Mortal Kombat

Hard to believe that come next year Mortal Kombat will be celebrating its twentieth anniversary dwelling in the console realm. "Not bad going" doesn't exactly cut it for a series that has survived the years and was once considered just an inferior rip-off cashing in on Street Fighter II's success.

But there is something oddly ironic that in pushing the soft reset button a series that has spawned more titles over the years than I have wish to count, co-creator Ed Boon would shadow Capcom's own revision of its series so closely.

The raft of characters the touch high double digits have been trimmed back to a more manageable twenty-six characters (plus Kratos, who is a PS3 exclusive fighter - see the video below). That the first half of that roster consists of fighters who entered the tournament in the original 2D trilogy is no coincidence - these are the MK veterans that everybody remembers.

3D movement becomes 2D once more, the range of increasingly joke-worthy fatalities are also trimmed back, back to three choices apiece for each warrior and heavy in the gore. It's strange to think it's taken nearly two decades and new technologies for Mortal Kombat to return that slightly-sickening twist to players' stomaches come executing fatalities and the new bone-crushing X-Ray attack.

Its this new addition that has been much lauded in previews and trailers up to now, and rightly so. Initiated through tapping both trigger buttons with a fully-charged special attack bar, and as long as your character connects with their initial grab lunge, the camera will pan in and cut through cloth and flesh to show the damage to bone and tissue from these attacks.

Punches dislocate jaw bones, daggers puncture muscle, chops crunch vertebrae into dust. They get a chunky third of their energy bar depleted, and the Daily Mail gets its new martyr for its crusade against our medium. Lunges need to be Zangief pile driver distance, and since a miss will still deplete your special charge bar entirely, its risk versus reward.

The charge bar is split into three sections, with two other move choices possible if the charge (built through attacks and combos) notches up past their icons. Enhancements are the first, granting you a buffed version of your special attack. Hold R2 while pulling off a usual super move, such as Nightwolf's bow attack, will see the arrow number triple. Breakers are the second segment, and work similar to Street Fighter's parrying system, letting you break an attacker's combo with a correctly-timed button press and weigh in with a counter attack.

Its good that these implementation are so simple, if precise - Mortal Kombat has relearnt its brutal pacing, meaning for quick wits that needn't falter due to grappling with controls. The complex button combos and exacting area placements are happily reserved to Fatalities.

Those have been reconfigured to utilise each character's special attacks. You can call up a move list for each character (nicely giving you a selection of combos along with special moves) but only the first Fatality is listed. Forcing the player to experiment to find out the others is an odd choice in this age of online guides.

But they cater, as you'd expect, to each character's strengths. Sub Zero freezes his opponent's legs before ripping off their top half, Sonya Blade crushes her victims between her thighs, and Kitana chews down on her foe's neck with as much relish as a KFC after a drunken night on the town.

Odd how the old reflexes kick in though. Despite an awesome tutorial section that'll nicely line up the new additions to the gameplay, including a tasty Tag Team mode which lets you juggle combos between characters as they swop in with a button press, I find my first match falling right back into the rather obvious strategy of leg sweeps and uppercuts.

It's probably because the game feels so close to the original trilogy. I left the series alone when it went 3D, but with joypad in hand the years between the then and now disappeared in a spray of blood. Combos need a high level of dexterity to pull off and I end up leaning the PS3 pad on my thigh to tap them in quick enough, and be it either age or increased input speed, but this is the first MK I'll be playing with an arcade stick.

Chances are in single player, it'll at least survive my angry sentiments on single player. Because you know what? That ladder system's still rock hard.

There are five difficulty levels, and I'd love to see someone conquer this game on Expert, if only to force me to decide whether to bow before them or call them a masochist. or both. I tried weighed in on medium, and quickly shifted from the human punch bags of the first two matches to being shafted by some fast moves come match three. This is definitely a game for fighting enthusiasts to sharpen their skills on before hitting Versus mode.

And its here that I spend most of my session, roping in a colleague to work our way through the character roster, as well splitting our time between 1 vs 1 and 2 on 2 tag matches.

A small note is that the match runs continuously - there's no break between rounds to reset your positioning. I've only seen this in Capcom's Darkstalkers before, and it has an interesting psychological effect in making it harder to pull back from a battering in the first round; metaphorically there's no chance to catch your breath, and the first few matches fall cleanly to whoever won the first round.

Mortal Kombat is a fast game and as such gameplay is focused on offensive strategies. Its invigorating as it tests your reaction times - a side effect perhaps of special moves that, unlike Street Fighter, have zero charge time or tell-tale indicators of their arrival. Johnny Cage's kick flings him across the screen in a flash, as does Jax's rapid-fire punch.

The character roster so far offers a good mix of types, and thankfully the ninjas that are the majority are distinctly different in style and stance, rather than warriors that are identical save for the colour of their robes. Milena comes across as an early favourite, her fans offering slightly longer range on some attacks, and who's specials are some of the fastest of the bunch.

There's smaller, nicer details as well. Flung projectiles will remain embedded in opponents over the course of the match (Sub-Zero's icicles will slowly melt over time). Black-clad ninja Ermac has a range of specials that have a range of status-crippling effects, and there's even a nice nod to one of the odder moments of the series past. I won't spoil the surprise, but it will make you chuckle.

Mortal Kombat has always felt distinct within the fighting crowd, and the regeneration of franchise is no different.

With a heavy emphasis on online modes, NetherRealm Studios is acknowledging that MK needs staying power, rather than parlour tricks to sustain it and prove it is a bankable commodity amongst the hardcore.

As it stands it might have a chance to do so - the oversized bosoms of the cast's female members and limb-shredding moves might appease gore hounds and teenage male gamers, but there's a solid foundation in the fighting system that could see Mortal Kombat hold its own in the multiplayer ring. But I'll need to spend more time on the single player in the different difficulties to find out if the core game stands firm on its own two feet.