Top 10 of '11 - #6: Mortal Kombat

Several weeks ago, I saw a post on Lamebook about a young woman who was utterly perplexed as to why a telephone from the 1990s was plugged into itself, unaware that the cord attached the unit to the receiver. Everybody has a laugh and thinks, “Oh boy, aren’t we old when kids these days don’t even recognize what a telephone from 20 years ago looked like!” It then dawned on me: kids these days might not know what the arcades were.

Notice the tense used right there: were. About five years ago I visited my favorite arcade, about 25 miles from my old stomping grounds. It was a plush basement within a mall, complete with an underground mini-golf course and rows upon rows of arcade machines during the fighting genre’s boom period. I can still remember how loud the Mortal Kombat II machines roared in my face, the screaming of combatants being torn limb from limb prior to a bass-driven declaration of victory from an unseen narrator. These are fond memories from a time that will never come back into the mainstream, as our machines at home are more powerful, more rewarding, and offer a wealth of competition from around the globe in the comfort of our living rooms. Kids these days will never really understand why we spent hundreds of dollars on a game we could never even take home with us against lackluster local competition comprised of burnouts (at least in the Midwest). There was something about putting your money where your mouth is, the camaraderie between frequent mallrats who played the same machines, and the social atmosphere. It’s sad to face, but facts are facts: we will never see that again. It is a relic in time that is to be lost on future generations.


Growing old sucks, and this dawning realization that arcades are next on the list of things kids simply won’t understand (and logically so – while I never regret the money poured into the arcades as an adolescent, it was never very practical) is just another extension of getting older. Partially because I hadn’t played a captivating fighting game in a while and partially out of nostalgia, I took a keen liking to the development cycle of Mortal Kombat, the ninth installment of the fighting game staple that brought the genre to the mainstream. Thankfully, it did not disappoint.

Blending the careful juggling made popular in the heyday of the Mortal Kombat franchise from Mortal Kombat II through Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 with the dashing abilities that 3D fighters have implemented liberally, NetherRealm Studios has crafted Mortal Kombat from scratch with a brand new engine that successfully spiritually captures what made the original games so captivating: fast combat, loads of gore, and a flawless sense of humor.

One thing that Mortal Kombat infinitely improves on is satisfying combos. Long gone are the days of being able to dial-in your combos with an unblockable series of button combinations that automatically launch a string of attacks with the only way to break through them existing in the form of the player who's executing the attacks screwing their wide timing window up. With the new set-up, you can successfully dial-into a small combo of three hits worth 7% or so damage, but in order to deal the hefty fines, you will have to refine your ability to launch your opponent into the air and set them up with a perfectly-timed combination of attacks to keep them there. It’s not Street Fighter-difficult to master, but still tough enough to weed out the boys from the men.


Speaking as a relatively “good” gamer, I can state without a doubt that the fighting game genre is the most inclusive of all game types; it feeds on competition and the level of devotion it takes to become remotely good is often off-putting for many gamers. Unlike popular shooters where you can have fun with your friends while attempting to get better at the game, fighting games leave the spotlight shining solely on you; there is no one to attack while they are distracted with one of your buddies. Likewise, there is no way to play with your friends, only against them. This can cause tension in your inner-circle if you or your friend happens to be pretty decent at the game, making it a tough game to socialize in. Mortal Kombat tries its best to get over these humps by introducing a King of the Hill mode where the winner continues playing until he or she is defeated, all while spectators look at the action from the lobby and toss tomatoes at the screen, amidst other fun expressions.

The talk of the town with Mortal Kombat was inarguably the robust Story Mode that complemented the fun arcade-style action, putting you in the boots of random world warriors as they tackled their own paths through Earth Realm and beyond. Raiden sends a message to himself in the past in an effort to prevent Shao Kahn’s stranglehold over humanity, allowing the development team to properly write their love letter to previous Mortal Kombat installments with new takes on classic fatalities, characters, and especially stages – even if Kombat Tomb was overlooked. I’ll never stop wondering how that pterodactyl made his way to Outworld. The backgrounds are one of the better portions of the game, as 90% of them have been properly updated to feel as familiar as ever with a dabbling of artistic fortitude. The Krypt is also back to keep devoted fans chugging along in order to unlock all of the characters, fatalities, artwork and other goodies well after the Story Mode has played out. Simply put, there is a lot of value to be had here.

Ultimately, the reason I stopped playing Mortal Kombat was due to the lackluster online stability at the title’s launch. More so than any other genre, lag can utterly destroy an online community before it even begins in the fighting genre, as often the difference between victory and defeat can rest in milliseconds of timing. To face an insurmountable hill to ascend in the form of a half-second of lag is game-breaking, as it’s impossible to adequately time combos when the timing of the game you that enter is unpredictable, varying from lobby to lobby. Consistency is a necessity in these types of games, period. Still, my time with Mortal Kombat was fond enough to provide new memories with the franchise, a feeling that has not been heard of since 1995.

Strategy has never been a selling point to the orgy of violence that is Mortal Kombat, but that changes with the arrival of this ninth entry into the long-running fighting series. It's not all about blood and guts these days; if you dig down deep, you might find a little bit of brain matter and cartilage, too.

Quantity Over Quality: The Plight of DLC

Before five days ago, I had been planning this entry for months and months with a very distinct tone swirling around in my noggin: I was going to attack game developers and publishers for trying to nickel and dime consumers as a ploy to try and recoup some of their losses pertaining to their increased, unpaid hours as a result of the corporate greed above them. Still following? Good. That was five days ago, and like any open-minded person, one fell swoop can completely alter a state of mind. Yeah, I’m referring to Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, the new Downloadable “episode” from Capcom.

Dead Rising 2: Case Zero works as a prequel to the upcoming sequel, released one month between one another, introducing the main character and his once-bitten little daughter as they trek across the Nevada desert in search for a lasting cure to her infection.

The “demo” teaches you the basics regarding the changes in the game’s computer AI when hauling survivors from one location to the next, the emphasis on searching for a temporary solution for zombification in Zombrex--a hot commodity that will keep the protagonist’s daughter from turning into the walking dead--and an introduction to a handful of weapon combinations to showcase one of the retail title’s selling points. (A kayak paddle with two chainsaws strapped on both ends? Uh, hell yes?)

On top of all of this, your stats and bonuses carry over into the full game. What is not advertised, however, is how cleverly this so-called demo sets you up—and more importantly, pumps you up—to play the full-fledged retail game. I’m practically bouncing on my hands in anticipation to get my hands on the full game; if this game truly is a demo instead of a separate experience, it works better than any demo before it.

Let’s argue why Case Zero is not a demo. Well, that’s the easiest argument in this entire entry: it’s not a demo because it is a separate piece of gaming from Dead Rising 2. It’s a full area that you cannot access in that game, full of characters that you will (likely) not see in that game. Where Dead Rising 2 takes place in Las Vegas, Case Zero takes place in the tiny Route 66-esque town of Still Creek. There are twelve unique achievements tied to this so-called demo, complete with its own boss encounter. This, readers, is Downloadable Content, a game add-on like you would normally purchase after the fact.

Now, you can make an argument regarding whether or not this can be considered nickel and diming considering the game that the DLC has reached the open market prior to the retail game’s launch. “If it’s done a full month before the game comes out, why isn’t it on the disc?” some may wonder. This is, of course, in the eye of the beholder.

For instance, I have grown stale of demos. I usually find myself wasting time playing a semi-polished portion of a game that I will have to stroll through again once the game arrives on store shelves, like some strange déjà vu experience. Due to this, demos seem like a waste of my precious time, like I’m watching the first 15 minutes of a movie three weeks before it hits theaters. I would rather experience the complete film at once rather than broken into pieces.

Keiji Inafune feels the same, telling IGN in a recent interview he “didn't want to go down the boring route of cutting out a part of the game and letting players play for free, and then, if they like it and buy the game, they have to play through that bit again as well. I think that business model is really boring.” I feel the same way, so kudos to Inafune-san for understanding the plight of the current market.

In the case of Case Zero, it showcases everything that it needs to, sans gorgeous visuals, without repeating itself on launch day. Furthermore, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time since I’m working towards gaining levels and collectible Combo and Scratch Cards for unique weapon combinations. Case Zero successfully sold me on Dead Rising 2, cranking my excitement from a 7 to a 9, in a matter of hours.

Where Mass Effect 2's DLC mostly felt like leftovers, Case Zero is a tasty appetizer entirely unique to the main course, whetting the appetite for the delicious brains to be unveiled later in the month. You could say that aforementioned one fell swoop was me falling in love with the concept of DLC once more.

Pessimists, however, would say that fall was one from grace, and I’m falling right into the pocket of Capcom in their “latest catastrophe” of “charging for demos.” If they’re adamant about it, they likely will see the game through rage-soaked glasses, purposefully ignoring the good qualities something like this can provide just to remain solidified on their side of the debate.

Case Zero is an interesting experiment in its own right, and a unique case, indeed. I’m a little afraid that developers will make a great discovery for the DLC concept only to have it misconstrued and transformed into something sinister by their publishers; there’s no doubt that this is not the next evolution of gaming, as demos have been around for the longest time now, but it could be that next big thing that gets warped into something demented by those bigwigs gripping at thin air for dollars.

But within this mini-review, I’m here to explain why my stance on Downloadable Content has shifted slightly, providing a neutral stance while tight-roping the fine line between corporate greed and consumerist exceptionalism.

My time with Downloadable Content has been a bit of a rollercoaster. The beginnings of the movement had the potential to bring full new worlds to life; a developer could launch a long-anticipated game and work on additional content for, seemingly, years to come. This could provide a long-lasting relationship between the consumer and the developer, especially for cases such as Halo, Call of Duty and Gears of War—in other words, games that deserve the continued support of their creators, as the fans will keep playing those games continually enough to make them mainstays in Xbox Live’s Top 10 for online activity.

Much like politics, when the potential seems genuine and promising, the reality soon settles in underneath the good intentions and well-meanings, those sweet fruits of labor seem to all turn into bitter lemons.

One of the first pieces of DLC to hit the Marketplace was Horse Armor to protect your steed in Oblivion, a not-so-carefully disguised ploy to make gamers a little bit better at the game, folks who wanted instant gratification without all of the grinding. It was the first of a series of appalling acts within the industry to change the potential of DLC from the promise of prolonging a favorite game to a valve that pumps blood into the heart of corporate swindle.

Soon after, we saw thousands of Microsoft Points worth the costumes in the wrestling game Rumble Roses XX. No longer could you merely unlock an alternate costume by playing a game inside-out, you had to outright purchase it. In order to purchase all of these costumes, you would have to spend 6960 Microsoft Points—nearly $90 in digital currency.

Namco intentionally “locked out” a handful of stages in their Xbox 360 iteration of the Katamari series, Beautiful Katamari. After purchasing around $20 in stages, an instant-click download would occur, meaning the stages were already on the disc and intentionally withheld from the consumer. These are two of the best examples of the “nickel and diming” that many on the anti-DLC side can point to.

On the side of unlockables, I believe there can be a fair balance with two tiers of unlockables: one half that requires the utmost skill, and the other half, which can be unlocked via determination or the optional digital currency payoff. Frankly, if I see a player decked out in tough unlockable garb, I know that guy has earned it; at the same time, the lower-tier unlockables can be picked by folks like me with lesser talent at games or outright bought by the saps who are even worse than I--if they even exist in the first place.

This would be a good balance and keep everyone (mostly) satisfied. The same concept could be blended into the mix for stage unlocks and the like. Thankfully, the experiences with publisher have been few and far between ever since early 2008 with this sort of stuff, but new issues have risen.

In Madden 2010, you cannot create a stellar player without paying real money to unlock the ability to concoct a Pro Bowl-type football star. On the opposite end, Sony’s MLB the Show ’10 has read my mind and offered players the ability to plow through way through the minor leagues or outright purchase attribute points, giving two paths to a single destination. EA, take note: this is the proper way to nickel and dime. I can eventually have an All-Star third baseman in MLB the Show ’10 without ever dropping a cent into the game, so my back is not against the wall with aggressive--and frankly, revolting--money-grubbing schemes.

But is this a new concept? For years, players have bought and sold high-level accounts in online games such as Diablo II and World of Warcraft, complete with the best armor and weaponry that the game has crafted, on online auction sites such as eBay. Is this not the same concept that games such as MLB the Show ’10 are now providing, a shortcut to being a great player for a price? The only difference is the people who have their hands in the creation of the game are the ones receiving the money instead of the twentysomething kid with no other means of income.

No, this is not the DLC that has plagued my level of interest in the industry’s buckling trend, as it seems like no game can be socially accepted these days without the promise of support after release; it’s almost becoming a taboo in the industry to not support add-on expansions for every game your development team dips their hands into.

This is not a new concept in the gaming industry, as popular IPs such as The Sims, Elder Scrolls, and Diablo are a short list of large titles to support expansion packs in the past. But this begs the question, is every game worthy of downloadable episodes or add-ons? The sad fact is that I spent just as much money on DLC in the past nine months as I have retail games, with the entire Fallout DLC package running at the suggested retail price of a brand new game altogether upon its release.

All of this said, there are definitely positive applicable uses of DLC in the spectrum; a game like Little Big Planet benefits from having additional building packages themed from other IPs, such as their Metal Gear Solid package containing stickers and themed-building blocks. Why is this such a good use of DLC? Because only a small percentage of Little Big Planet players actually build enough stages to warrant the optional purchase of more tools to use when crafting their imagination’s playhouse.

With the upcoming and previously talked about Mortal Kombat due in 2011, the developers will have the option of crafting all-new characters to drop into the mold of the game long after they’ve finished the product, catering to the hardcore fans of the series without sacrificing roster space for the casuals who purchase the game. So long as those new fighters can be used against players who have not purchased them, this is a viable exploration of downloadable endeavors. Another interesting twist could be if the ESRB clips some of the more brutal Fatalities from the game, they could eventually pop up in DLC down the line.

Most developers are big supporters of providing DLC to their titles. Noteworthy standouts for games due over the course of the next 16 months include NetherRealm Studios, the team putting together the latest iteration of Mortal Kombat, and Dave Jaffe, the creator of Twisted Metal and God of War, who plans to aggressively support DLC upon the release of the next Twisted Metal entry.

Jaffe, in particular, spears through the heart of the opposition of downloadable goods. He has stated many times on his Twitter account (DavidScottJaffe) that he believes the consumer should not feel nickel and dimed so long as they feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth out of their $59.99 retail purchase. Of course, Jaffe also believes most Pixar movies are ho-hum visual spectacles, so we can take his opinions with a grain of salt (I kid, of course).

The man brings up a good point, albeit one that is incredibly tough to judge; just where is this tiniest of thin lines where it becomes a half-baked attempt by a developer and/or publisher to get a few extra bucks, and where does it tread over into a bunch of complaining, greedy gamers endlessly chanting for more, more, more?

I feel this isn’t the main problem in the first place, though I will more often than not side with the developer in these cases; DLC is optional, and at the heart of my argument, just not as good as the games it is supposed to complement. To delve into my general problem with DLC is to look at games such as Borderlands and Mass Effect 2, two very good, albeit different, games that offer a long-lasting, 20+ hour adventure where you feel as if you’ve, as Jaffe put it, gotten your money’s worth.

Being a big fan of Mass Effect 2, I blindly downloaded the first two DLC add-ons released for each one. To quote one of the developers of the new Mortal Kombat, from his Blogspot account, “[DLC] lets those of us who really enjoyed a game get even MORE of the game without having to wait years for a sequel.” I initially agreed with this statement. Seeing as how I have agreed with both cited developers in the past two paragraphs, how could I disagree at this point?

What I soon learned after downloading and playing the first two Mass Effect 2 add-on packs was that there’s a reason I think of that game as the frontrunner for Game of the Year: it was meticulously worked on day in and day out for several years. The amount of polish in the storytelling, presentation, and the subtle nuances such as random dialogue between your party members of choice makes the game feel above the competition in even the best years of gaming. All of this, however, is lacking in the DLC.

Upon coaxing gamers into buying the title brand new instead of used, EA promised consumers free downloadable content on a continued basis for Mass Effect 2. Since then, we’ve seen around three times the amount of pay content by comparison of the free stuff—a new character completely lacking the communication function and a sad excuse for a Mako replacement.

Even the good Mass Effect 2 download content has its glaring faults; the minimal dialogue issued by Commander Shepard and zero dialogue uttered by your mimes... pardon me, support characters, is about the most obvious omission in a game as character development-heavy as Mass Effect.

Certainly, I adore Mass Effect 2. I’ve played games professionally long enough to understand that when a game like it comes along, it’s solidified top shelf honors at the Game of the Year roundtables in the industry. So why tarnish something so noteworthy by releasing something so insignificant to prolong it? Has DLC really become the re-releases of the Star Wars Trilogy? Adding additional scenes for the sake of adding them, with minimal quality control to grasp the situation?

My biggest problem with DLC is the fact that, more often than not, it fails to live up to what is on the disc, likely due to the rat race of getting additional content out there for the sake of saying you support the DLC platform itself instead of the game you’re supposed to represent. If there’s one thing I cannot stand, it’s inconsistency—especially when it’s such a stark contrast from the Mass Effect 2 disc content to the downloadable content.

Of course, it looks like what I have to say in this matter is but a whisper in a crowded convention center full of gaming executives, producers, developers, and above all, consumers who disagree with my assessment. Huh, so that’s what it feels like to be deemed insignificant. Maybe—just maybe--this 2800 word blog entry will melt the icy heart of an economic growth-devouring executive... or be used as their toilet tissue.

-Zoop

A Quarter for the Queue

In the heat of the St. Louis summer, your choices of running from the sticky humidity have always been slim; this is a city that always has and always will thrive on baseball, one of the most grueling experiences a person can partake in when the heat index tips 122 degrees Fahrenheit. But these days, the option of escaping to an illuminated cavern of entertainment throughout most of the Midwest is limited to the movie theater. Oh, how you kids missed a truly great spectacle of entertainment.

Brace yourself, kiddos: Grandpa’s about to tell a story.

When I was your age, we got our kicks in the arcade. We also paid for music and danced to the Macarena, but that’s not the point. We’d flock to the mall, another dying concept in today’s economy, and we’d have a ten-spot in-tow, which we would have slammed down on the counter at Babbage’s or Software, Etc. to pre-order whatever the latest iteration of Street Fighter II they were passing time with instead of making a full-fledged sequel—if pre-ordering existed back then. Don’t worry, we didn’t ride horses to the mall… but if you had power windows in your car, you were bourgeoisie.

No, no, instead we used that ten bucks to head over to the nearest arcade—in my instance, the Tilt—and feed it into a wondrous money-devouring machine, which spit out magical golden tokens that could be fed to an voodoo box powered by electricity!

But seriously, we’d blow all of our allowance on a game that we couldn’t even own—and play in short bursts, no less, sometimes going through a dollar in a matter of three minutes if we were unlucky enough to go up against the dreaded older teenager: a God amongst novices with his hand-scribbled list of moves in numerous players’ handwriting, a testament of his previous losses at the hands of those more knowledgeable, visible like the scars of a prized fighter; with every loss came the techniques, combos and, of course, finishing moves of the victor. Sometimes, losing is worth the spoils.

Looking back, I plunked hundreds of dollars into arcade cabinets throughout my life, mostly on the fighting game frenzy of the early- to mid-‘90s, with seemingly nothing to show for my hundred dollar exploits. Killer Instinct saw me at my best, winning a competition and doing well enough in other tournaments. Street Fighter II and all of its still-beating-heart incarnations found me dumping a lot of dollars and quickly leaving with my head down in defeat at every cabinet in the region. But Mortal Kombat was my middle-ground, and somehow my favorite series to feed money to, and the memories I gained were enough to justify breaking all those bills I could really use right now.

I can tell you the exact location of every noteworthy moment I’ve experienced with the Granddaddy of Gore. The Pizza Hut near my house, where Sub-Zero ripped the spine out of Liu Kang in the original Mortal Kombat. Finding a row of what seemed like tens of Mortal Kombat II cabinets in the underground arcade up in North County. Beating the crap out of a guy so bad at Mortal Kombat 3 with Nightwolf that he physically smacked my hands while I was playing to prevent me from doing as well—and I still won. Watching as Ermac was unlocked in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in utter disbelief of the legend being included in the game.

Mortal Kombat evolved as it went along, if ever so slightly. The original was as standard as they come, in terms of the gameplay itself: clunky movements and stiff animations provided a slow experience with a big pay-off, if you managed to pull off a Fatality to cap off the Flawless Victory. The second installment increased the speed of the series, as well as complemented the pace with fluid animations. Mortal Kombat II had bright, colorful backgrounds, an intertwining storyline still yet-to-be toppled in the genre and, of course, brutal Fatalities.

My favorite entry into the series, however, was Mortal Kombat 3 and its “Super” upgrade, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. U/MK3 added another level of speed to the combat, making everything seem more over-the-top and hectic. A Run button was adding, allowing the Kombatant to sprint in, screaming his or her head off like a lunatic as they assaulted their opponent with a series of dial-in combos pulled off without mercy via a succession of button combinations.

I mastered the art of Cyber Smoke, mixing the best abilities of Sektor, with his teleportation uppercut to juggle the enemy, and Scorpion with a pull-in spear to grab them before they hit the ground. This, to me, was Mortal Kombat perfected: fast, improvised combos mixed with the dial-in material and some of the bloodiest, most ridiculous finishing moves ever seen—even to this date.

The Mortal Kombat series lost a lot of its luster with its fourth entry into the series at the height of the 3D-plane craze within the fighting game industry. Still a fine game, 3D gaming never really took hold with me, especially with Mortal Kombat. The first reboot of the series did a fair enough job, quite the improvement over Mortal Kombat 4, but the series once again fell a bit with each successive release after Deadly Alliance. Projectiles became simple inconveniences for the opponent with the ability to sidestep them; key components to a fighter’s arsenal could now be easily bypassed as the years progressed. Scorpion’s spear? Press up to avoid it altogether and charge in from the side of the skeletal fiend, all while the ninja is still in the animation of his once-deadly special move. This sums up how the series slowed down: an iconic figure’s signature maneuver reduced to a mere nuisance instead of the set-up to a barrage of incoming chaos.

Unintentionally aligned with the release of the independent movie trailer for the reimagining of the series on film, Ed Boon and the folks at NetherRealm Studios in Chicago unleashed a pre-E3 trailer bringing back everything I loved about the series: colorful, robust design, small dial-in combos that can lead into gravity-defying aerial assaults, unmatched speed to keep the Kombat as frantic as ever, and of course, the most brutal Fatalities known to man.



Finally, Mortal Kombat is returning to what made it a household name in the first place. One of the reasons that the series, while still a critical and commercial success, became less like Mortal Kombat was the great chase to follow the next great evolution in the fighting genre. After all these years of trying to cross over into the Z-axis plane of fighting, Ed Boon has realized that the simpler the fundamentals of the basic Kombat, the easier it is to get to the meat of the game itself—the delicious, blood-soaked meat, still hanging off the bone.

After all, Mortal Kombat was a trendsetter for the fighting game genre in many ways; once it began following the trends of the wavering public is when the series became less like itself and more like the Soul Calibur-types surrounding it. By going back to their earlier years in a way similar to that of the story’s canon of time-travel, they’re erasing the injustice of not following up Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 with a sequel using a similar, tweaked engine. Now we can reap the rewards of a development team comprised of die-hard fans of the first 3.5 games in the series, dedicated to releasing a product that they themselves are excited about.

The biggest question is, can the arcade atmosphere transcend through wireless Internet? In the heydays of Mortal Kombat, the Internet wasn’t even available to print lists of special moves, let alone gaming without the presence of another human being nearby. The atmosphere at the arcade was mostly friendly (though I’d like to see how badly I would’ve wounded ol’ smack-hands without him being there to throw off my combos with his real-life fists of fury), offering an insightful experience where you make friends at the throw of a Johnny Cage, for if you acted inappropriately toward another player, his Dad might kick your ass. Can that experience really exist in the highly-competitive non-community of online gaming?

At a packed arcade with one cabinet and two joysticks, we built a culture from the ground-up where prospective players lined their quarters along the bottom of the monitor, signifying your entry into Mortal Kombat. Fourth quarter in line of change? That was your place in line. The anxiety that built with every passing round, watching the guy playing as Jax dominating every opponent who crossed his path, figuring out his every move and weakness, studying him like a hawk… only to have the newcomer sweep him out from under you without notice. You’re up next, and your strategies for the now-defunct enemy are out the window while the newcomer awaits. Gulp, indeed.

This, I feel, is an experience unlike any other in gaming, as do the folks at NetherRealm Studios—that’s why they’re tacking on a Winner Stays online mode, where spectators line up with their figurative quarters lined up as they wait for their turn to tackle the beast of a competitor with the ongoing winning streak—a welcomed addition to the console fighting genre for old school arcaders such as myself, but in the day and age of hopping into a Halo Deathmatch in a matter of seconds, will this feature hold the attention span of our ADD-culture? In a land where instant gratification runs rampant, with instant-streaming Netflix and quick matches being the norm, will this novelty build a significant enough community to actually enjoy the slow tension that builds when you’ve been waiting 10 minutes for what seems like a gladiator bout? Oh, how I hope so.

Since retiring from my arcade days (or should I say they retired on me?), the fighting genre has largely escaped me. Fighting games these days are more about defensive tactics and counter-attacks than being on the offensive, something that has largely put me off to the concept. Super meters that lead to unstoppable, game-ending devastation have left me on the wrong end of a Hadouken on more than one occasion. With the smallest of timing windows opening up the biggest of opportunities, I feel like a hamster trying to comprehend quantum physics. By the time I feel confident enough to go online and spam the basic moves the game has taught me in a tutorial, I attempt them only to find them blocked and countered with something I didn’t even think was possible to do.

Fighting game enthusiasts insist that this genre is much easier to master than Call of Duty or Gears of War, and that is likely true. I also feel just as lost when playing most games with massive communities, largely to the fact that some games require months of gaming in order to feel comfortable with the weight of each weapon and the like. What do these games and the fighting genre have in common? They both teach you the bare essentials to understand what you’re doing, but lack the depth to explain why you’re doing it, or teach you the smaller things in return, like situations in which to take a defensive stance.

While playing Street Fighter IV, I would go through the ins and outs of each training segment, learning how to do each move but lacking the instructions on exactly why I should be doing them. Seeing these moves in the way they’re presented feels more like reading an instruction manual than being taught about the game. The conundrum with this type of learning system is the lack of direction given after the lesson, as you still have to learn how to play the game beyond the Hadoukens and Sonic Booms. The main problem is the online opponents already know what they’re doing, thus the learning curve is about as steep as they come; I compare it to rookie Little Leaguers trying to win a game of baseball against the New York Yankees.

NetherRealm Studios is claiming to make this a priority, in providing the player with more than just a list of moves, but a series of situations to run through to gain the knowledge of not simply how to randomly go on the offensive, but how to take a defensive stand against those with more experience under their belts. How well they pull this off will mean more than just how much staying power this title will have, as it could alter the course of the fighting genre altogether—I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they raise the bar and bring in many newcomers along the way, opening up an opportunity for fighters like BlazBlue to follow suit.

So go make another historic change for the fighting genre, NetherRealm, and allow people like me to learn all of the new situations that will be presented along the way with the inclusion of the super meter, complete with advanced tutorials on the feel and weight of each character so we can better understand the timing for every Kombatant. You know, that way I don’t look like an idiot when I finally get the bravery to step online.

I’ll wind down this incredibly longwinded entry with my personal favorite Mortal Kombat story…

My favorite memory at the arcades, and one I’ve taken out of chronology to emphasize its impact on me as a person and as a gamer took place at the movie theater at the premiere mall, the Galleria, where I first saw Mortal Kombat II with a two hour demonstration by an incredibly kind, obviously-a-drug-dealer twentysomething Hispanic guy whose beeper would go off with every uppercut, who took the time out to not only show me Fatalities with seven different characters (including Liu Kang’s dragon bite) and their endings, but even let me play on five dollars of his money. I couldn’t pull off the air-lift Fatality with Baraka that he taught me ever-so patiently, but he praised me, nonetheless.

In a day and age where racist cretins run rampant on Xbox Live and PSN, I’m not certain we will see such a display of utter kindness and compassion for a random little kid—I was still in the single-digits, I’m certain—ever again. Every time I’m in a game with a little kid on Xbox Live, either someone is reciting homophobic slurs in his direction or he’s the one dishing out the language reserved for use by ignorant folks in the South. But when the new Mortal Kombat launches next year, I’ll surely try to pass down some lessons of my own… let’s just hope that tutorial is good enough to teach me the tricks of the trade in the first place.

-Zoop