Be Excellent To Each Other

It's Mortal Kombat again.

But you know those people that stand around cheering at the two fighters? You can pick them up and hit your opponent with them, so it's the best game ever.

I hear the fatality scenes are a bit OTT.

That's kind of the point of them.

I've watched the fatalities and there are some doozies in there. I don't know if OTT was meant to be a criticism; I particularly enjoyed some of the crazy violence on show. Just Youtube it.

I didn't know you could pick up the folk in the background though. Sounds A-MAZE.

Well, quite, but I have even seen people describing them as disgusting and unnecessary. People interested enough in games to be bothered to watch them.

Yeah, the fatalities in Mortal Kombat have always been the "draw", but starting with MK9 (I think) they really have become unnecessarily gruesome. It worries me that some people really enjoy watching those fatalities - and surprises me that they don't get more attention in the media considering the shitstorm that GTA games routinely stir up with their (by comparison) cartoonish and unrealistic violence.

Unnecessarily gruesome? The first one had you rip a man's head off his shoulders and expose his bloody spine.

Yes, but as a product of its time it looked cartoonish. Graphics (and physics I guess) capabilities have now progressed so far that they look altogether far more "real" than they did back then.

I think MK then looked more realistic compared to it's peers than MK does now - by a pretty huge margin.

Charlie Brooker did something about the fatalities in the new games, his take on them was that they were 'a bit much' if memory serves.

Was it in Gameswipe maybe? Really can't remember. Youtube doesn't seem to know about it.

Compared to its' peers, sure. I'm not talking about that though.

e.g. in the original MK games, the blood drops were giant head-sized droplets that just fell to the ground and didn't really behave that realistically. In the newer games, with advances in graphic and physics technology, they can now do "fluid dynamics" for the blood and other gore and it just looks too... real.

That and the fatalities themselves are far more gruesome. In the original MK I seem to remember the only particularly graphic one was Sub Zero's (the aforementioned spine-pulling) and maybe Kano's (pulled the heart out, if I remember rightly) - all the others were based around fire or various forms of decapitation.

Charlie Brooker did indeed have an opinion about this sort of thing in Gameswipe, and showed an example of Kung Lao's fatality in MK9, where he takes his razor hat and slices his opponent clean in two, entering via their genitals. With all the blood, gore and audio to go along with it.

I don't think it was the original Gameswipe (in fact I'm pretty sure it wasn't), it was something more recent than that he did, but with videogame stuff in it.

It is IRRITATING MY BRAIN that I can't remember what it was. There's only been one Gameswipe hasn't there? The one in 2009?

I do remember thinking myself that the fatalities were pretty fucking gratuitous.

It was on this.

Ahh yes that's the one, cheers

Annoyingly it's not available to stream from 4oD anymore and Youtube doesn't have it either.

ALL HAIL THE WONDERS OF DIGITAL TELLY.

Just got part way though a fatality compilation video. Having the camera zoom in for a slow mo close up on the lopped-off head flying through the air before being stabbed, then zapped, then exploded makes it a little too much really.

The x-ray style bone breaking moves look quite cool, although might get annoying to watch after many times. Also, Romeo Must Die is pretty old now, and that's where I personally first saw that sort of thing.



That is cool.

Overall, I'm kind of keen to try MK X for a quick blast, but it's been quite a while since I have really, truly cared about MK.

EDIT: I watched more of the compilation video. That Cassie Cage one with the bubblegum is lame, real lame.

More batshit violence coming your way this time...

... WITH A FUCKING ALIEN.

Or it might be barracka. Or it might be the alien that has been laid inside Barraka with some nasty nashers. Either way, I'll definitely watch all the fatalities on YouTube for that character before forgetting MK exists again.



Cor, I do not know how to spell Barakka.

Fucking Leatherface aswell? Are these officially licensed?

Yes x 2.

Leatherface was released as paid DLC a while back.

Ok, I watched a few of those fatalities and... WTF? I have no strong objection to the gore, because it's a game for adults, right , but if a fighter can literally use the "force" to pull off someone's head and smash it back inside their body, why would he waste time with kicks and punches? Same with the ones packing heat?

Hang on, I'm thinking of Jason not Leatherface. Soz.

You're going to do this level of analysis of Mortal Kombat characters? Really?

Apparently, yes

I don't like the MK games, but the over the top gore in them is at least appropriate for the tone/characters etc.

Their awful DC superheroes fighting game from a couple of years back was far more off-putting to me. Seeing superheroes take joy in graphic hyperviolence to the extent that is entirely out of their characters just didn't feel right. It's exactly what you expect from Subzero or Johnny Cage, but not so from Superman or Batman. These characters regularly use violence, but as a means to an end rather than just for fun, and will only ever take it to extreme levels of brutality when seriously pushed.

What the fuck are those things on the Alien's arms?!

(insta-buy, obv)

Is that Geoff Capes on the left?

Nah, it's Treguard.

Oh snap. I hope one of his special moves when you're fighting him causes you to take a sidestep to the left into a fireball or something.

And naturally, his fatality is just to cast DISMISS

Fuck yeah. And he can do that "BONG" move. Temporal disruption or something?

His fatality should see him put the helmet of justice on his opponent, grab them by the shoulders to turn them around and watch as they blindly meander into a firey/spikey pit.

"Ohhhh.. Nasty"

Just seen the fatalities for the most recent kombat pack including Alien and Leatherface.

Alien's are reet disappointing but at least Triborg's industrial crusher is inspired.

The alien ones are a bit lazy, but fuck me are they all brutal (especially ). Why were Cassie Cage's innards holding on, though? They had clearly been cut through.

Oh, I was just going to post this video with all the brutalities included.

Alien's facehugger brutality is good but the star of the show is Leatherface with his hammer brutality. Goddamn that's nasty. They've done a decent job in that character's ticks and mannerisms while Alien just looks like a man in an alien costume.

To think they were worried that MK1 was too graphic.

But look they are digitized people - and there is blood !

They are just not nice.