Mortal Kombat X - MK is More Fluid & Gruesome Than Ever - Preview
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 26 September 2014 / 16,669 Views
Whilst at EGX 2014 I had a chance to play Mortal Kombat X, the next entry in the popular fighter franchise. Before I got hands-on with the title, however, I was speaking with some of the attendants that were supervising the game about the franchise's story.
Mortal Kombat X will actually expand the story enormously; not only is it going to be presented in a non-linear fashion, it's going to explore 5, 10 , 15, and 25 years into the future of the franchise's timeline. It will explore not just what happened at the end of Mortal Kombat 9, but will also explain the appearance of new characters (such as Cassie Cage). For those who enjoy the narrative behind all the fighting, it looks like Mortal Kombat X will be a treat.
The demo I played at Eurogamer Expo featured eight characters to choose from - Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Raiden, Kano, as well as four new characters, called Cassie Cage (the daughter of Johnny and Sonya), Ferra & Torr (a woman on a giant's back), Kotal Kahn (Shao Kahn's only known relative) and finally an insect queen named D’Vorah.
As you’d expect from any fighting game, the characters appear on-screen as 3D models once selected, and I must say they look fantastic on this new generation of consoles; the amount of detail on them is astounding. With your character selected (I chose Sub-Zero), you’re given the choice of what fighting style you’d like to use. Given the short amount of time I was able to play the game, I wasn’t able to explore all of them, but with three different styles to choose from for each character it looks set to be a pretty deep system.
The combat is fluid, more so than I was expecting, with punches and counters flying left, right and center. the game's combos have been reworked, meaning Mortal Kombat X is starting to feel a bit more like Street Fighter in the way you pull off some special attacks, which makes the gameplay a lot more accessible for me personally (I found Mortal Kombat 9 to be a bit too slow and clunky on the Xbox 360). This may be because of the play style I selected, but regardless it made me enjoy my time with the game even more than I expected to.
X-ray special moves are back, and this time more gruesome than ever, with Sub-Zero's looking wonderfully grotesque. It’s gory and exactly what you expect from Mortal Kombat.
Whilst the graphics are certainly stunning in their own right, there's not as much of a generational jump as there was for Mortal Kombat 9, but it’s well polished and looks fantastic, with particle effects like the fire from Scorpion's moves and the ice from Sub-Zero’s looking superb.
All in all I enjoyed my time with Mortal Kombat X, and look forward to playing the game when it releases on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC on April 14th, 2015.
