Mortal Monday with Debaser - The Transfer to 3D

There was a load of praise and outrage when the Mortal Kombat series made the big jump to the third dimension of gaming – and I'm sure as hell not talking about Mortal Kombat 4. Midway and the MK Team officially hit the reset button on the series when Deadly Alliance came to fruition and paved the way for the Mortal Kombat games that we know today. But the big question is "Did this action mark the biggest catastrophe the franchise has ever known?"

The series was known across the board as a 2D fighter with simple gameplay, simple moves, and rather insane combos once Ultimate MK3 was introduced to us. Sure, people were still able to get the lame two hundred sweep attacks in a row on somebody, but it was just as easy to whip out a devastating six hit combo and make someone sweat harder than Jack Thompson at Iron-Man. Fans of the series were used to this style of gameplay, and the fighting system continued into Mortal Kombat 4 when the game decided to go for sub-par 3D graphics that weren't really all that impressive.

Tradition died when Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was introduced to the community, and the fanbase was split in half on the subject of the new gameplay successfully replacing the old. The diehard, oldschool MK fans were unhappy with the slower, more complex fighting system and felt alienated. They were unhappy that the old combo system died off so the new "dial-a-combo" system could step in its place. Even I can admit that it was a little strange at first. The most a character could do when the player would spam a button was a three attack combo before briefly pausing after the third attack and becoming vulnerable to a counterattack. They didn't have too may gripes about the new weapon system aside from some characters could impale opponents while others couldn't. They hated the impale system because they felt it was a cheap attack to steal wins – and I have to agree with them on this subject.

But if one really looked at the new system, things like the three attack combo I mentioned were signs of improvement to me and other MK fans alike. This meant that button mashers no longer stood a chance. They'd get demolished by someone who actually knew how to play the game. It implemented a different kind of skill that was a complete opposite of the skill found in games like Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 or MK Trilogy. The juggling wasn't nearly as bad as the older games, and the ability to branch combos across two fighting styles and one weapon style made for an interesting fight. Players could be highly skilled with different characters but in different ways as opposed to the old "know the two combos and juggle attacks" strategy. Also, the new weapon system added an extra level of gameplay that the series could have used ages ago. Sure, there were weapons in Mortal Kombat 4, but they were nothing like the new weapon system that was introduced here. The weapon stances had their own combos, sweeps, pop ups, and takedowns. It was nicely done.

Mortal Kombat fans were especially upset because they believed Mortal Kombat 4 was merely an experiment and the series would return to live actors after this installment. When they received images of what would be Deadly Alliance with full 3D graphics, some were far less than thrilled. To them, the new graphics system came off as somewhat clunky and poorly rendered compared to games of that time such as Halo – a complaint that I agree with. Although more realistic, they felt that the amount of blood in the game had gone overboard to a ridiculous amount with crimson literally dripping from characters' faces and limbs during a post-match pose. They were also unhappy with the fact that the characters felt more generic now that they were 3D rendered and no longer portrayed by digitized actors.

I can agree with the loss of the actors especially because they had done such an impressive job with making the characters come to life on screen. These actors made these characters believable, and the new 3D models of the characters came off as overall disappointing. Even ridiculous nitpicks such as Sonya's underwear being visible in Deadly Alliance along with female characters' chest sizes suddenly expanding twice the original size definitely set the mood for cliché and a bad taste in the mouths of diehard MK fans.

Looking on the bright side of the new graphics, I'm certain that many fans would agree with me that, abundance aside, the new blood looked far more realistic and detailed. The spatters of blood with each hit looked far better, and it actually stayed on the floor until the end of the match. The new animations for each character looked far better, and the fatalities were more believable. Well, that is if one forgets the horrible neck stretch garbage that Quan Chi brought to the table.

Mortal Kombat has always been a series that feeds off of secrets. The new Krypt system was where the MK team decided to place the game's secrets for Deadly Alliance, and each "koffin" required a certain number of specific koins to open it. Some of the diehard oldschool fans didn't like this new system because it seemed far more tedious than the old way of completing arcade mode and entering the Ultimate Kombat Kode. They also didn't care for the loads upon loads of worthless extras that littered the Krypt so one could blow all koins on a bunch of garbage instead of costumes or unlockable characters. This complaint continued on to Deception and even Armageddon.

I can understand the complaints about the loads of concept art and pictures of MK team staff(seriously, who cares to have this stuff?), but I'm not entirely understanding the complaints about the Krypt being tedious. Don't get me wrong; trying to collect all of the different type of koins(there are five afterall) is a pain in the ass. But wasn't it a bit much to uppercut a guy on the Portal stage to get Dan Forden to say "Toasty!" while holding down and pressing start? Wasn't entering the Ultimate Kombat Kode a bitch from hell considering it took two controllers or both sides of the arcade machine to do? Maybe the Krypt method takes longer and is a bit more tedious, but it's hardly the pain in the ass that the other methods were. I welcomed it. I enjoyed it. Call me a newschool MK fan on this issue, but I didn't mind playing the game, doing some of the Konquests, and playing mini-games to get my koins and unlock some characters.

Now begins the complaints that I actually side with. The first being the introduction of the death traps on certain stages. They started out humble enough in the form of these ridiculous statues that pour acid on whoever gets too close to them. This isn't an instant death, but it's definitely a cheap way to chip away on someone rather than winning in a fair way. As if this wasn't annoying enough, the death traps expanded to instant kills in Deception. Knocking an opponent into the deadpool was far too easy and could be done within seconds of a match, and the other death traps weren't much better in terms of being fair. I know that I eventually turned them off when playing online because my opponent would immediately go for the death trap win every round.

I agreed when fans stated that the newer games were more broken when it came to gameplay compared to the older versions. Sure, the juggling was a bit nuts in UMK3, but one certainly couldn't throw an opponent to death like Smoke could in Deception. Johnny Cage could also juggle an opponent in the air until death with his floating backflip kick. There were other broken issues in the games, but these two were probably the worst. I'm glad that they finally got fixed in Armageddon. Now if they could have fixed the kreated fighters as well.

Aside from forcing a barrage of new characters down our throats with the release of both Deadly Alliance and Deception, I believe that the MK Team was going in the right direction with the release of Deadly Alliance. Of course it had its issue, and of course it wasn't as solid of a title as it could have been, but it was a vast improvement over Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat 4. Too bad this step in the right direction would eventually lead to slamming into a tree with Armageddon. Will Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe fix the series? You know what I think about it, but view some of the latest clips and images to decide for yourself.

Fair? You decide
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