Mortal Kombat 3

The Good
New and way, way, waaaay better graphics are probably the most recognizable upgrades one sees in MK3, and they are indeed better. The graphics are much more clear and defined than on earlier games, with incredibly realistic fighters (if you can call a four-armed transvestite realistic), some new pre-rendered effects (as opposed to regular bitmapped sprites in things like limbs, etc.) and drop-dead gorgeus backgrounds that now can also scroll vertically to continue the fight in another level (you can literally uppercut your opponent through the ceiling!).

The sound department has been revamped also, and at least on the pc version sounds even better than on the arcades, with every sfx and the funky darkish music sounding cristal clear.

...well, that's about it!

The Bad
"They did it! They did it!! ... damn them! Damn them all to hell... !!!"

Yes, boys & girls. Midway screwed up it's golden baby, they completely and utterly dissapointed every single player that had eagerly been awaiting for MK3 and to this day it remains the most loathed 2nd sequel to any fighting game only defeated by Street Fighter 3 and Art of Fighting 3.

After the quantum leap MK2 was over the original, fans were expecting MK3 to be the big daddy of arcade fighters, with enough features and perks to keep us entertained for ages. Well guess again kiddo, because this sequel simply adds better graphics and actually detracts from MK2 in many aspects!

The only major additions to the game are a "run" button which is actually a good concept but sucks since it adds another button to the already unintuitive MK control scheme, and a "mercy" feature that is so anal it's practically useless (you have to win using only LP and LK, you have to lose 1 round, do a weird-ass coded sequence when "finishing him/her", stand on one leg, and cover your left eye in order to continue fighting for a short while). You get the same amount of fatalities as on MK2, and the same gay "babalities" (doesn anyone consider them funny???) and "friendships" but as a consolation prize you get some cheesy (even under MK standards) "Animalities" that make your character morph into a glowing plasmatic animal to chew on your enemy.... but they can only be done after "mercys" so forget about them!! Yay!!! Can you tell I'm excited?? Add to that a ladder selection to see how many fighters you want to take on, and you have MK2 with a facelift and the worst and most useless additions ever.... Heck, MK2 had 3 secret characters!! Want to know how many does MK3 have?? 2!!! What the hell is wrong with that???

Of course, that still leaves us with a fairly decent fighting game, right? Well, that's before we enter the realm of fandom my boy... You see, Midway suddendly decided that they were an innovative developing house, and they couldn't keep churning the same crap over and over, right? some re-invention was in order... Super I say! However, they are Midway... so the only thing they did was to re-design most characters or replace them altogheter. What? Were you expecting them to overhaul the gameplay or something like that?? :)) Bwahahah!!!!! Moron!!!

Essentially they took every cool character in the series and replaced them with the most stupid things they could think of, while leaving the usual assortment of Bruce Lee clones we all love so much... so yeah, demonic ninjas, thunder gods, mutants and ninja babes are nice and all, but the people need to see the same generic characters that every other fighter has! So bring back the tough blonde chick, and keep the super-exciting chinese dumbasses nobody ever chooses!! Yeah... but, wait... do you know what is even cooler?? Everybody loves Sub-Zero right? I mean, he's a kickass ninja assassin that shoots ice! Total badass! Yeah, why don't we redesign him and take AWAY all that mistery and remove his mask off!! That way we can get rid of his super-cool ninja image and turn him into yet another generic martial arts dumbass!! Yeah!!! That's what all the kids want!!

But hold on for a sec. That's just a small prize to pay for what surely has to be the best lineup of new characters ever to grace MK, right?? Well, the new characters are.. (hold on to something) A four-armed transvestite, a guy in a mask, a screaming Elvira look-a-like, some robot ninjas and... (drumroll please)... A COP!!! A FRIGGIN COP!!!! Oh man..... Now that's something we have Never ever seen on a videogame ever!!! Thank god Midway gave me the chance to play as a cop, because I never ever in all my years of gaming have been able to slip on the skin of a pig... yeah, that beats playing as a ninja babe all the way man!!

Man... Admitedly Sheeva (the four-armed tv) is nice to have around, and the robot ninjas are cool, but they are nowhere near as cool as ninja babes... Kabal looked promising, but he's nothing but a guy in a mask (read his bio!) and he has the cheapest moves ever! And that cop... sob sob.... Furthermore the whole storyline went down the toilet this time, you see Shao Kahn managed to find a loophole that prevented him from staging those stupid Mortal Kombat tournaments and invade the earth without any stupid Martial artist getting in his way, so he does and he destroys the earth!! Now, I'm all for fighting in an apocalyptic setting, and I don't particularly mind that every background is pretty much devoid of animations and characters (except for the one with the subway, nice to know some things still work after all hell has broken loose on earth :) but while the idea that an ancient one-on-one tournament was the way to prevent an invasion from another dimension was halfway passable, the idea that a one-on-one tournament was the only way to get the earth back after armies of monsters destroyed sounds... well, let's just say that it sounds like every other fighting game ever made. Something Mk hadn't ever sounded like.

The Bottom Line
This may all sound extremely fanboyish to some of you (buh, buhl.. they took MY Mortal Kombat away!!) but as fighting aficionados know, these "minor" things(and a good gameplay) are the cornerstones of every fighting game. There is a reason why all the characters battle on goofy super-hero like costumes and stuff like that, good designs and settings make a fighting game. take that away and you have to rely on good features and gameplay, and that was something the MKs were never known for.... especially this one.

Don't even look at it. If you want to have your MK fix, get the MK trilogy, MK2, 1 or Ultimate MK3 (which is what this game should have been) or the original moive, but for the love of Rayden... Stay away from this game!!!!

The Good
This is a great genesis fighter. I have played the other 2 (mk1 and mk2) and I like this one just as much. It has whole lot of new characters, but to do that, they had to get of some old ones. The ones they added, I thought were very good additions to the mortal kombat collection. They also added a choose your destiny mode, where you could choose how hard the game is, along with the change difficulty setting in the options menu.

The Bad
The main problem I had with this game is the controls, I hated them. They were completely different than the mk2 version. When I first played the game I couldnt do a uppercut. I then found out that for some moves (such as the uppercut), you have to push two buttons at once. That doesn't seem complicated right now, but when your getting pounded in the ground and can't do a simple move, it gets fustrating. Don't get me wrong, you will get used to the new fighting system, it could just possibly take a little while.

Other than that, its a great game!

The Bottom Line
Its a great fighting game, and while I think the second mortal kombat is a little better, this one is still very fun in my opinion. So if you can find it now for a decent price, you should possibly consider it. I don't know if many people would this game anymore, since it's about ten years old. It's 2005 and I still like it.

The Good
The game has a nice collection of fighters, I especially like Kabal. The voice of the announcer ("you'll never win!", "friendship? again?") is dark & creepy like it should be. The game has a sick sense of humor; the fatalities, babalities and other special moves are fun to watch. Lots of blood & gore. Finally, the graphics are a lot better than they were in the previous MK games.

The Bad
This game doesn't belong on a PC. Some of those combos seemed impossible to pull off with a keyboard, I tried using my Logitech Thunderpad Digital but that only made things worse. With one on one beat' em ups timing & control are everything. Console versions of these games are made with a specific configuration (controller & CPU) in mind. This is not the case with the PC versions. The communication between the controller and the CPU doesn't seem to be as good on the PC as on the console. Furthermore I don't like the idea of having 6 different attack buttons (high & low punch, high & low kick, run & block). It makes the controls needlessly complex. Why did they make separate block and run buttons. Could have been solved by replacing run with pressing forward twice and block with pressing backwards when under attack. All of this causes the controls to be less than perfect.

Also this game is not much fun in the 1 player mode and it is pretty hard; I never got past Motaro (maybe cause I didn't like it enough to give it a serious try or maybe I just stink).

The game hasn't got much depth, just two guys beating the crap out of each other. When you win you have to fight again against another guy (or gal). For what reason?

The Bottom Line
I really don't understand the hype that surrounded this game. Sure being the sicko I am the blood & gore kept me fascinated for two afternoons, after which I had seen enough. This game gets boring pretty fast and in my opinion is only fun to play if you're playing it with a friend. I must admit that I'm not a fan of the genre though (everyone seems to like One Must Fall, so maybe I'll give that one a try).