistant to that), and focus on chaining bleeding and burning multipliers while swapping out your buddy.

The Sparrow Prince can present a real challenge.

Later, when you venture inside of Mr. Slave, you’ll have to face another annoying boss: the Sparrow Prince. As a spirit, the Sparrow Prince is immune to the bleeding status effect and is accompanied by constantly-respawning globs of Nazi zombie bacteria. It’s not an impossible battle with the right class type and setup but it can be frustrating since the Sparrow Prince’s attacks deal high amounts of damage and hit quite quickly, making it difficult to defend yourself in time.

In the finale, you’ll run a gauntlet against Nazi zombie versions of your friends and allies.

The game’s finale sees you run a gauntlet, of sorts, of tough enemies in Clyde’s fortified tower and then a number of bosses, the first being against a reanimated, Nazi zombie Chef. This isn’t much of a hassle, though, and you’ll eventually face off with Kenny in quite a long-winded battle that sees your damage carry over between Kenny’s different phases and you automatically swap between buddies as the story dictates. It’s not especially difficult (especially compared to Al Gore or the Sparrow Prince) but it can get frustrating as you’re right at the end of the game but Kenny keeps getting back up and regenerating until you fart on his balls and bring the game to an end.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
As an RPG, you obviously have access to a wide variety of weapons, armour, and power-ups to aid you in your journey. Levelling-up generally allows access to battle abilities rather than affecting your stats and the game caps your level at fifteen, though by the time you hit that you will be massively over-powered if you have equipped the right gear.

Attack up close or from afar, buffing your weapons with various patches and abilities.

You have access to two weapons: a melee weapon (swords, staffs, crutches, dildos, and the like) and a ranged weapon (dodge balls, darts, crossbows, and so forth). As you explore, you’ll find more powerful variations on these weapons, or you can buy them from various merchants about town. Each weapon comes with various buffs (such as causing an opponent to bleed, leeching HP, or powering up your abilities) can be assigned up to two equipment patches to increase your buffs further (this can add additional damage, leeching, or regenerative properties, among other options).

Weapons and armour can all be powered up to make battles a walk in the park.

Similarly, your helmet, armour, and gloves can be equally powered up by equipment patches to make your avatar quite the formidable fighter; thanks to patches and buffs, you can combine status effects and other buffs to ensure you always have the edge in battle and you can even customise the colour scheme of your equipment with various dyes.

Learning new fart magic can be a tricky task to master.

Completing side quests also nets you the ability to use Summons; while these can only be used once per game day and are useless in boss battles, they can turn the tide further in your favour if you’re struggling against certain enemies. As the story progresses, you’ll also unlock additional fart powers to use in and outside of battle; these can be awkward to learn and to use in the field, requiring vague movements of the analogue sticks to pull off, and frankly are nowhere near as user-friendly or as prominent as in the sequel.

Additional Features:
South Park: The Stick of Truth comes with fifty Achievements for you to earn, the majority of which are pretty standard fare (defeating certain numbers of enemies, completing story-based tasks, using certain attacks and so forth) but others can be easily missed or will require a bit of preparation on your part. There’s one that requires you to wear a bald cap and a goatee or ginger freckles to battle certain enemies, for example, another for completing the game without selling any items or wearing certain outfits, and even one for finishing the game without a single buddy being knocked out.

You’ll need to search high, low, and all around to find all thirty Chinpokomon.

The game is absolutely packed full of content but, unfortunately, most of this is confined to the main game rather than the post-game; as many areas become inaccessible after you complete them, you may find you have to restart from a previous save (or start a new game entirely) to find everything you need or befriend everyone in town. Scattered throughout the game are thirty Chinpokomon for you to find, for example, and 121 people to become friends with on Facebook. Talk to the wrong people at the wrong time or fail to explore your surroundings properly and you may find that you miss your one and only chance to tick these off your to-do list, meaning you’ll have to start all over again.

Side quests will take you all over town and even to the chilly mountains of Canada.

There’s so much to do around town thanks to the game’s side quests; you’ll be finding kindergarteners in a game of hide-and-seek, tracking down Mr. Hankey’s lost pooplings, ferrying messages between South Park characters, attacking Mongolian children on behalf or Mr. Kim, and you can even have surgery performed to look like David Hasselhoff! Jimbo and Ned send you on a side quest that sees you battling a number of option bosses as well, such as a rabid dog, the iconic mouse-penis, and the Canadian Barking Spider of the Queefing Caverns.

The Summary:
South Park: The Stick of Truth is a great little RPG; it’s not especially difficult, and this will probably turn off hardcore RPG players, but there’s a surprising amount of depth to its simple presentation and battle system. There’s a lot going on in the game but it never feels like you’re overwhelmed or can’t remember how to do stuff; it’s very intuitive and user-friendly, for the most part, and the story is hilariously crude and quite long.

The game won me over with its many quests, outrageous humour, and fidelity to the show.

The game’s length is padded by the sheer amount of side quests and things to do, see, and collect; it’s easy to waste a lot of your time veering away from the main story mission to beat up homeless people on behalf of the Mayor or transport messages across the length and breadth of Canada. Battles are quick and fun, requiring a bit of strategy at times but nothing that’s going to cause you game-breaking frustrations (with the possible exception of learning the “Sneaky Squeaker” from Randy Marsh), and I never found myself bored while playing. Quite the contrary, in fact, as I constantly found myself being immersed in the South Park world thanks to the game’s top–tier presentation. For as long as it is, though, the game is quite short but, thankfully, the sequel offers more of the same, expanding and improving upon it where necessary and, between the two of them, both games really exemplify the right way to adapt cartoons into a videogame.

My Rating:

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Fantastic

What are your thoughts on South Park: The Stick of Truth? Did you enjoy the game or do you prefer a bit more challenge in your RPGs? Which character class did you choose, and did you side with Cartman or with Kyle when the story asked? Which parts of the game were your favourite, or least favourite, and which of the two did you prefer? Perhaps you prefer a different South Park videogame; if so, what is it, and which South Park character or episode is your favourite? How are you celebrating South Park’s anniversary this year? No matter what your thoughts on South Park: The Stick of Truth, or South Park in general, I’d love to hear from you so feel free to leave a comment below.

Game Corner: Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games (Nintendo 3DS)

Dr. K3 Comments

Released: 9 February 2012
Developer: SEGA Sports R&D/Racjin
Also Available For: Nintendo Wii

The Background:
During the “Console Wars” of the nineties, there were no truer rivals than Nintendo’s Super Mario and SEGA’s Sonic the Hedgehog; both went head to head as their respective company’s mascots, spearheading the release of some of the greatest and most influential videogames of a generation, and both company’s went to great lengths over the years in a bid to prove that their consoles were the superior. In the end, though, thanks to a variety of expensive and poorly-conceived ideas and an ever-changing marketplace, SEGA were forced to withdraw from developing home consoles; now developing videogames for their competitors, SEGA’s supersonic mascot began appearing in games exclusive to Nintendo consoles and discussions of a long-awaited crossover began between Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Sonic creator Yuji Naka. Rather than have their two iconic mascots meet in a merging of their worlds for a traditional platform title, however, the two were brought together in the spirit of friendly competition after SEGA was awarded the 2008 Beijing Olympic licence. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (SEGA Sports R&D, 2007) followed as a result; though little more than a series of mini games featuring Mario and Sonic characters taking part in a number of Olympic events, the game was a commercial success and led to a series of annual titles being released in conjunction with a number of different Olympic events. After many years of putting it off, I finally got around to playing the 2012 edition of the game, which was set in London since we Brits won the right to host the games that year so, since the Tokyo Olympic Games are set to kick off today, I figured this was an ideal time to leech off of that event and share my thoughts about this title.

The Plot:
Sonic, Mario, and all their friends have arrived in London for the 2012 Olympic Games; however, annoyed that they weren’t invited to compete, King Bowser of the Koopas and Doctor Eggman join forces to cover London in the “Phantasmal Fog”, disrupting the games and forcing our heroes to battle against fog-based duplicates of themselves to dispel the fog and allow the Olympic Games to proceed as planned.

Gameplay:
I’ve played games in the Mario & Sonic series before so I knew what to expect heading into Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games; while the games do generally have a story mode these days to make the gameplay a bit more involved than just a simple party game, it is still, nevertheless, a collection of Olympic-themed mini games. Because I’ve never been a fan of the Wii’s motion controls (or the Wii in general, if I’m honest), I always opt for the handheld versions of these sorts of games in the hopes that they will be less frustrating to play. Sadly, for the most part, that isn’t the case with Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, a game which, seemingly, goes out of its way to use every single button, control, and aspect of the 3DS for its numerous events. The game features twenty playable characters, each of which falls into one of five different character classes (Heroes, Challengers, Girls, Wild Ones, and Tricksters) and, as a result, each character takes part in different events (Sonic, for example, can be used in the Marathon event, Yoshi in Shot Put, Blaze the Cat in Beach Volleyball, Bowser in Wrestling, and Metal Sonic in Hockey) and you cannot mix characters or classes.

The game’s events restrict which characters you can use according to their specific classes.

The moment you start a new game, Omochao rears his ugly little head to talk you through some of the game’s basic controls; you can then select from a few different customisation options, single or multiplayer events, or the game’s story mode. If you choose the single or multiplayer modes, you can select from all of the game’s many and varied events, each of which comes with an easy, normal, and hard criteria to get bronze, silver, and gold medals, respectively, with different goals, scores, or times to hit for each, as well as a brief overview of the event’s controls and objectives. I skipped this, however, and went straight to the story mode. The story allows you to take control of all of the game’s playable characters and the vast majority of the mini games and events the game has to offer, all while dialogue boxes and some limited voice clips and effects convey the game’s simple story. Generally, the story branches into two separate paths, one that follows primarily Mario characters and one that follows mainly Sonic characters, with the groups mixing up, overlapping, and interacting as they investigate the Phantasmal Fog, battle their shadowy doubles, and go head to head with Bower, Eggman, and their underlings.

Though you’re given a brief overview of each event’s controls, the actual gameplay can be tricky.

It’s a pretty simple story, one that is geared more towards teaching younger players a little about London and the Olympic Games more than anything, and it’s extremely linear. You can jump to a map screen to replay events (or just let the story take you from one episode to the next), skip cutscenes if you’re retrying an event, and are given a number of Challenges to complete to advance the plot. In the story’s early going, you’ll probably only be required to complete one or two Challenges but, as the story progresses, you’ll be asked to more, with each Challenge being comprised of harder or more complex events. Only first place will do here; if you don’t come first, you fail the Challenge and must either retry or choose a different Challenge if you want to see the story through to completion. As you play, you’ll be required to take part in a number of Olympic Games; it’s kind of weird that characters just spontaneously challenge their rivals to these games, and how the stadiums and arenas and locations and crowds and such just “appear” when you need to compete but…what do you expect? This is the best way, though, to experience a variety of the game’s events and get an idea of what is required of you. Sadly, however, many of the game’s events are an exercise in frustration; as I mentioned, you’ll be given a brief overview of what to do before an event but, sometimes, that doesn’t really help prepare you for the actual gameplay of that event. Generally, you’ll be rapidly tapping buttons, inputting specific button combinations, shouting or blowing into the microphone (which I can’t seem to find on my 3DS and which makes me a little lightheaded since I’m so unfit…), moving the 3DS about, or using the stylus to complete these events. Some, like the Pole Vault and 100M Backstroke, aren’t too difficult (you must angle the circle stick in a diagonal direction to charge your vault and release before the hidden meter overfills and your pole breaks or rapidly draw circles with the stylus to swim faster).

Be careful not to damage your touch screen trying to get to grips with the game’s controls…

Other events, like Archery (Solo) and BMX are maddeningly frustrating (you don’t just aim and shot in Archery, you need to account for wind currents which can screw up your shot, and BMX requires almost perfect hand co-ordination to tilt the 3DS in the right position to give you a much-needed boost). Almost all of the events have one thing in common and that is that they come down to split second timing as much as skill; if you do not time your inputs exactly right, you’re screwed but, often, the game’s button prompts and directions mislead you and cause you to fail. Take the Triple Jump, for example; it seems pretty easy (tap the touch screen left and right in an alternating pattern and then tap in time with the directions to leap) but if you tap for your first jump when the game/button prompt tells you then you will fail on a foul since you jumped too late! Similarly, Basketball only gives you an aiming reticule in the training mode, which makes landing a shot really difficult with the 3DS’s motion controls, and many games that have you draw on the bottom screen have the directions on the top, which is really confusing as you’d expect to tap targets on the touch screen when playing the Shooting events. Others seem incredibly random or unfair just for the sake of it; the 20km Racewalk event, for example, has you moving the stylus to a tempo at just the right speed. The game helpfully tells you when to speed up and penalises you if you need to slow down but it’s more annoying than anything to try and get the balance just right. The Canoe Slalom (Pair) event has you balancing with the circle pad and tapping A to pass through gates, which sounds easy but is super tricky as the control stick is overly sensitive, and you’ll be jerking your 3DS around like a moron trying to hit targets in the Double Trap event.

Other events are troublesome because of a dodgy camera angle and poor onscreen prompts.

Similarly, in a lot of events are handicapped by poor camera angles; it’s hard to see (or know) what you’re doing in the Sprint event as you’re stuck in a bad position and your opponent just rockets away too fast for you to catch, and it’s very difficult to judge your positioning in the ball-based games like Badminton and Football (to say nothing of the Goddamn Table Tennis (Doubles) event which requires you to switch between two characters but sometimes they swap independently and always right as you think you have the rhythm down). It’s equally difficult to make jumps in the 3000m Steeplechase event as the camera position means you don’t see which sort of button press is required of you until the very last second; the same goes for the Marathon event, where the angle is positioned just annoyingly enough to mean you need split-second accuracy to pick up the water bottle at the right time. It’s not all bad, though; some events (like 25m Rapid Fire Pistol, Trampoline, and Wrestling) can be fun but there’s very little room for error here; it may take some practice to understand exactly what is required of you but, generally, once you get the inputs down you can usually scrape by to advance the game’s story to the next episode. Other times, though, you’ll have to take on a number of quick-fire events in a row, with no way to restart if you fail one until you load into the next event (and then you have to restart the whole Challenge so be sure to retry before you fail), and by the end of it all you’ll be too burned out to really want to try out the other events in the game’s single player mode.

Graphics and Sound:
Being that it’s a 3DS game, the graphics are serviceable enough; Mario, Sonic, and all their friends and enemies look pretty good and coexist decently enough thanks to their cartoony aesthetic but it’s a bit weird how some characters (the girls, mostly) are dressed to compete and others are not and how characters like Sonic are suddenly only able to communicate in pantomime.

The game’s presentation is decent enough and mixes cartoony characters with real-world locations.

Otherwise, there’s not much to the in-game graphics; the story mode sees the characters visit a number of iconic British landmarks but they’re mostly lifeless voids or obscured by thick, colourful fog. When you enter the events themselves, there’s a decent amount of detail, with minor Mario and Sonic characters filling out the crowds and the arenas sharing the same bright, cartoony aesthetic of the characters. Musically, though, aside from a few recognisable sound clips and sound effects, there’s nothing really Mario or Sonic about this title as it opts for simple trumpets and fanfares.

Enemies and Bosses:
Outside of the game’s story mode, your choices for opponents are dictated by which character, class, and event you wish to play; you won’t be able to pit Sonic against Eggman in a Triathalon, for example, but you can pit Knuckles against Donkey Kong in a Boxing match. In the story mode, you’ll mostly compete against evil fog imposters of Mario and Sonic characters; Amy Rose and Princess Daisy, for example, get to take on the imposter versions of Blaze and Princess Peach in Beach Volleyball and Yoshi will have to compete against imposter versions of Shadow the Hedgehog and Silver the Hedgehog in the 1500m and 10km Marathon Swim events. As you progress, the amount of Challenges you have to clear increases, as does the difficulty of your opponents, and you’ll be allowed to choose between different characters to take on different events and imposters. In the course of the game’s story, you’ll also compete against a number of boss characters; it is only by clearing these challenges that you’ll bring that episode to an end and progress to the next part of the story. The first boss battle pits you (as Mario and Luigi) against the duo of Dry Bowser and Dry Bones and has you frantically blowing into the microphone and awkwardly steering your ship across boost panels in the 470 (Pair) event. This is a pretty ridiculous game as the controls are way too slippery and it’s ridiculously easy to just wander into the path of a whirlpool…yet it’s also stupidly easy to win even with minimum effort.

Time your stylus swipes perfectly to beat the Boos at Badminton.

Next, you’ll take on King Boo and Boo in Badminton (Doubles) as Sonic and Miles “Tails” Prower; this involves sliding the stylus (or your finger) down the touch screen as the shuttlecock comes towards you. Don’t do this too soon, though, or you’ll miss like an idiot; instead, you should aim to hit it when the shuttlecock flashes red but this gets tricky as the rallies get faster and faster and, one time, the ball went between Sonic and Tails and they just stood there like lemons! Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games sees the welcome return of Jet the Hawk as a boss character who challenges Shadow to a 3000m Steeplechase, and also has you competing against Rouge the Bat as Peach in the 100m Backstroke, neither of which are particularly challenging thanks to these events being two of the more user-friendly games. When you take on Bowser Jr, however, you must do so in a three-stage event that sees Yoshi having to fight with the poor game prompts in the Triple Jump, hold the 3DS like an idiot in the 10km Marathon Swim, and struggle through a 3000m Steeplechase, or Silver desperately try to aim for the centre and time button presses correctly in Trampoline, fumble through Basketball, and press and hold the stylus without messing up in Floor. Your best bet to beat Bowser Jr is to pick Shadow, whose events are much easier to get through. You’ll also come up against one of the most wasted characters ever introduced into the Sonic franchise, Eggman Nega, and have to compete against him in a 4 x 100 relay that simply asks you to slide the stylus to pass the baton between Luigi, Tails, Mario, and Sonic. Similarly easy-going is Donkey Kong’s encounter with E-123Ω “Omega”, which sees you timing presses of the A and B button and going for a super tackle in the Wrestling – Freestyle event. Unfortunately, when Sonic takes on Magikoopa, it’s in the God-awful BMX event which literally had me tearing my hair out as I just couldn’t figure out how the tilt the 3DS properly to land correctly!

Eggman and Bowser get a significant power up from their Phantasmal Fog for the story’s finale.

You’ll battle against both Bowser and Dr. Eggman a couple of times in the story mode; you’ll first face Dr. Eggman with Wario and then alongside Waluigi to take on Eggman and Metal Sonic, but he isn’t really a challenge (the Hockey game you must complete is really just a glorified version of Pong (Atari, 1972)). Similarly, Bowser isn’t too difficult to get past if you choose the right events (the Hammer Throw, in particular, isn’t too taxing as long as you can rotate the 3DS fast enough) but they both get a significant power boost for the game’s final chapter. Here, powered up by the Phantasmal Fog, Bowser and Eggman take on Mario and Sonic in Sprint, 20km Race Walk, Judo, and 100m events. Judo isn’t especially hard (it’s just a question of timing your button presses and being a bit aggressive in your attack) and 100m is fine as long as you charge and release A and can tap the button as fast as possible but both Sprint and 20km Race Walk can crawl into a hole and die. Eventually, after much trial and error, I got Sprint down (ignore the onscreen prompts and don’t move or press anything until you’re sure you can dash past Eggman) but the 20km Race Walk mainly came down to luck.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
Being as this is a glorified collection of mini games, there’s not much on offer here; some events have you rapidly tapping A to recover stamina or splashing water on you for the same effect, or touching dash panels for a boost, and many reward a perfect finish with a fancy special flourish but there’s nothing tangible in-game to help increase your chances.

Additional Features:
There are a couple of extra incentives on offer here for repeat and expansive play; first, when you first start the game, you can customise your in-game name, flag, and Badge (which is a nice touch for when you’re playing online, I’m sure). You can also aim to break world records in each event, win bronze, silver, and gold medals, and complete each of the game’s events and story modes to earn tickets and Badges. You can then use these tickets in a ball machine to unlock yet more Badges, all of which can be viewed in the game’s Record Log along with (obviously) your best times and records. After you beat the main story campaign, you’ll unlock a series of additional bonus episodes that see you compete as Bowser Jr, Bowser, Metal Sonic, Dr. Eggman, Peach, Blaze, and Amy in some of the toughest challenges yet. Unlike in the Wii version, there are no “Dream Events” to compete in, though you can cobble together custom events to take on both on and offline if you can bring yourself to play a little longer.

The Summary:
When it comes to the Mario & Sonic series, you know what to expect: Olympic-themed mini games involving some of gaming’s most iconic characters. Yet, as inoffensive as these games often are, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games takes things to the next level by needlessly overcomplicating so many of the events and controls. It’s as though the developers were forced to shoe-horn in everything the 3DS was capable of, which would be fine if there were the option to switch to more traditional controls but, nine times out of ten, there isn’t. Instead, you’re left to fumble about the place, shouting at your 3DS and trying to rotate it while alternating between hitting buttons or drawing on the touch screen and it’s just more frustrating than fun. Because I’m a big Sonic fan, I am kind of duty-bound to own these games wherever possible but I’ve never really been fond of them; I’m sure that for groups of players who like motion controls and unfairly-balanced party games, they’re a lot of fun but it can’t help but feel like Nintendo and SEGA left a lot of money on the table by not also producing a more traditional crossover for their iconic mascots.

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

How did you find the 3DS version of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games? Perhaps you also owned the Nintendo Wii version; if so, which was better, in your opinion? How did you find the game’s motion controls, assortment of games, and story mode? How do you feel about the Mario & Sonic series overall? Do you agree that the concept is somewhat wasted on the Olympic Games or have you enjoyed the series so far? Which country are you pulling for in this year’s Olympic Games? Either way, feel free to leave a comment below.

Mini Game Corner [DK Day]: Donkey Kong (Nintendo Switch)

Dr. K14 Comments

In 1981, Shigeru Miyamoto and his team at Nintendo R&D1 created Donkey Kong, an arcade title that was not only one of the earliest examples of the platform genre but also introduced gamers everywhere to two of Nintendo’s most recognisable characters: Mario and Donkey Kong. Mario, of course, shot to super stardom but today’s a day to celebrate everyone’s favourite King Kong knock-off and to say: Happy birthday, Donkey Kong!

Released: September 2018
Originally Released: 15 July 1983
Developer: Nintendo R&D2/Ikegami Tsushinki
Also Available For: Game & Watch, Game Boy Advance, GameCube (via Animal Crossing (Nintendo EAD, 2001)), Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Nintendo Wii (Virtual Console)

A Brief Background:
Early into 1981, Nintendo had run into a bit of trouble; their plans to expand into North America with Radar Scope (Nintendo R&D2/Ikegami Tsushinki, 1980) had failed and then-president Hiroshi Yamauchi turned to young designer Shigeru Miyamoto to create a new arcade cabinet to turn their fortunes around. When plans to base this new machine on the popular comic strip character Popeye fell through, Miyamoto, inspired by Beauty and the Beast (Barbot de Villeneuve, 1740) and King Kong (Cooper and Schoedsack, 1933), retooled the concept into Donkey Kong, a classic tale of man versus ape that would see gamers guide the character of Jumpman across conveyer belts and up construction sites to rescue Lady from the clutches of a cranky, stubborn ape. Following some suggestions from Nintendo’s American distributors, “Jumpman” and “Lady” were renamed to “Mario” and “Pauline”, respectively, and Donkey Kong was released across the United States in July 1981 and became the financial and critical success Nintendo desperately needed to break into the U.S. Naturally, ports soon followed; versions of Donkey Kong showed up on the ColecoVision, Atari 2600, and Intellivision as well as other home systems like the ZX Spectrum and MSX. A modified, scaled-down version of the game was also released as one of the launch titles for the NES, the console which dragged the videogame industry out of its darkest hour, and it is this version of the game which was later released for the Nintendo Switch Online and which I’ll be discussing here.

The Review:
Donkey Kong is as 8-bit as 8-bit can be; stages consist of a stark, blank black background and are dominated by the iconic red girders and the large, looming, grinning features of the titular ape. While the arcade original was one of the first games to tell an onscreen story through the use of simple animations that we would, today, describe as cutscenes, the NES version omits these entirely but the game is charming enough to look at regardless. Donkey Kong’s genre is a bit difficult to define given that videogame genres hadn’t really been fully established back in the early eighties beyond space shooters and obscure puzzle games but it is, essentially, a vertical action/platformer in which an early iteration of Nintendo’s flagship character and mascot, Mario, must run and jump up and across a series of platforms while avoiding hazards in order to rescue Pauline from Donkey Kong’s clutches at the top of the screen. Generally, I find Mario to be quite a slippery and unwieldy character to play as but, in his debut appearance, he moves more like he has lead weights in his shoes; his default movement is a steady but weighty jog and his jumps constantly feel like he’s struggling against the pull of gravity. The game also employs little to no momentum-based physics, meaning it’s easy to clip hazards and lose a life as a result. Gravity continues to be the bane of your existence as Mario takes a ridiculous amount of fall damage in Donkey Kong; drop from any height, be it one platform above or from the top of the screen, and you’re going to die. Leaping from a moving conveyer to a small platform that’s slightly below you? Instant death. Accidentally fall down a hole when you remove the rivets from stage three? Dead. As a result, there’s little margin for error in Donkey Kong and, if you screw up, you’re gonna die; there are no second chances here.

The game’s three stages loop continuously, getting faster and harder with each playthrough.

As you play, you’ll notice a ‘Bonus’ score counter in the game’s limited heads-up display (HUD). This continuously counts down as you play, reducing the bonus score you’ll get upon completing a stage if you take too long. Also, if it reaches zero, guess what? Yep, you lose a life, making it a combination bonus score/time limit for additional pressure. Unlike the original arcade game, the NES version of Donkey Kong features only three stages: the first is a construction site, the second features conveyor belts, and the third and final stage has you removing rivets to bring Donkey Kong crashing to the ground. Each time you complete these three stages, the game continues on a loop, getting faster and harder with each subsequent playthrough, however there is no true end to the game; Mario simply keels over and dies once you reach stage twenty-two, meaning that your main incentive to play the game again and again is to beat your own personal high score. As you jump your way to rescue Pauline, you’ll be able to earn points by leaping over enemies (whatever you do, don’t jump on to them like you might expect Mario to do!) and collecting (what I assume are) Pauline’s parasol and purse from across the stages, Mario’s sole method of fighting back in this game is his trusty hammer; two hammers can be found in stage one and three (you’ll just have to fend for yourself in stage two) and collecting one will send Mario into barrel-and-fireball-bustin’ frenzy as a frenetic tune plays. The hammer will destroy anything it touches, allowing you to clear the way for your progress, but you cannot jump while holding it which, honestly, makes it kind of useless as hazards will have respawned by the time you’re ready to progress further.

Barrels, springs, and living fireballs are the game’s primary hazards and enemies.


Mario is an extremely simple and yet surprisingly expressive sprite; unlike other avatars like Pac-Man, he has clearly-defined features such as a prominent nose, moustache, and his signature overalls and cap meaning that he easily stands out against the game’s otherwise-limited colour palette. Pauline looks like a bit of a mess but, luckily, Donkey Kong makes up for it by being big and full of character despite his obviously-limited frames of animation. The game features some iconic and simple melodies, boasting such features as separate tunes for the title screen, each of the game’s three stages, and for completing a stage. It’s limited by the hardware of the time, clearly, but it’s enough to have you humming along as you play. Far from the Goombas and Koopas that would later plague Mario’s every waking hour, Donkey Kong mainly has you avoiding barrels tossed at you by the giant ape. These can roll along, drop off ledges, and fall down ladders seemingly at random, meaning you constantly have to be on your toes to make split-second decisions about when to jump or climb a ladder. These barrels can also bounce around the screen, drop down vertically, and take a dip into some oil to transform into anthropomorphic flames. In stage two, Donkey Kong will also toss bouncing springs at you; as the game speeds up, these can be extremely difficult to avoid as the window of opportunity is so small and the game’s hit boxes are deceptively big. In stage three, you’ll also have to watch out for more troublesome balls of fire that wander around the stage seemingly at random, going up ladders and suddenly changing direction to cost you a life. Of course, the game’s primary antagonist is Donkey Kong himself; should you brave his many hazards and attempt to tackle him directly, you’ll lose a life. As a result, the only way to defeat him is to get to the game’s third and final stage. Here, you’ll have to avoid the aforementioned fireballs while jumping over eight rivets. Once all eight are removed, the girders will vanish from beneath Donkey Kong and he will crash comically down onto his head so you can make love hearts with Pauline. Honestly, it’s probably the game’s easiest stage as the first two can get pretty hairy when the game speeds up, making the climax a little anticlimactic even for an 8-bit title.

The Summary:
I’ve played Donkey Kong before; I’m pretty sure I had it on the Amiga back in the day and I remember sucking at the version that was included as a mini game in Donkey Kong 64 (Rare, 1999) but this is the first time I’ve properly sat down and put some time into the game. It’s a simple bit of 8-bit fun and an enjoyable slice of nostalgia; gameplay is easy to get to grips with and the controls are responsive even if Mario does feel a bit weighty in his movements. The sprites and music and charming and indicative of their era and the game offers a fair amount of challenge thanks to it speeding up the more you play. Being an 8-bit title, the main motivation for playing is to achieve, or beat, a high score. The game does offer four gameplay modes: two for a solo player and two for two players but I don’t have anyone to play with so I was only able to play the one-player game. From what I can tell, though, the two-player mode is a case of each player taking it in turns to play rather than a simultaneous co-op mode. When playing Donkey Kong on the Nintendo Switch, you get a few extra options that dramatically reduce the game’s difficulty thanks to the Switch’s ‘suspend menu’ mode, which allows you can create a save point at any time and rewind the game back so you can correct any mistakes you might have made. It’s obviously limited in terms of its features and options, which does affect my rating of the game, but it’s a fun enough title that’ll keep you occupied for as long as you feel like playing (in my case…about half an hour or so).

My Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Could Be Better

Did you ever own Donkey Kong for the NES back in the day? Perhaps you played the arcade version out in the wild; if so, when and what was that like? Which port of Donkey Kong is your favourite? Which Donkey Kong videogame is your favourite and why? How are you celebrating Donkey Kong’s anniversary this year? Whatever your thoughts on Donkey Kong, feel free to leave a comment below.

Game Corner: Sunset Overdrive: Deluxe Edition (Xbox One)

Dr. K2 Comments


Released: 28 October 2014
Developer: Insomniac Games
Also Available For: PC and Xbox Series S/X

The Background:
Sunset Overdrive was developed by Insomniac Games, who were best known at the time for their work on the Ratchet & Clank series (ibid/Various, 2002 to present); seeking to expand their portfolio, the developers drew inspiration from videogames like Jet Set Radio (Smilebit, 2000) to create an unusually vibrant title that would be the biggest game they had ever worked on at the time. Sunset Overdrive aimed to encourage players to be more aggressive in the way they played by emphasising momentum and featured a unique punk rock aesthetic to its post-apocalyptic world. Upon release, Sunset Overdrive’s tone and unique comedy was highly praised; reviews also praised the gameplay and the fun of exploring its zany world, and art style, though its multiplayer and more repetitive mechanics were criticised. Still, Sunset Overdrive was the second-best selling game in the United Kingdom upon release and the game was expanded upon with a range of downloadable content (DLC) that added new weapons, costumes, and story-based content to the game, all of which are included in this “Deluxe Edition” of the game.

The Plot:
In the year 2027, megaconglomerate FizzCo hosts a massive pre-release party in Sunset City for its new energy drink, OverCharge Delirium XT; however, as they rushed through the testing phase, the drink transforms people into violent, boil-covered mutants known as “Overcharge Drinkers” (or “OD”) and it is up to the player character to join the remnants of society in fighting back against the OD and bring down FizzCo.

Gameplay:
Sunset Overdrive is a third-person, open world action shooter with a heavy emphasise on parkour-style traversal; your avatar (named only as “Player” in the in-game subtitles) can grind, swing, bounce, and wall run all over Sunset City, easily chaining together different moves along with melee and projectile attacks to build up the “Style Meter” and amass greater kill combos.

Grind, bounce, and wall run your way across a bright and colourful city.

The Player’s skill set is relatively diverse and tailored towards these mechanics; X allows you to perform a dodge roll and grind on wires, rails, roof edges, and almost everything across the city following a jump. A, as always, jumps; pressing it right as you land on certain surfaces (such as cars, solar panels, and nets) will allow you to bounce higher and you can double tap A to vault over lower walls. You’ll also eventually learn to perform an air boost with the Right Bumper and, at certain times, you can press Y to interact with the environment to open doors, pick up mission items, or grab explosive barrels and you can also swing your crowbar with B to melee attack (which can also be performing while grinding).

Combat is fun but chaotic and seemingly never-ending at times.

As essential as all of these traversal options are, though, a large chunk of the game is made up of weapons-based combat; you press (and/or hold) the Right Trigger to fire, use the Left Trigger to strafe, and can bring up your weapon wheel by holding down the Left Bumper. Similarly, you’ll be able to select from a series of traps using the directional pad but, while the game does slow down to a crawl when the weapon wheels are open, there is a risk of you being attacked when selecting weapons and, while you can hold multiple weapons at once, it can be a bit tricky to select the weapon you want as the selection wheel feels a bit slippery at times. Weapons come in all sorts of bizarre shapes and sizes, with some being more effective against certain enemies (those that shoot out fire are more effective against OD, for example, while shock-based weapons are better for dispatching FizzCo’s robots), but ammo can often be in short supply. While you never have to reload and you’ll find more ammo by smashing crates and killing enemies, I often found that I burned through a lot of my ammo very quickly even after upgrading their ammo capacity, which means it’s best to switch between weapons as often as possible.

Sunset Overdrive‘s map system is cluttered but extremely detailed and helpful.

Sunset Overdrive is a pretty massive game; a mini map on the heads-up display always keeps you on track towards your objective and points out any enemies, friendlies, and pick-ups and secrets in the area. The game’s main map is accessed from the pause menu and, right from the beginning, is packed full of things to see, do, and pick-up. The game’s map system and large, diverse city reminds me of Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar North, 2013) and has many of the same options; you can toggle between different objectives and views, set custom waypoints, and purchase special maps to highlight even more secrets. Despite how big the game world is and the sheer amount of stuff that you can find and collect in any given area, I never found myself getting lost or turned around as both the mini map and main map (and in-game dialogue) constantly keep you pointed in the right direction. You can also fast travel to certain points on the map, which is always appreciated especially in a game this big but I found it was actually better to travel manually as I could veer off to grab collectibles along the way.

It’s easy to get beaten down by your many enemies but the pop-culutre references make respawning fun.

What does get a bit manic, however, are the sheer amount of enemies you’ll have to contend with. OD are literally everywhere in Sunset City, crawling out of sewers, dumpsters, and clambering around rooftops and alleyways and their numbers only increase as the game progresses. The game barely ever lets up on the onslaught and, even after clearing the immediate area of enemies, more will soon spawn in if you linger too long. This means that you need to constantly be on the move; it’s not really recommended to battle enemies at ground level, where your movement options are more limited, meaning you’ll be grinding and hopping between different traversal points and constantly switching directions on the fly, which can make aiming and seeing where your shots are going a bit difficult. In this regard, the game reminds me of Infamous (Sucker Punch Productions, 2009) in its emphasis on movement-based combat, though the shooting mechanics are noticeably more refined and useful here; the more you move and mix up your attacks, the more your Style Meter will grow to activate any amplifiers (“Amps”) you have attached to your character. The Player, however, can be a bit fragile; you’ll need to pick up Green Crosses to replenish your health, which can be whittled away extremely quickly, and certain weapons and upgrades will increase your health and durability, but dying is pretty easy in Sunset Overdrive. Thankfully, after dying, you’ll simply respawn (through a number of amusing pop-culture references) near to where you fell and be able to carry on with what you were doing but, other times (generally when in the middle of a side quest) you’ll have to restart your current mission from the beginning, which can be a bit inconsistent and annoying.

There are a number of challanges available to you to earn cash and bonuses.

Gameplay is given a bit of variety from a number of non-playable characters (NPCs), all of whom are part of different factions and have a bunch of side quests for you to complete. These generally involve “busy work” such as clearing out OD, human Scabs, and/or FizzCo ‘bots, smashing certain machines or objects, collecting things, or dashing across the city completing errands. You’ll also find a number of challenges across the city which task you with racing through rings using your grinding, bouncing, and wall running skills, collecting points, battling swarms of enemies, smashing stuff up, or planting bombs. All of these have a time limit attached to them and will net you additional rewards based on your ranking (Bronze, Silver, or Gold), which can range from cash, Overcharge, and additional clothing items and it’s pretty easy to get sidetracked during your many missions to complete these tasks as you go.

Take to the skies in glider challanges and defend Overcharge against swarms of OD.

All of these missions and side quests are highlighted on your map and can be replayed at any time from the main menu, allowing you to try for more points and rewards. You’ll also get to pilot a glider at various points both in the game’s story and in challenges; this is a pretty simple affair that sees you flying over air currents to keep your ship powered up, performing barrel rolls to avoid enemy fire, and blasting at enemies and targets with homing rockets. Sadly, while these sections are fun, there’s no way to call a glider to you at any time to help traverse the city and these sections are a bit limited in their scope. You can also perform a dash over bodies of water by pressing X and the Player is, thankfully, fully capable of swimming, which is always a plus. Easily the most prominent additional mechanic you’ll take part in, however, are the handful of times when you’re tasked with laying traps and holding out against waves of OD while cooking up additional Amps in Overcharge canisters. These sections can be tricky thanks to the sheer amount of enemies that you’ll face but placing a variety of traps at various points around the fort and staying on the move will increase your chances of survival and, even when you have to defend multiple targets across more complicated forts, these aren’t massively challenging and can be quite exhilarating. Barricades help keep enemies at bay and you’ll be awarded additional energy to lay more traps as the sections progress, which is helpful, and, while it can get very chaotic as more vicious and varied enemies spawn in, the rewards are worth the effort.

Graphics and Sound:
Sunset Overdrive utilises exaggerated, comic book style, semi-cel shaded graphics to bring its characters and world to life. While the city is mostly semi-realistic, characters are larger than life and this really helps to sell the game’s zany narrative. You avatar can be completely customised, allowing you to pick between two different male and female body types and buy and equip a range of clothing items to make them unique to you. Options for hair, faces, and body types may be a bit limited but there are a lot of wacky outfits to choose from and these are easily unlocked or purchased using in-game currency, meaning you can constantly switch up your appearance.

Sunset City is huge and vibrant and packed full of things to collect and enemies to slaughter.

Sunset City is absolutely gigantic; cordoned off from the rest of the world by a convenient (and literal) invisible wall, the city is custom-built to take advantage of your traversal mechanics, meaning there are a lot of wires, lampposts, and walls to grind, swing, and run across. The city is full of different areas (such as Little Tokyo, high-rise apartments, bridges, a water treatment plant, a fairground, and shopping districts), all of which are crawling with seemingly-endless waves of enemies and full of things to collect. The downside, though, is that the game isn’t really built for vertical traversal; this means that if you fall or are knocked to ground level, it can be frustrating and difficult to work your way back up and out of the way because the Player is geared more towards horizontal movement.

The game’s exaggerated aesthetic really adds to its appeal, despite the odd glitch here and there.

The game’s story is absolutely bonkers and full of pop-culture references to movies and fourth wall breaking moments. It’s honestly one of the more unique and entertaining stories I’ve ever played through and really helps ease the frustration at the game’s more annoying moments; characters are all over the top and the humour is crude and self-referential, which is always fun, though you’re not always able to skip through cutscenes or certain moments and, while the soundtrack is suitably rocking and enjoyable, I did notice the music and sound effects cutting out abruptly at certain points. This was most noticeable when I was playing through the “Dawn of the Rise of the Fallen Machine” DLC, however, where the subtitles suddenly turned off and all music and most sound effects suddenly cut out completely and didn’t return until I quit and reloaded the game.

Enemies and Bosses:
The primary enemy of Sunset Overdrive are the OD, disgusting mutant humans who swarm all over the city and attack in large groups. Though easily dispatched, their sheer numbers, ferocity, and tenacity can be overwhelming as they’ll attack in hordes and rush at you, clawing and swiping and easily whittling your health down unless you stay on the move. You’ll also have to contend with different OD variants, such as “Poppers” (who charge at you and explode in a kamikaze attack), “Herkers” (larger OD who throw rocks and objects at you), “Gunkers” (who hop about from above and shoot gunk at you), and “Spawners” (who will continuously spawn more OD unless you put them down).

Human Scabs and deadly robots will also take pot shots at you and cause you serious headaches.

You’ll also have to contend with human enemies, the Scabs, who shoot at you and use cover-based mechanics to pick you off. Thanks to the sheer number of their projectiles, these can be incredibly annoying enemies and are easily able to overwhelm you. Similarly, FizzCo’s many different robots and mechs will also attack you throughout the story, even setting up little fortifications and turrets to cause you extra headaches. As the story progresses, you’ll battle groups of all of these enemies at once and, while they also attack each other, it can get a bit manic trying to take them all out as you have to constantly stay on the move and switch to different weapons to be at your most effective.

Bigger and more aggressive enemies will soon become the norm as the story progresses.

Still, these chaotic battles and the steady increase of different enemy variants aren’t to be sniffed at as traditional boss battles are few and far between in Sunset Overdrive. Rather than take on bigger, nastier bosses progressively to finish up a mission, you’ll encounter larger, more powerful enemies or new enemy variants as you perform missions or defend your forts. These include the “Wingers” (large, bat-like OD who fly around shooting fireballs at you), “Muggers” (bestial OD who leap about the place and aggressively pounce on you to attack with their claws), Blade Bots (who rush at you with electric swords), and Tank Bots (a heavily-armoured mech that bombards you with lasers, mines, and leaps about using hover jets). As you progress, you’ll have to battle swarms of regular enemies bolstered by these bigger forces or even two or more of them at once, which can be a real challenge at times, especially if you’re low on (or out of) the most appropriate ammunition.

Fizzie is the game’s most persistent, and pretty much only, boss.

That’s not to say there are no boss battles at all, though; You’ll frantically blast at the King Scab on a rollercoaster before derailing him with a massive dinosaur mask at one point and also battle a gigantic version of Fizzie, FizzCo’s annoying and enthusiastic mascot, twice during the game’s story. The first time you battle him, he’s a massive blimp and floats around blasting at you with his eye lasers and spitting out annoying explosive balloons. You must grind around high up in the air and bounce on pads to stun him, and then unload at his exposed weak point, but the battle becomes tougher as it progresses, with Fizzie shooting rockets at you at directly targeting your rails as you frantically try to keep from falling (which, thankfully, doesn’t deplete your health or result in failure) to blast his weak spot. Fizzie’s artificial intelligence also takes control of the FizzCo building for the game’s finale; before you can even reach this point, though, you must eradicate the FizzCo ‘bots alongside all of your colourful allies and then, when the fight begins, you’re given three minutes and thirty seconds to race across the city, avoiding devastating sky beams, and grind up the building’s tentacles while avoiding electrified currents, bouncing from pads, and trying not to be knocked away as you frantically blast at the building’s power core. You have to do this three times and each time the timer resets but Fizzie is a bit further away, a bit more heavily defended, and more aggressive in his attacks and defence strategies.

Power-Ups and Bonuses:
There are a wide range of weapons on offer in Sunset Overdrive, each one unique and kind of crude in its design and often cobbled together by the most random of items. You can melee attack with a crowbar but will eventually be able to purchase a baseball bat with your cash and, as part of the story, will be tasked with forging a massive sword to chop enemies up but you can also toss or attack barrels to destroy groups of enemies and you’ll also purchase and acquire a number of different guns.

The game’s weapons are absolutely bonkers and fun to swap between (when you can manage the weapon wheel).

These range from amusing variants on standard weaponry from shooter games, such as pistols, shotguns, machine guns, and grenade launchers; one of the most reliable weapons is the first one you get, the Flaming Compensator, which is great for turning OD to ash. The High Fidelity and Nothin’ But the Hits weapons fire vinyl records at high speed and are great for crowd control, while the Shield Buddy is a must-have for blowing enemies away and protecting you in a temporary energy shield and the Dirty Harry is great for dealing heavy damage to bigger enemies. You can also grab explosive weapons like the One-Handed Dragon, TnTeddy, and Multi-Lock Rocket Launcher to dish out heavy damage, lure enemies into a frenzy with the Captain Ahab or Rager, freeze them in place, or slowly deal damage over time with some of FizzoCo’s own weapons.

Amps and Overdrives provide a range of benefits to your weapons and skills.

As you use each weapon, it’ll gain experience points (XP) and level up to a capped level of five. This not only increases its damage output and effectiveness but also allows you to equip Amps to the weapon for additional effects; Amps can be unlocked and bought at forts and have a range of benefits, from cosmetic stuff like having enemies explode in a burst of flowers, to perks for the Player (causing enemies to drop additional health, money, Overcharge, or increasing the XP rate), and (my personal favourite) additional attacks (rockets, a small nuclear bomb, shock or fire damage, and many others) that can really help level the playing field when faced with swarms of enemies. Performing different tricks, moves, and killing certain enemies will also earn you Badges; Badges can then be cashed in from the main menu to buy Overdrives to equip to the Player. These will increase your health, ammo capacity, and allow you to deal (and take) more damage from certain enemies. You can also increase the damage output of your weapons, the effectiveness of your traversal mechanics and melee attacks, and many other little buffs that all add up to assist you during gameplay. There are also a number of different traps you can buy to place when defending your forts; some of these automatically activate but others require you to jump onto them (which you’ll get some practice with in certain missions) and you can purchase new Amps, weapons, and traps using Overcharge and by collecting the multitude of different collectibles and junk scattered all over the city.

Additional Features:
There are sixty-four Achievements to earn in Sunset Overdrive, with the bulk of these popping when you complete various story-based missions. Many others are tied to combat and pop when you kill a certain number of OD, or when killing enemies in certain ways (grinding and bouncing, for example), spend a certain amount of money, upgrade your weapons, and equip Amps and Overdrives. By far the most time-consuming Achievements are those that involve completing certain side missions or collecting the game’s many different items and junk; scattered all throughout the city are Fizzie balloons, neon signs, toilet paper, and smelly sneakers for you to collect to purchase new Amps and you’ll need to find every single one of these (as well as deface FizzCo signs, smash their vending machines, eavesdrop on conversations, and view city landmarks) to nab every Achievement.

There are numerous collectibles and side missions and even an online multiplayer component.

Each faction you encounter in the game has a number of side quests for you to complete; these include scouring the city for comic books, roasting pigeons, finding parts, rescuing or finding their allies, clearing out enemies, operating cranes, or smashing cars to cause a ruckus and it’s worth your while taking the time to complete as many (or all) of these side quests as it’ll net you more money and items. There’s honestly so much to do at any one time that it can be a little overwhelming but it definitely keeps the game from getting boring and you can easily begin or replay any mission at any time. Once you finish the game, your objectives automatically switch to any remaining side quests, which is really handy, and the game even comes with an online component (“Chaos Squad”) which you can activate at any time from convenient booths scattered across the city. While I wasn’t able to experience this, it is apparently an eight player co-operative mode that involves defending forts and completing missions and has a number of Achievements tied to it.

The two DLC campaigns add a significant amount of content to the game.

The game’s Achievements are further bolstered up to eighty-eight thanks to the game’s two story-based DLC missions, which introduce slight enemy variants, feature forty UFOS to collect, and bestow you with new weapons and items. In “Mystery of the Mooil Rig”, you’ll venture out to an oil rig, where you’ll have to battle oil-based OD and Scab workers while igniting oil to call for help. You’ll also have to make use of the game’s harpoon mechanic to bring a boat in safely, destroy egg clusters infecting the rig, and contend with the massive Cthulhu-like DL Sea Monster; to battle this monstrous creature, you must destroy its tentacles and then have your ally launch you into its gaping jaw so you can mash B to hurt it from the inside. The second story-based DLC, “Dawn of the Rise of the Fallen Machine”, is much trickier and more frustrating; this has you venture beyond the invisible wall and into the FizzCo robot factory, where you must find diaries to assemble a new weapon, impersonate a robot to access kill codes, and frantically roll around in an energy ball destroying certain ‘bots within a strict time limit. This culminates in a boss battle against B-WIN, the host of Sunset TV, who blasts at you with lasers and energy beams from behind multiple screens that protect his core. For this fight, you’ll need to make stringent use of cover and stay on the move to manoeuvre behind him to deal greater damage to his core before luring him over a pit of molten metal to finally finish him off.

The Summary:
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Sunset Overdrive; I’d heard of the game and that it was this fun, chaotic, action romp and it certainly delivered in that regard. There is so much to see and do in the game and, unlike some open world experiences, it never feels dull or repetitive because of the constant swarms of enemies and things to detour off and collect and side missions to complete. The game’s traversal mechanics can take a bit of getting used to but, before long, it’s pretty simple to chain together grinds and jumps with your shooting and to become more efficient at dispatching massive hoards of enemies with your various weapons, Amps, and Overdrives. While there are some frustrating elements to the game, such as how manic the action can be (the game literally never gives you a moment to pause and catch your breath) and how inconsistent and vague some of the mission objectives can be (made all the more annoying since the game largely holds your hand otherwise), the humour and over-the-top presentation is a massive stand out for me; also the gore and crude nature of the game, as well as its self-referential and pop-culture moments, made it a fun and exhilarating experience overall.

My Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Great Stuff

Are you a fan of Sunset Overdrive; if so, what did you think to it? Did you like the game’s over-the-top presentation and zany mechanics? What did you think to the parkour-style traversal system and the game’s many diverse weapons? Were you also a little overwhelmed by how many enemies attack at any one time and the sheer amount to do and collect or did you enjoy the experience of tracking down every last collectible? What did you think to the game’s story and selection of missions and bosses? Which faction or side mission was your favourite? Did you purchase the DLC and, if so, were you satisfied with the additional content or did you want more from the game? Would you like to see a sequel some time? Whatever you think about Sunset Overdrive, leave a comment down below.