Sunday, January 27, 2013

Mortal Kombat Trilogy (PC Port)



When Mortal Kombat 3 became an arcade smash, the Midway creators pulled a complete Street Fighter II; not only were there at least two upgrades (for arcades and home consoles) but you couldn't swing a dead cat, without seeing Mortal Kombat 3, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, or its final version: Mortal Kombat Trilogy.
Following the exact same story as MK3, what sets Trilogy apart is that it features all of the characters, and most of the arenas, from every prior Mortal Kombat game. Yes, that includes all of the ninjas -- male and female -- that were missing from the original MK3 but restored for Ultimate. It also features a plethora of new moves, new finishers, and a new hidden character (ONCE AGAIN, a ninja).

The graphics are pretty much like the port of MK3, except for the minor difference that the warrior names are much more legible in the life bar (which were oddly garbled in the MK3 port). A welcome improvement over the MK3 port, however, is that you see far more of the incredible stages, from all of the classic games. However, for a game that was released at the dawn of the Pentium era, it is disappointing that the graphics are not at a higher resolution -- in fact, if you were to play this in Windows 9x, the default display is a window about the size of an audio cassette. Given that the previous games had no trouble being in full-screen, and this one still plays fine at that setting, I don't understand this decision.
One area where the graphics have a problem, in every version of the game, has simply to do with the fact that several characters are ninjas. Now, I'm a ninja fan, but it's really obvious that the ninjas in this game -- male or female -- use exactly the same graphics as each other. The only difference, aside from what special moves they use (sometimes) is merely the colour of their outfit. So not only can it make for a bland visual experience, but there are moments where one can't be blamed for wondering if they've popped in a hyper-violent Power Rangers game, by mistake. This is especially so, when the vast majority of the characters the game makes you fight against, are ninjas, as opposed to the plethora of other characters.

Another graphics issue, has to do with the endings for each character. One of my favourite parts of the series, is that when a player beats the game, their epilogue is presented with unique and often cinematic artwork. However, this game not only cheats with certain characters, by only showing a text crawl over their versus portrait, but it confounds the issue by reusing the ending pictures from the original MK3! Shit, or get off the pot, guys.
The audio... well, I can only comment so well. The sound effects are exactly the same as MK3, so they're still intense and action-packed (even if the game neglects to have a voice cue for Goro, for no apparent reason). The music, however, I know absolutely nothing about; I've only played this through abandonware downloads, which don't rip the music off of the CD-ROM, so I can only guess that it was using the music from the arcade takes of the earlier games.
The gameplay, is the single largest flaw in this game -- it is downright horrible. This includes the absolutely absurd task of finding the control mapping feature, AND getting it to configure the keys the way I'd wanted, WITHOUT stepping on start/pause buttons that it never told me about, OR overlapping with controls for the other player. I don't think I've ever had that experience with a game, before.
Even once you get into the game itself, it's not exactly smooth sailing. The AI fighters can be all over the place, in terms of difficulty -- one moment the same opponent will be murdering you several rounds in a row, the next he will suddenly be a punching bag. The two newest characters -- Noob Saibot and Rain -- are so insanely overpowered that they can even beat bosses without breaking a sweat (mind you that can come in handy, on the Champion ladder's FIVE OPPONENT Super Endurance match). However, it's also way too easy to rely on supermoves, when using them; the odd time you have to actually use your hands and feet, you've almost forgotten what it was like. I'm also not convinced that the hit detection works that well. Yes, that's right: in a FIGHTING GAME, there's a fairly good chance that your attacks will go right through an opponent, that is close enough for you to blow on.
It doesn't help, either, that the PC port of Trilogy is taken pretty much bang-on, from the notoriously buggy Playstation version. While I can't speak for how many of the glitches carry over from the Sony game to the PC one, something that I have noticed is the odd tendency for fatality moves to not work (even if you've used the correct command). This is especially obvious when you've been beaten by retro characters who don't have Animalities, Brutalities, or even second plain Fatalities... yet the computer still has them try to perform those moves, meaning that the screen darkens and nothing else happens.
By the way, those goofy finisher names are not misprints, nor are they practical jokes on my part. I'm not really sure what the thought process was, but the silly finisher trend that started in MK2 with Friendships and Babalities, added Animalities with MK3 (where the victor turns into an animal -- for some reason -- and maims the opponent), and this game added Brutalities (where the victor literally auto-combos the loser until they explode). On top of being inappropriately absurd, for a game about people murdering each other during a demonic invasion, it means that the vast majority of finishing moves in this game, involve the loser being blown up -- once again, rather dull after a while.

Probably the only saving grace, in terms of the gameplay, is that someone had the sense to have a regular menu option, for the "dial-a-kombos" to be fully automatic for the player. Believe me, between saving wear-and-tear, and leveling the playing field a bit against the spitfire AI, this will do you a huge favour.
Tips on beating the bosses, are pretty much the same as the previous games (with the exception of Shang Tsung, since he appears as a standard character in every variation of MK3). In other words, stay sharp, keeping moving, and take advantage of any opening you can get. In fact, with Kintaro I would strongly recommend fighting with Rain -- his control orb move is probably the fastest projectile in the game, and if you don't let up he will fall for it every single time. You're going to have to be more on guard, with Shao Kahn and Motaro, simply because they each have new throw moves (and if you don't know, those moves are unblockable). Considering that their offense is already extremely high, this means you're in for an even rougher ride than in the standard MK3. Then again, newly playable ninjas Rain and Noob Saibot are so overpowered, that perhaps it balances out to a certain extent. It's a matter of personal choice.
Personally, I'm not sure whether or not you should play this game or not. With all three  other PC versions of Mortal Kombat being downloadable, these days, there's no real value to a semi-best of edition that wasn't even that well made in the first place (despite the developers having voice cues for "Outstanding", "Excellent", etc. play over their logos in the intro sequence). Actually, scratch that -- if you want to play MKT, download a Nintendo 64 emulator and play the version designed for that console (just because it's more or less glitch free). Unless you want to be a completest (as of 1996), and can't get the 2011 reboot game (which pretty much remakes this one), just skip it in favour of the three individual games. Consign this abomination to the pits of Outworld, where it belongs.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Mortal Kombat 3 (PC Port)



By the time I was old enough to really want to visit arcades on any sort of frequent basis, the Mortal Kombat series had moved onto its third edition. Probably the most vivid memory of it that I have, is watching this one guy manage to work his way up the Master ladder, while periodically beating the snot out of a whole line full of people trying to take him on in the two-player mode. Suffice it to say, I had my head handed to me on a platter, but at least I wasn't alone by any means.
Anyway, the third game picks up some undisclosed time after the second, where Shao Kahn has regrouped and managed to launch an all-out invasion of Earth. This is supposed to be against the rules of the Mortal Kombat tournaments, but he and Shang Tsung got around this, by infusing an Earth woman with the soul of Kahn's long-dead wife, Sindel (a wife whom he took as a war trophy -- there's that "traditional marriage" thing that conservatives must be going on about). Anyway, with the Elder Gods (as well as Rayden) helpless to stop Kahn, a handful of "chosen" Earth warriors must defeat the Outworld invaders on their own.

It has to be said, this may be one of the more controversial games in the series, but not for the reasons one might think. This was really polarizing in the fan community, largely because of the radical changes in style from the previous games. While some of the classic characters are there, and certainly the layout of the screen is much the same, MK3 has the distinction of moving away from the exotic/fantasy elements that started the series, and taking a much more urban/high-tech approach. Returning characters have taken on a decidedly more "street" appearance, the traditional ninjas are completely gone, and several characters are now augmented with cybernetic implants. Even the backgrounds and overall setting, have mostly changed to subways, back alleys, and skyscrapers, with only a handful of levels set within Shao Kahn's new palace bringing any sort of fantasy credentials.
(that being said, Stryker is one of the best characters in the game, even if he looks like a traffic cop)

Even the gameplay has been significantly altered, thanks to the now-infamous introduction of the "dial-a-kombo" system. By rapidly pressing certain attack buttons -- in a pre-determined order, varying by character -- the player can unleash a rapid-fire assault on his/her opponents. As a spectator, it's pretty cool. As a player, however, it's rather frustrating -- never mind having the time and recall to remember the various combos for each character, your success will hinge largely on you having very quick reflexes, and a controller that hasn't already been smashed to pieces. I seriously wouldn't be surprised if the PC version of this game, is the main reason why we went through so many keyboards when I was a teenager. It also became infuriating, in various updates of the game, as the CPU became prone to unleashing combos on you, that were physically impossible to replicate -- and, naturally, were performed the instant that you began inputting an attack.
Anyway, despite all of these questionable changes, there is a lot to like about MK3. The music is pretty badass, the sounds keeping up nicely. The characters have probably never looked better (at least in the classic era), and all of the moves are fun and creative (even if exploding characters will have MULTIPLE skulls, ribcages, etc. for no apparent reason). The backgrounds not only look incredible, but are increasingly interactive. Stage-centric finishing moves have been in the series from the beginning, though they are more elaborate in this game. There is also a feature called "Battle Ascension", where uppercutting opponents on certain stages, will launch them through the ceiling and into a whole other level!
In terms of the PC port -- which, I must point out, is a pig to get working in DOSBox, and rather hard to find a working version of on Abandonware sites -- it plays rather authentically to the arcade version, but it has some phoned-in elements. For instance, I've made it clear how much I like the varied and elaborate stages that you fight on... so why is it that for the most part, the game will only let you play on about four of them? Out of eleven? That's not the only place where it gets tedious; as I've previously made clear, I am nothing special as a gamer. So naturally, I lose matches somewhat often. To be fair, Mortal Kombat as a series can make this somewhat entertaining, with the various finishing moves that the CPU can inflict on you (if you don't manage to beat it to that, of course). In this game, however, that rarely happens -- so what can already be an exercise in going in circles, feels even more monotonous, because the exact same thing happens in most matches.

That being said, the PC version has its charms as well; the difficulty curve is about as reasonable as the original game, the controls reasonably responsive (at least on my old computer -- still trying to figure out the quirks of my new laptop), plus it is the first PC version of a Mortal Kombat game that has EXTRAS! The previous two games, while good overall, were pretty much straight conversions of the arcade versions. However, the computer port of MK3 has unique features that are rather cool in their own right. One is the support for online play (albeit through LANs -- remember, this was before MSN Gaming Zone). Even if it was a bit limited -- and truth be told, I have no idea how popular MK3 was in LAN circles -- it still fulfilled Jim Carrey's Cable Guy prediction of one day being able to fight your "friend" on the other side of the world. What's more, it would be about ten years, before the console versions of Mortal Kombat had managed the same feat (and took all of the credit).
Another cool PC feature -- and this one, I have tried -- is the "Tournament Mode". The name is a bit misleading, as rather than a ladder-style tournament variation, as you might expect, this is actually a tag-team/endurance match... with each player having up to twelve warriors involved! While it's still straight fighting in the style of the rest of the game, it's a nice change from the norm. There are also several unlockable "cheats" -- some not so unique, like the ability to play as Smoke, or the boss characters -- and some which are unique to this port (like two different invisibility modes).
Speaking of those people... the hidden characters (in terms of just fighting them) are much easier to access in this game, just because all you have to do is input a six-character code, before a two-player match. Fighting them is still tricky, but it is toned down, compared to the previous games. Sub-boss Motaro, is still one of the more creative-looking characters (a freaking CENTAUR!), and is interesting to fight in a lot of ways. He's strong, agile, brutal, and he can even rebound projectile moves... yet all you have to do, to beat him, is uppercut him whenever he comes close to you. Shao Kahn is once again the final boss -- which, quite frankly, I always found kind of lame -- but going against him this time, is a much different experience than in MKII. He's a lot faster, has several new moves, and on top of that your recovery between hits takes longer, so some of the tactics used in the previous game won't work anymore. However, he still loves to talk a lot -- punish him, for that. Also, be on the lookout for a move where he'll leap a few feet in the air, leaving a trail of shadows behind him -- duck under this, and chances are you can nail him with an uppercut on the way down. If you play someone with fast stun moves, you can then wail on him until he's dead.
So I'm not sure, ultimately, what to give this for a verdict. In a lot of ways, Mortal Kombat 3 is a fun and exciting game. However, it's also boring in other ways, and such a stylistic departure in other ways that it barely resembles the previous two games.  Thankfully, this was rectified in a lot of ways, by the upgrades Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy. Unfortunately, for a lot of DOS PC gamers, they were stuck with plain old stock MK3 (especially since Ultimate only appeared for the PC in the last year or so, with the HD Arcade Kollection, that has been widely called a disaster). If you're curious, and can somehow find a reliable version of it cheaply/for free, I'd recommend giving it a look... if only because, for better or worse, this game set the tone for what all subsequent Mortal Kombats would become.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Mortal Kombat II (PC Port)



Previously, in the Mortal Kombat series...
The ancient sorcerer Shang Tsung, lured a group of elite warriors, from various walks of life, to his forsaken island. There, they fought to the death in a martial arts tournament called... well, Mortal Kombat. That is, until Tsung was defeated by the Shaolin monk Liu Kang.
With Tsung defeated, and his allies having either abandoned him or been killed in the tournament, he alone faces execution by Emperor Shao Kahn of the Outworld. Most of us wouldn't have the stones to weasel with a giant, who wears a helmet made out of someone's skull, but Tsung manages to convince Kahn to bait the survivors into a new tournament, in Outworld itself. Suffice it to say, the odds are stacked against our heroes.
Mortal Kombat II was made about a year after the original, and the lineage is definitely there, yet everything looks, sounds, and (mostly) plays so much better than the original. The gameplay is much faster, the backgrounds more elaborate and imaginative, the sound effects more exciting (and present, in the PC version), and not only do the characters look more crisp and detailed, but there are more of them. To be exact, five of the original seven playable characters are back (Sonya and Kano have been relegated to background cameos), and seven additional characters have been brought in -- including Reptile and Shang Tsung, making their debut as playable characters.

The controls are basically the same as in the original game, but in addition to responding somewhat faster, there are a few new incidental moves thrown in. Another welcome improvement (at least for the PC version) is that some of the multi-button special moves have been simplified enough that you only need to hold down three keys at once, to execute certain attacks. The second player controls are also free of the infamous somersault glitch, that had plagued the original game's port.
As before, if you can't find a vintage gamepad to play this on, I strongly recommend playing this on a very robust keyboard... with a replacement one on the horizon, should you be hooked enough to play this a lot. Interestingly enough, I remember that when this game was available in stores, there was a version that came with the Gravis gamepad that bore a strong resemblance to the SNES controller.
The graphics and art style are a nice change from the original game, though I do have to make a couple of comments about the sounds, particularly where incidental vocals are concerned. Most of the time, they're just fine, but there are two that I've always found a bit annoying. One is he rather pathetic howling sound, whenever Player One (as a male) gets hit by an attack. Player Two gets more dignified grunts and yells, why couldn't they have used that for all of the male characters (and in case you're wondering, none of the female warriors wail like this). The other irk for me, is the high-pitched chop-socky that voices Liu Kang. I know that this game was made in the early-to-mid nineties, and that it was intended to pay tribute to cheesy martial arts movies of the previous decades... but to be honest, even at that point, it was cliched for Asian men to sound like that. I won't get into tirades about political correctness, I'll just flat out say it: it's a stupid sound, that I'd heard to death even by the dawn of my teenage years.
My only other comments stem from the actual playing experience. Frankly, it's exasperating. I thought that maybe I just really blew at this game, but I've looked into it: MANY players, can only get through this thing at all, on "Very Easy". Anything higher than that, and the computer players will not only counter moves that you've barely started to make, but will throw you across the room every chance it can get. This is annoying for multiple reasons: it's tied for the strongest non-boss move in the game, it's fast, you can barely touch the opponent, and it can't be blocked. So if you wish to try even the "Easy" mode, here's a quick word of advice: forget about punching anyone. Kicks are your new best friends.
The perverse thing, is that on "Very Easy", getting through the AI versions of the playable characters is almost too easy. I wouldn't quite call them cannon fodder, but once you've gotten the hang of the game, it isn't particularly hard to win every single round (that's 24, before the bosses, assuming you don't make any diversions with hidden characters). However, once you reach the bosses, that's a whole other ball game.
Not surprisingly, final boss Shao Kahn is rather tricky, but not too bad once you notice certain patterns. For one thing, the guy loves to taunt you -- any time he points his finger at you or laughs at you, hit him with your most powerful move (preferably a stun move, so you can get a free uppercut). While it may seem like suicide, you should also hide in the corners and let him shoulder-charge you; you can recover quickly enough to uppercut him before he parries. You can also take advantage of the fact that Kahn will occasionally just stand still for no reason... 

Kintaro, on the other hand, is literally a giant pain in the ass. The guy will spam throw you, or stomp on you (neither of which you can block) with infuriating regularity. He'll also block or nullify the majority of your attacks, and in my experience most cheap tricks said to confuse the AI do not work on this version of him. To be blunt, I can count on one hand the number of times I've even won one round against this bastard -- until just before I was due to post this article, I'd never won a full match against him, without cheating my ass off (and just to rub it in, the cheat mode is damn near impossible to activate, on today's ultra-fast computers). What seemed to work for me, was to stay as far away from him as possible, occasionally fly-kick him, and be ready to use a stun move on him any time that he leaped or roared (in case it's not apparent yet, I really love the ninja characters). Even that, however, is subject to how the CPU is behaving on any given day. Good luck, and try not to be turned into burger meat too often.

The hidden characters in this game (three ninjas, pallete swapped from either Scorpion or Kitana), are much easier to reach in this game, than the original. However, beating them is much harder. They seem to default to the higher difficulty levels (and sure enough, after fighting them, the game switches difficulties when you aren't looking -- yes, I've checked). In other words, in addition to already being really hard to hit, and blisteringly fast, they spend much of the time throwing the shit out of you.
I must also address the elephant in the room, among MK fans. In response to the outcry that the first game received, the sequel took on a decidedly cheekier tone. So while it boasts grislier fatalities than the previous game, it also boasts finishing moves where you turn your opponents into babies, give them dolls, make them cakes, or just do a silly dance. This is in addition to a superimposed head sometimes popping onto the screen, singing "Toasty!" (which became something of a gaming/sports meme, for a little while). Personally, I'm not averse to the humour overall, but think it should have been reserved for easter eggs, instead of an official part of the game.
If you're a very good game fighter... or just have a soft spot for classics in the genre, then by all means add this to your collection. However, you will need a lot of patience, in order to beat this game. Unless you're the virtual cousin of Bruce Lee, be prepared for a rough ride.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Rebel Assault I & II



I have to be honest, even though I've liked the Star Wars movies ever since I was a kid, I wasn't exactly a die-hard fan, until I was in my teens. So as far as the gaming was concerned... well, it didn't concern me. My first experience with the computer game off-shoots of George Lucas' financial empire, came in the mid-nineties, when my dad bought a CD-ROM drive for our computer at the time, and one of the free discs was a three-level sample version of Rebel Assault II. I'm not sure I'd say I was blown away, but I was intrigued... so when game developer LucasArts came out with a collection of several Star Wars discs, including full versions of BOTH Rebel Assault games, I was in.
These games have somewhat fallen into obscurity, so I'll fill you in (and for simplicity's sake I'm going to review both games in this one article). Both games take place in a sort of parallel universe to the classic trilogy -- so while there's a Darth Vader, Emperor, Princess Leia, etc. there is no Luke Skywalker or Han Solo. This is particularly apparent in the first game, where you take the role of "Rookie One" (yes, that's the only name we get). Rookie One is a wide-eyed farm boy* who joins the heroic Rebel Alliance as a hot-shot pilot, and after blowing up asteroids, flying through canyons, and shooting TIE Fighters left and right, eventually has to destroy the Death Star.

* (in the first game, the option exists to play Rookie One as a man or a woman -- this is not the case in the sequel, for reasons that will become apparent)
In Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire, Rookie One is assigned to investigate the disappearance of several ships in an area of space called The Dreighton Triangle. It turns out that the Empire is processing a rare ore, that fuels a new class of TIEs that are effectively invisible. As you might have guessed, eventually you have to meet up with Rookie One's former CO to track down and destroy the flagship carrying all of these fighters, before they can be used on the Rebels en masse.
The gameplay approach for this series is pretty much a rail-riding arcade-style shooter, presented as an interactive movie. In other words, there are tons of cutscenes, and even the parts that the player has any control over, limit you solely to where you can shoot pre-arranged targets, or where you fly a ship within a frame. All other particulars about where you're going and what you're doing, are taken care of automatically by the game -- so while it's a nice diversion, I wouldn't call it particularly engaging.
In keeping with this approach, the levels are designed to be short and shallow shooting fests, which I might not mind too much but they have a tendency to be repetitive and not have much to do with the story. This is especially apparent in Rebel Assault I, where you will often do laps of a given course, until you've destroyed everything that you're supposed to destroy... or run around mazes for no apparent reason, with no way of knowing how to get out of them.
"All too easy."


I freely admit that my gaming skills are not especially high, but some of my issues with the first game very much come from the controls (incidentally, you can play either game with a mouse or joystick, though the second game also allows for keyboard control). Once again, I'm not sure what anyone was thinking, but the mouse/joystick sensitivity in  Rebel I is ridiculously high. You know your game has issues, when the first level is extremely hard to survive, for reasons that have nothing to do with the difficulty setting -- like the freaking controls being so sloppy and loose that it makes it look like I've downed a bottle of Screech! So never mind hitting the broad side of a Star Destroyer, you have a hard time flying anywhere but straight down!

Thank the Force, by the time the sequel came around, they'd found a programmer who knows what a straight line is supposed to look like, because it's a LOT easier to be precise and fluid in Rebel II. There's also a bit more variety and sense to the missions (so, for instance, you have plausible reason to get out of your ship and blast stormtroopers, and no maze-running that will bone you at random).
There's not a lot to choose between these two games, graphics wise, though Rebel II is slightly better here, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, as you might imagine, the various structures you see are a lot crisper and more photorealistic (frankly there are better visual effects in this game, than some parts of the prequels). For another thing, while the second game uses live-action video for most cutscenes (hence why Rookie One is stuck as a guy in the sequel), the first game uses this weird hybrid of hand-drawn animation and some sort of Photoshopping, to portray the characters. Leaving aside that jumping between the two art styles is FAR from seamless, there are characters who look like some sort of deformed puppets when they talk. Then there's Darth Vader, whose scenes in the first game are pulled right out of a still frame from The Empire Strikes Back (when he's sitting in his meditation chamber/bathroom), and his only movement is a slight shuffling of his head.

It's a similar story, with the sound. While the effects are largely the same, between games, there is one choice in the first game that has always annoyed me. You see, pretty much all of the sound effects are pulled right from the Star Wars movies, or at least designed in such a way that they sound somewhat like real machines/explosions/etc. But for some reason, the shipboard lasers fired by the player sound HORRIBLY synthesized. There is literally NO excuse for this -- the same laser sounds used in the movies, appear whenever anyone else fires weapons; if the creators were worried about the player not being able to tell which sounds came from him/her... which would imply that the player is either blind or deaf, making the entire issue moot... simply making the player's laser a little bit louder than the others, would take care of that. Once again, this issue was (thankfully) remedied in the second game. The only other thing of note, is that while score for Rebel II uses music from the whole original trilogy, Rebel I only uses music from the first movie -- which is a bit odd, but not really something worth complaining about.


It's really hard to sum this up. To varying degrees, both games are satisfying popcorn, but they're so shallow and detached that I'm not even sure if it's right to just call them comfort food (maybe if you grew up playing a lot of Dragon's Lair, or something). The first game is so exasperating that unless you're a wizard with a joystick, you will have to cheat just to make it playable, but at least the second game is designed with some sanity -- so if you can only play one, I'd very much recommend Rebel Assault II for that reason alone. Since both games have been out of print for ages, I guess you would have to go on eBay or something, to find a copy. It may be worth checking out, just as a light example of the CD-ROM/interactive movie fad in 90s gaming.