A New Generation of Kombat – Mortal Kombat X Review

<p><em>Mortal Kombat X<&sol;em> is everything series fans could want from a sequel&comma; an improved combat system&comma; new characters&comma; and the brutal gore and fatalities the series is known for&period;<em> Mortal Kombat<&sol;em> has actually taken the biggest leap in its storytelling so far with making the story take place several years after the events of <em>Mortal Kombat 9<&sol;em>&period; The game adds to everything that the game before it did but adds more to everything&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Mortal Kombat 9<&sol;em> was acclaimed for having an influential story mode that told the story of <em>Mortal Kombat<&sol;em> from start to finish with a reimagining of how the story went down from<em> Mortal Kombat 1<&sol;em> to<em> 3<&sol;em>&period; <em>Mortal Kombat X<&sol;em> continues that story with what could be described as a reimagining of <em>Mortal Kombat 4<&sol;em>&period;  It starts with Shinnok’s invasion of Earthrealm and takes off from there skipping back forth with most of it being based 20 years after the events of the last game&period; The game&&num;8217&semi;s story mode still holds up as the best in a fighting game thus far with it being a cinematic experience telling the story of the <em>Mortal Kombat<&sol;em> Universe&period; Netherrealm Studios is the master of making fighting game stories right now and they&&num;8217&semi;ve done their best in <em>MKX<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;04&sol;05001532&sol;mkx-roster-jpg&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-82062" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;04&sol;05001532&sol;mkx-roster-jpg-1024x569&period;jpg" alt&equals;"mkx-roster-jpg" width&equals;"800" height&equals;"445" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The game plays great with the fighting system lifted straight from the <em>MK9<&sol;em> with minor improvements to the formula such as sprinting and interactive environments like from <em>Injustice<&sol;em>&period; Both of these require use of your stamina meter that is located underneath your health bar&period; The Fatalities are still here and they are as gory as ever with there being a lot of unique kills this time around with also Brutalities making a comeback&period; Brutalities are basically game-ending combos in this game that you have to fulfill certain conditions in order to use them&period; It can be something as simple has hitting your opponent with a certain move so many times or having more than 50&percnt; health&period; Even with these conditions&comma; Brutalities are very cinematic and very satisfying when you achieve them&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Challenge Towers return in style with all different types of towers you can try and even Living Towers that change Hourly&comma; Daily&comma; and Weekly to keep the game fresh and exciting for players&period; Test Your Luck even makes a comeback making a fun random mode to just mess around with if you want to play something really wacky&period; The Krypt makes a return too&comma; except this time it’s more like a 3D maze that you have to navigate to unlock more areas to get to more chests which unlock alternate costumes&comma; fatalities&comma; brutalities&comma; and concept art&period; It’s nice to work towards new unlocks as you play and they aren’t all nearly unlockable after one play through of the story like in the last game&period; Despite all these features&comma; I do have one complaint in that the big Challenge Tower from the last game with over 300 floors seems to be missing and all the random events were really fun&period; Without it&comma; it considerably cut down on the time I spent in single player&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;04&sol;05001548&sol;mkx-screenshot-9&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-82061" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;04&sol;05001548&sol;mkx-screenshot-9&period;jpg" alt&equals;"mkx-screenshot-9" width&equals;"800" height&equals;"450" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The game looks gorgeous on current-gen consoles and really shines with the advanced lighting and shadows that really bring out the beauty of the character models and stages&period; The blood and gore effects are at the greatest they have ever been even as well&comma; even if they aren’t the most realistic&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Mortal Kombat’s<&sol;em> Online has also added something new in Factions&period; Factions are basically 5 different groups that are represented in the <em>Mortal Kombat<&sol;em> universe&period; When you first start the game online you are asked to choose which faction you want to represent&period; This changes a few things&comma; one you can unlock special faction kill fatalities to use&comma; you get a different background menu depending on your faction&comma; and you get different emblems and backgrounds to use for your online profile&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There&&num;8217&semi;s also faction based events like Invasion Towers&comma; War Towers&comma; and Invasion Bosses&period; These events let you build points for your faction in order to level up and unlock more stuff&period; Unfortunately&comma; since the launch there haven’t been a whole lot of faction based events going on as the online has been experiencing a rocky start since launch&period; Almost all the online features in <em>MK9<&sol;em> also make an appearance making it super simple for about any player to jump online and enjoy the experience even if all they want to do is spectate&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;04&sol;05001429&sol;Mortal-Kombat-X-Pier-Stage-BagoGames&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-82085 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;04&sol;05001429&sol;Mortal-Kombat-X-Pier-Stage-BagoGames&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Mortal Kombat X Pier Stage BagoGames" width&equals;"800" height&equals;"465" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The online matches themselves aren&&num;8217&semi;t that bad and are world’s better than <em>MK9<&sol;em> and are about on the same level of <em>Injustice<&sol;em> for fans that have played that&period; What this means though is that if you are used to really good netcode in your fighting games <em>Mortal Kombat X<&sol;em> can either be really hit or really miss for you&period; Sometimes matches will play very well while other times you will have severe button delay&period; It all depends on your connection and who you get matched up with but honestly I am very disappointed with the way the connection can be&period; Other next gen fighting games like Killer Instinct have shown us that online netcode can be done almost perfectly so it’s a glaring problem that there is still big connection issues in <em>MKX’s<&sol;em> current state&period; A recent patch was released that relieved some of these problems but didn’t fix them outright making your online experience a mixed bag depending upon who you face&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The characters themselves are a wide variety of new and returning characters from the <em>Mortal Kombat<&sol;em> universe and each of them all have up to 3 variations that change their special moves and add certain combo moves that they can only have in that variation&period; What this means is that one character can play as different as 3 different ones and it’s up to the player to decide what they like to use&period; This gives the characters a lot more variety and allows them to be played wildly different depending on their variations&period; It’s a unique idea and makes you really think about your opponent is going to play their character as the 3 different styles really change up the standard character matchups&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;04&sol;05001518&sol;My-Great-Capture-Screenshot-2015-04-12-20-39-48&period;png"><img class&equals;"aligncenter wp-image-82063" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2015&sol;04&sol;05001518&sol;My-Great-Capture-Screenshot-2015-04-12-20-39-48-1024x576&period;png" alt&equals;"My-Great-Capture-Screenshot-2015-04-12-20-39-48" width&equals;"800" height&equals;"450" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In conclusion&comma; the goriest fighting game is in its prime with this newest installment&period; Adding new features to already well established fighting system <em>MKX<&sol;em> has created the epitome of a sequel&comma; with the return of their cinematic story mode&comma; the wealth of online modes&comma; and variations of characters and fatalities it has everything a <em>Mortal Kombat<&sol;em> fan could want and more&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;