Reviewed by Dyson Turner
What happened to Mortal Kombat 3? I had such high hopes for
this game, and when I first seen the screen shots it looked
stellar, and one of the best games out there. Then when I
actually played it, and realize all the changes, all the new
character it just stunk up the place. Never mind the fact
that all the "Cool" characters are missing they could of
at least added some better replacements than these stink
bags. Upon first impression and I looked at the character
select screen I noticed many were gone, and altered. What
happen to Sub-Zero's mask? Where is Scorpion and Reptile,
where did Baraka go? What happen To Johnny Cage? Well one
and the only good thing are the return of Kano and Sonya.
Cheesy ones like Stryker, Sektor and Cyrax, and metal Smoke
and other have replaced the other great characters. This is
truly a sham of a Mortal Kombat and should be avoided at all cost.
Story 7.0/10
The story didn't even change that much. This time after Kung
Lao won the tournament, but it didn't stop Shao Kahn from
opening the gates. An army of his best soldiers led by Shang
Tsung, have ran a rampage on earth and are stealing souls
every where they go. So the Earth warriors as they are
called led by Rayden have their final chance to put an end
of Shao Kahn's evilness. This time Shao Kahn in listed the
services of a Centaur instead of a Shokan. The Centaur which
is a half man half Horse are the natural enemy of the
Shokan. So one of Shao Kahn's warriors Shiva is not feeling
the loayality that Shao Kahn once had for her race. She is
secretly on the side of the Earth warriors. The Earth
Warriors are Liu Kang, Sonya, Stryker, Kung Lao, and Kabal.
They are against the rest of the characters so this time
Shao Kahn has the upper hand.
Graphics 4.0/10
The arcade graphics weren't bad but they weren't that good
either. They looked like the arcade if someone put an arcade
cabinet under water drowned it, played with the dip switches
and smash the screen 10 times with a sledgehammer. Yes they
are that bad everything was so washed out and faded it
wasn't even funny. I thought there was something wrong with
the color on my Television, but I then realize the game just
wasn't done well. The backgrounds were beyond faded, and
used no colors. The character size was small, slightly
smaller than the characters on Mortal Kombat II. Even the
Title screen was faded, this did not look anything like the
Moral Kombat I remembered. The graphics could of used heavy
improvement, I think the graphics on MKI was better because
the characters were brighter and had more color.
Sound 3.0/10
If you thought the sound on and high-pitched screams of MKII
were bad these are even worst. Now the men really sound like
women, and its hysterical how they were so tough a second
ago and they scream like a punk when they are about to get
killed. The music was also very low, and sounded no where
near the arcade sound. Now I'm not saying that the arcade
was good, but the Genesis could of done better than this.
The game sounds rushed, and like it were incomplete. The
sound effects were short of great and they sounded pretty
weak and unenthusiastic. If you wanted a good arcade sound
this is definitely not the game for you. Genesis has been
weak with music in the past but not this bad. Together Sound
and graphics put together a weak arcade import.
Game Play 5.0/10
This game is for 1 or 2 players. You now have a choice when
you are about to play. You can pick which "Column" you'll
fight, which makes the game mega easy. First there's the
novice column, them warrior and finally there's master.
Master column Is for he MK extremist who want a real
challenge. You have 15 characters to chose from, and most of
them suck. Even the mega cool returning characters like Kung
Lao aren't as good as they use to be. Although Kano and
Sonya have improved over their old selves, this really
doesn't make up for all the missing characters. If this game
would have brought back almost everyone from the MKII then
it might have had some quality to it, but it didn't and that
really ruins the game. You now have a new button, which
hallows you to run. This was suppose to make the game more
offensives minded and would cut off the cheap opponent who
would jump all over the screen. Well it did help there but
running left you open to projectiles, and soon you figured
out how to disable the run. Then there was an entirely new
combo system that mimicked Killer Instinct's a little.
Instead of making your own 2 in 1 type combos seen in the
other 2 games, you now have to do a lot complicated button
presses which usually only resulted in 4 or 5 hit combos.
Then there was an intricate password system that would be in
the bottom of the screen in between Vs matches player could
mash away at the buttons, and sometimes a an advantage would
pop up for one of the players. Like blocking disabled,
infinite run bar, dark fighting and others. There was the
usual hiding characters Noob-Saibot and a metal Smoke. You
know have yet another way to finish your opponent. In the
3rd round if you perform a mercy, you can then perform an
animality. These are usually pretty cheesy, and not as cool
as I thought they would be. The difficulty is adjustable,
and there aren't saves or passwords.
Overall 4.0/10
This game just wasn't all that good, and I really think it
was a failure. I mean come on, there was a Ultimate Mortal
Kombat 3, what does that tell you about the original? That
it shouldn't have been released, I hate remember Mortal
Kombat like this. Remembering these sub par games, like MK3
MK4 and Sub Zero's Mythologies. These games hurt the series
badly, well this game had one and only thing going for it
and that is it wasn't 3D. The replay value, is low with
these stinky characters you might only want to see a few
endings, and not all of them. The fun factor is medium if
you look pass nearly everything you may have some *Gasp*
fun! Not really though this game, isn't that good, and if
you get maybe on friend over this play this stink bag once
That's saying a lot. If your are a Mortal Kombat enthusiast
do not get this game, you will be ever so disappointed.
