Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe looks like Sesame Street in comparison to what Warner Bros. is doing for the franchise reboot on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Mortal Kombat, the rebooting of the series by co-creator Ed Boon and his Netherrealm development team, made a behind-closed-doors appearance at Gamescom in Germany today, and we're there to see it all in its gruesome glory.
We've seen the E3 trailer from a few months ago, but this is the first time that Mortal Kombat's been shown in playable form. The game, according to the game's producer, is total fan service that is meant to appeal to the players of the series before the break into 3D with Mortal Kombat 4. This new design features 3D characters and environments but the action sticks to the strict 2D plane of the classic fighter.
The contrast between the T rated MK vs. DC and this game, at least in terms of sheer violence, is so drastic it's almost unbelievable that the 2008 game is still considered cannon for the series.
The gushing blood is back – in fact, the characters will continue to bruise and get caked in the red stuff as the fights go on, even staining the floors and walls with the goo. The stronger the hit or combo, the more you'll see the blood fly.
The violence returns: there's a new special techniques called X-Ray moves that can be performed when the player's power bar fills up. These attacks are incredibly brutal: the camera will zoom in and show an "x-ray" of the insides of the character's body as it gets hit with destructive force.
The fatalities are a huge part of the new game. Every character have their own set of signature finishing moves that'll end the opponent's life in an incredibly gory way: Johnny Cage's fatality is a throwback to the original Mortal Kombat where he'll uppercut the loser's head clean off, and then rip the torso right off the waist. Or robot Cyrax takes his saw blades and sheers the opponent's body into five pieces that stay together, finishing him up with a body-shattering kick. And there will also be stage fatalities: the Pit II – a recreation of the same stage in Mortal Kombat II – gives winners the opportunity to uppercut the losers off the ledge onto spikes below, but the twist is much more grotesque, with endtrails shoved up out of the body and sticking to the spires.
Neatherrealm showed off a two-on-two team-focused mode where players can swap out teammates mid-fight – this is, according to the producer, a first for the series, but I seem to recall the Super NES version of MK II having a hidden 4-vs-4 option.
I got a chance to see classic fighters including Johnny Cage, Sub Zero, Scorpion, Nightwolf, Kitana, Mileena, and Cyrax. I did spot the character select screen for a few seconds and counted the slots of greyed out fighters, and if that screen remains true all the way to the final, we'll get at least 26 different fighters -- Reptile's a definite as he showed up in a Fatality-focused trailer showing how he'll take out his defeated enemy, by forcing their mouth open and drooling acid right in there.
The game's being prepped for a 2011 release, and PlayStation 3 owners will have an exclusive stereoscopic 3D mode to look forward to.
still cant wait to play it
