MORTAL KOMBAT KOMPLETE: Get Over Here

These days, nearly every console fighting game has to come out on PC as well. On one hand that’s great as it means more gamers can access fantastic fighting game titles that have traditionally been the toys of the console gaming elites. But on the other hand, PC versions of fighting games come out way after their console releases, sometimes years after. This is the case with Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition, recently having been released on Steam, and coming soon in old-fashioned hard copy in-box version for the PC. Most PC versions of popular fighting games tend to bring with them improved versions of their console counterpart’s netcode. Komplete Edition is, unfortunately, not one of them. In fact, the netcode feels a bit worse than the console version. Button delay seems to kick in big time even with a tiny bit of ping between you and your opponent. When you start to get up to midrange ping, matches become almost unplayable. It also takes a metric millennium to find a match online in Komplete Edition. Mortal Kombat doesn’t just return to the original game’s title, it also brings back the 2D fighting style – albeit delivered through excellent 3D visuals. The style feels right for MK’s control scheme, which doesn’t revolve as much around quarter/half-circles forward and backward but features a more jagged approach that translates well into the game’s “in your face” kind of on-screen brutality. Though PC might traditionally prefer the keyboard, the game is best played using a gamepad or a set or arcade controls like the MadCatz Fightstick. I’m not denying that you can’t play a perfect game using the keyboard (though I personally can’t pull that off), but arcade controls are so much better for venting your frustration upon.

Thankfully, frustration with the game doesn’t come out of quality issues, but rather out of losing a fight that went right down to the wire due to excellent balancing between characters.And there are quite a few, because the Komplete Collection (as the name implies) includes all the DLC characters that were released after the game’s initial release. It’s fairly easy to sum this port of the game up: this is Mortal Kombat with every single feature intact, plus a few nice tweaks for the PC crowd. Nothing has been abandoned, and nothing significant has been added. What you get when you buy Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition is the original game, all four DLC characters (Skarlet, Rain, Kenshi, and Freddy Krueger), and all fifteen alternate costumes and original fatalities that were available to console players as pre-order bonuses. There is one large issue that won’t affect people who didn’t come here for the story mode: cut scenes look awful. The audio quality is fuzzy, and the resolution looks like a YouTube video recorded in 720p, but downsized to 360p.

Komplete Edition gives you four additional characters (blind

fighter Kenshi, lady ninja Skarlet, man ninja Rain, and Nightmare on Elm Street star Freddy Krueger and if you purchase the PS3 version you get God of Warsstar Kratos). Other than Krueger, none

of the these fighters do a lot to stand out, but are all well rounded characters and if used in the right way can pack quite a

wallop, like any character. Mortal Kombat have added a ‘super meter’ which builds up to three levels as you fight, defend, or get absolutely slaughtered by your opponent. The first level allows you to use super charged versions of your character’s special attacks, combo breakers use two levels of your super meter and the last (and best), is the ‘X-Ray’ move, each character has a different one and these moves can save you from certain death and earn you the win! When the ‘X-Ray’ move is played the screen darkens and the camera zooms in on the action, exposing breaking bones and tearing muscles of the character on the receiving end. You will see everything from skulls shattering, ribs breaking, to organs

rupturing as the moves slow right down to show the full effect. A few times I found myself watching in absolute horror as bones broke before my eyes (ouch!), but they’re quite satisfying to execute, and if you time it right, turning the tides of battle into your favour for the win

There’s also a ‘Challenge Tower’ mode with about 300 different tests which all put your true Mortal Kombat skills to the test (no spamming here, folks), and we have also been provided with the classic ‘Krypt’ which has a TON of unlockables, and I mean a TON. The map for the graveyard of unlockables is huge and when I first entered the ‘Krypt’ I thought it was just the first few graves in front of me, oh how I was very wrong. The ‘Krypt’ seems to have an endless supply of alternate costumes, concept art, and more. ‘Krypt’ items are unlocked via coins earned through-out most gaming modes including the story and the Challenge Tower, you also earn coins for performing fatalities and combos so it doesn’t take that long to save up a wad of coins and go on a spending spree in the ‘Krypt’.NetherRealm has also added a new ‘tag team’ mode which pits teams of two against each other. I found this to be one of the most enjoyable additions, and it’s a truly awesome addition, each character gets his or her own tag combos for you to master.  the game itself is just awesome, with a solid vs system, tag team battles, a great training mode, and one of the most well done single-player campaigns in fighting game history. If you are a first-timer, do not hesitate to pick up Komplete Edition for your PC today. However, if you are an old school Mortal Kombat veteran, your console version will keep you satisfied.