Mortal Kombat Review

As each hit of the combo lands on your opponent, you're treated to a slow-motion X-ray view of your opponent's bones and organs being crushed in an excessive display of blood and guts that even the most hardcore of sadists will appreciate. Skulls are smashed, spines are broken, and knives are thrust into eyeball sockets, all accompanied by flying shards of bones and chilling sound effects that crunch and splat just right. Aside from the visual payoff, X-ray moves take off massive amounts of your opponent's health--so much so that it's often worth ignoring the first two stages of the super meter altogether, nullifying its strategic merits somewhat.

Sadly, Shao Kahn is as cheap as ever.

Get the timing right and you can integrate X-Ray moves into your existing combos. They're especially useful if you're juggling--nothing screams pro more than launching your opponents into the air, landing a combo, and then, while they're completely helpless, smashing their skull with your boot in glorious X-Ray vision. While X-ray moves are powerful, they're not unstoppable; some can be blocked if they're not performed as part of a combo, and others can be dodged. They're also not the bloodiest of moves in the game--that accolade is reserved for fatalities.

Gruesome, a little disturbing, and so over-the-top they're downright hilarious at times, fatalities are performed at the end of fights. Depending on your chosen character, you can perform moves such as ripping the skin off opponents, slicing their bodies into quarters, or turning them into vapour with a barrage of explosive rockets. There are also stage fatalities that let you use the surrounding environment to kill opponents, such as by punching them into a pool of acid or dropping them onto a set of spikes and seeing their guts spill out. Simple commands make fatalities easy to perform, but stick to using the d-pad: while you can swipe the touch-screen to input directional commands, it's difficult to do so at the speed required, and to tell if they've registered correctly. If you're finding it tough either way, a helpful fatality training mode shows you exactly where to stand and displays the button commands onscreen along with an input display, so you can see any mistakes you're making.

Strangely, that same input display doesn't appear in Tutorial mode, which teaches you the basics of fighting, such as how to punch, throw opponents, and dodge attacks. It's still useful, but if you're new to fighting games, an input display would make learning moves a little easier. The tutorial also gives you an introduction to another new and fun addition to the series: tag team fighting. Unfortunately, with the block, throw and X-Ray commands mapped to the shoulder buttons, the Vita's lack of triggers makes switching between your two characters incredibly awkward. The tag-switch command is relegated to the right analogue stick. Trying to perform one of the many impressive-looking tag team combos by pressing a face button and twiddling the right stick at the same time requires some extreme finger dexterity--so much so that the feature is nearly impossible to use accurately.

Ladder mode lets you try out your newfound tag team skills against a bunch of CPU opponents in a 10-fight tournament, though you can use just a single player if you prefer. Ladder is essentially an arcade mode where you must fight your way to the top and take on boss Shao Kahn in the last battle. Fighting Shao Kahn is difficult and extremely frustrating. He is one of the cheapest opponents you encounter, spamming you with a range of unblockable moves that seriously deplete your health bar. Worse still, you can't throw him, and if you don't manage to land a perfect combo when you attack, he absorbs the first hit and launches a counter of his own. If you do manage to defeat him, you're rewarded with an epilogue, which briefly tells you about what your character does after the tournament. It's little more than a simple voice-over set to 2D artwork, but it's a nice addition if you're craving a little more narrative after Story mode.

Should have gone to Specsavers.

There's yet more content to play through in Challenge Tower, which acts as an extended tutorial, teaching you different strategies via a series of challenges and minigames. These range from standard fights where you can't block or use specials, through to minigames such as destroying a horde of zombies with Stryker's handgun or following a list of rapid-fire input commands to break a spell. There are also a bunch of inventive new challenges exclusive to the Vita version that make use of the handheld's many input options. Challenges like Test Your Balance use the gyroscope to balance your character on a beam as you try to avoid turning yourself into a bloody pancake, while another sees you tilting the Vita to change the angle of the arena for bonus buffs. Others have you furiously tapping on the screen to detonate incoming rockets, or--in an inspired move--swiping to wipe off ever-increasing splodges of blood that explode from you opponent with each hit and obstruct your view. They're a lot of fun, and perfect fodder for quick 30-second blasts while you're on the go. They add yet more value to the already substantial and entertaining offerings of the Challenge Tower, Story, and Ladder modes, making Mortal Kombat one of the most content-rich fighting games out there.

That's before you even touch the multiplayer modes--the cornerstone of any good fighting game. You can compete in standard one-on-one versus matches and tag-team matches via local ad hoc connections, or take the action online. There you can play in ranked matches, friendly player matches, or compete against your friends directly in private games. It's a shame the great King Of The Hill mode from the console versions is missing, but at least your performance is tracked on a global leaderboad. Matches are largely lag-free, though like in any online game, there are times when a bad connection causes the game to stutter significantly, making it tricky to compete.

Whether you fight online or offline, and in all but the ad hoc versus mode, you're rewarded with coins for your victories. They are used to buy your way up the Challenge Tower if you're stuck on any particular challenge, or purchase new content in the Krypt, which is a virtual graveyard-cum-shopping-mall. There are hundreds of gravestones and corpses within the graveyard, each of which requires a certain number of coins to destroy and reveal the content underneath. Items such as concept art, character costumes, and music tracks can be unlocked, as well as more practical items such as new fatalities and Kombat Kodes, which unlock new game modes such as Headless Kombat and No Blood.

Krueger takes no prisoners.

With all that content, an in-depth Story mode, and a wide range of modes to play through, Mortal Kombat is one of the most complete fighting games around--not to mention one of the bloodiest. It's visually impressive too, rendering the gory action at an impressively smooth frame rate, even if it does lack some of the finer detail and anti-aliasing of the console versions. The return of fatalities and the addition of X-ray moves mean fans who have craved the return of gore after the toned-down Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe will have plenty to keep them amused. Likewise, the return to 2D fighting and a substantially tweaked control system have made the game more accessible for newcomers, seriously fast, and lots of fun. Plus, no other fighting game lets you knee your opponents in the groin and proceed to tear their bodies in half. And really, isn't that what Mortal Kombat is all about?