Ultimate Mortal Kombat on Xbox 360 Review

There was a time where fighting games were kings of the video games. Back in the 90s where you actually had to leave the house and bring pockets full of quarters to the arcade. And the types of games played were fighting games. 2D fighting games to be specific. One fighting game series during this period is Mortal Kombat. But now with the internet and the influx of first person shooters have rendered us unable to leave the house. But in 2006, the people at Digital Eclipse teamed up with Midway to give us one of those 2D fighting games, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 on the Xbox 360.

Before we move any further, Mortal Kombat was the other fighting game series to fill arcades along with Street Fighter. Mortal Kombat is more violent with its realistic look and gory finishers to rub in your victory to your opponent. Decapitations and pulling out hearts in MK1 eventually lead to even more gruesome fatalities and more over the top finishers as friendships, babalities, and animalities. Along with the major shock value, Mortal Kombat features a block button, which allowed the series to feel different from other fighting games.

Now with Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 appearing on the 360, this isn’t the first time the original arcade version has been ported to consoles, which previously wasn’t done on other consoles successfully. Other versions would have load times in between fights, or have slight lag when Shang Tsung morphs. This port on the 360 has no apparent load times between fights and no hitches when Shang Tsung morphs. You may notice that the music stops a bit when you don’t finish a fight with a finishing move. Some things have improved here such as the sound. All the sounds in the game have better clarity than the arcade original.

This being an arcade port; that means that all things you love and hated in the arcade version are here as well. Mortal Kombat has never been a very big single player game because the artificial intelligence is rubber-band like. The CPU waits and reactions to what the player does. This becomes a problem but after being beaten multiple times, you pick up tendencies which will help exploit the computer. If you are into getting achievement points, the majority of the points in UMK3 are in the single player. But the main attraction is the online play.

Online has some problems to it. Most of the problems are how to get into matches. It makes sense for most online enables games to have create a game/join game option. But this is a two player game, so there are cases where you create a game and you will be waiting for a few minutes because others are creating games as well. Or you can’t join a game because everyone else is looking to join games as well. Another annoying thing is that most online games have the same background when you fight, instead of having the game cycle all the different backgrounds. Another thing is that the controls cannot be configured, which isn’t a bad thing since the controls on the 360 controller works pretty well. But if you want to play with a joystick, you are for the most part out of luck. And if you don’t know what you are doing, you are out of luck as well since most players will defeat you. So if you don’t know how to use a fatality or a friendship, you should get a FAQ and start playing. But if you play a game with a guy who thinks an internet connection runs off of copper wires and some spoons, then your game will play great online. So usually 90% of the time, online play works great.

So with the best port of UMK3 out there and great online support, with a price tag of $10 makes this version of UMK3 a bargain, especially for fighting game fans or Mortal Kombat fans wanting competition anytime they want it.

3.5 stars out of 5

Kidzombie

~ by omnireview on July 9, 2008.