As the first prequel to the beloved Alien franchise Prometheus at the time was exciting and had garnered high expectations from the franchises fan base but was it what we had expected or did we leave theatres disappointed?
The film may catch viewers by surprise as it doesnt just look at the origin of the aliens but at society as a whole. The movie opens to a humanoid figure consuming a substance and disintegrating, we are then introduced to our main characters before the plot starts to unfold.
I really dislike the casting in the movie because in my opinion apart two characters everyone is really forgettable, I couldn’t tell you much about this crew apart from there a geologist, an android called David and the female lead of the film Elizabeth Shaw.
The two characters that were memorable were fantastic, Noomi Rapace is a great actress and gives some really emotional work in this film, this is best seen in a really well directed segment where she is told by David she is pregnant, since she in infertile she realises that there is an alien inside of her and in a panic she quickly uses the ships mechanics to remove it from her stomach before she is killed.
David is the best android the franchise has ever had, All of the movies previous to this had an android and all of them have been portrayed by very good actors and actresses but from a personality point of view I think David is the most relatable and a lot of this is in part due to the portrayal by Michael Fassbender and Davids ability to make his own decisions beyond his programming this is shown later on in the film.
Thankfully compared to Alien 3 the CGI here is really good and I think it works really well and is better than some CGI you see in films today, the alien designs are really cool and have a prehistoric look to them which helps to emphasise that this is an origin story so these creatures have not evolved to the form we know and love.
I like Prometheus a lot as it helps me to appreciate the origins of a franchise I hold very dear to me but I would be lying if I said it wasn’t hard to follow even for people who know the original movies and I think if this was your introduction you may be left confused and not quite understanding what you just watched.
Overall an interesting start to the Alien prequels and one that I would recommend seeing but at least see the original film first to get an idea of the xenomorphs and to compare the complete difference in tone, pacing and story telling between the two movies.
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Its one of the goriest fighting game series of all time and its a game series that I grew up with, lets take a look at the evolution of the Mortal Kombat video games.
Before we begin here is a brief explanation of the series, you battle your many opponents in one on one battles and the victor of the fight can perform a finishing move which can be either comical, brutal or fatal, these games are not shy on blood and gore and for a lot of people its the gory finishing moves that make the games as enjoyable as they are.
Mortal Kombat takes place on the island of Shang Tsung, the Island has hosted the Mortal Kombat tournament for hundred of generations, in the tournament warriors battle for the chance to take on the warrior Goro who has never been defeated. You are one of the latest challengers to take on the tournament.
Mortal Kombat introduced players to seven characters.
Johnny Cage – A martial artist and famous movie star
Kano –Â A mercenary who is devoted to a life of crime
Liu Kang – A Shaolin Monk who hopes to bring peace to the realm.
Raiden – A god of thunder
Scorpion – A ninja that dresses in yellow colours and uses fire as an element of attack
Sonia Blade – A member of the special forces
and Sub Zero –Â A ninja that dresses in blue colours and uses ice as an element of attack
Apart from fighting, players are able to try their luck at the extremely hard and blister enducing test your might game, in this mini-game you have to raise the might bar and destroy various strong materials.
The Original Mortal Kombat was quite basic but it was good enough for a first entry in the series.
A memorable moment from the game for me is the pit where you can throw an opponent onto a bed of spikes after defeating them in one of the levels. The Pit is also where players are able to trigger a secret fight with the green ninja called Reptile and major points are available if he is defeated.
The game was released on various home consoles after its debut in the arcades, I owned the game on the Sega Mega-drive which is the superior home console version as blood could be turned on using a special code however in the Super Nintendo release blood was completely removed.
As a side note I thought it might be fun to talk about the original arcade machines for some of these games starting with Mortal Kombat 1. I think the art is really cool on this machine, it has Johnny on the side and it looks like he is kicking a dragon in the head. Good art but not sure if it really shows that its a fighting game I feel like it would be more appropriate to a beat em up such as double dragon.
There is a lot more information about this cabinet on arcade-museum, I will put a link below.
After being defeated by Liu Kang in the first game , Shang Tsung begs ruler of Outworld Shao Khan to spare his life and also host the next Mortal Kombat Tournament in Outworld, Shao Khan agrees and restores both life and youth to Shang Tsung.
It should be noted that because of the plot of this game Liu Kang winning the tournament in Mortal Kombat 1 was the canon ending.
Seven new playable characters were introduced in Mortal Kombat 2
Baraka – A mutant that works for Shao Khan
Jax –Â A special forces officer
Kitana – A female ninja and assassin
Kung Lao –Â A Shaolin monk and friend of Liu Kang
Mileena –Â Kitana’s sister and who is an assassin working for Shao Khan.
Reptile –Â The mysterious ninja from the first game
and Shang Tsung –Â The sorcerer and final boss from the first game although much younger
It should be noted Sonia Blade and Kano did not make a comeback as a playable characters in Mortal Kombat 2.
The game had three hidden fights that you could access if you hit certain criteria during your play-through.
Jade –Â A strange female ninja who fights with a fan
Smoke – A Ninja dressed in grey that uses smoke to help him fight
and Noob Saibot – A very mysterious character that who’s features are completely hidden by its dark colour palette, this fight is the hardest of the secret battles in my personal opinion.
As well as fatalities there were two more finishing moves you could do in this game, the first was babalities where you could turn your opponent into a baby and the other was friendship which had you do something kind for an opponent after defeating them, hilariously this was made as a mocking response to critics who deemed the first Mortal Kombat too violent.
Mortal Kombat 2 was a massive improvement over the first game, it added loads of new characters, new stages that were better animated, it gave players babalaties and new fatalities along side three brand new stage fatalities, overall a fantastic game.
I much prefer the arcade machine design here, I love Raiden being on the side of the cabinet, to me he is a much more recognisable character than Johnny Cage is and to be honest in my opinion he is a lot cooler as well.
For more information on this arcade cabinet follow the link below
After being defeated by Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat 2, Shao Khan uses Shang Tsung to revive his long lost love Sindel, he does this as part of a plan to combine both Earthrealm and Outworld causing billions to lose their lives because of this Raiden sends warriors out to fight Shao Khan and put a stop to him once and for all.
Mortal Kombat 3 is my least favourite out of the original arcade games, as a child I really did not like a lot of the changes they made and I still do not to this day. Biggest change was removing scorpion from the game which makes no sense because he is the most popular character in the series and nothing happened to him in the last game to explain his absence here. Sub Zero has a new character design and it sucks, I prefer the iconic blue mask and he just does not look right.
The game introduced a good number of new playable characters
Cyrax – A cyber assassin that dresses in yellow
Kabal – A former black dragon warrior
Nightwolf – A native american shaman
Sektor – A cyber assassin that dresses in red
Sindel – Shao Khan’s resurrected queen
Sheeva – A female shoken who is also the protector of Sindel
Stryker – A riot control officer
and Smoke – A cyber assassin that uses smoke as a means of attack
Both Kano and Sonia Blade return as playable characters in Mortal Kombat 3 however Baraka, Mileena, Reptile, Scorpion, Raiden and Kitana did not make a return as playable characters.
The stages here take place in world settings that are more familiar to players such as subways, cities and streets which to be honest I much prefer to the stages in the first two games.
A new finishing move called an aqnimality was added which allows character to turn into animals before killing their defeated opponent.
Other things that should be noted are the new stage fatalities which take advantage of the new settings, the ability to change stages during a battle if you manage knock your opponent to higher level, secret fights with a robotic version of smoke as well as returning fighter Noob Saibot and a new sub boss Montaro who is a centaur that is ridiculously hard to beat.
Overall Mortal Kombat 3 is a really good game, and the reason I dont like it is because of the character selection which may seem a little unfair for me to judge it on that but with the changes they made to some of the characters it just didnt feel right and took away from the experience for me.
Really great artwork on this arcade cabinet, the character choices make sense due to the games plot and the amount of detail is fantastic, I still prefer the artwork for the Mortal Kombat 2 cabinet but this one is a close second for me.
For more information on this arcade cabinet please use the link below
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was released the same year as the original game it made a few updates that improved the overall experience the first was returning characters Scorpion, Kitana, Jade and Reptile, it added two new modes and added new hidden fighters Human Smoke, Classic Sub Zero, Mileena, Ermac, Noob Saibot and Rain.
The art here is a little dissapointing as they copied the Mortal Kombat 2 art work instead of Mortal Kombat 3 which does not make a lot more sense as Raiden is not a playable character in this game.
Mortal Kombat trilogy was compilation of the original Kombat trilogy crammed into one game, every playable character was back along side Goro, Kintaro, Motaro and Shao Khan.
The game introduced another finishing move called a brutality where players will beat the utter crap out of their defeated opponents before making them explode.
A new secret fighter called chameleon can be taken on, he uses the combined abilities of all ninja characters and is really tough
Mortal Kombat Trilogy was the first game to not be introduced in arcades.
Mortal Kombat Mythologies –Â Sub Zero was the first spin off game in the series
Taking place before the events of the original Mortal Kombat, Sub-Zero has been tasked by Quan Chi to steal a map of elements from the Shaolin temple.
The game was very disappointing, not only was it not like the other Mortal Kombat games but it was also really badly designed and extremely un-fair.
It was a 2D platforming action-adventure game where players needed to gain experience points and unlock special moves by defeating enemies.
The problem was that the game had confusing controls and was very cryptic on how you need to survive, a lot of the time you would not be able to see below the character so if you had to jump onto a platform below you would not know how to time or position your jump, a lot of enemy sprites were very similar to each other so the game lacked in variety.
If you play the Play-station 1 version of the game it has full FMV cut scenes and they are actually really cool and worth checking out on Youtube.
Overall a bad game and I am pleased that they never made a sequel
With the help of Quan Chi an elder god named Shinnok has escaped from the Netherealm after being defeated by the thunder god Raiden thousands of years ago. Shinnok seeks revenge on Raiden and the other gods who helped to trap him in the Netherealm, Raiden requests help from Mortal Kombat warriors to help defeat the elder god once again.
Five new playable characters were introduced to Mortal Kombat 4
Fujjin – A wind god and an ally of Raiden
Jarek – The final member of the black dragon
Kai – A Shaolin monk and a friend of Liu Kang
Meat – A gory skeleton and one of the hidden characters in the game.
Reiko – The general to Shinnok
Tanya – A traitor to Edenia
Noob Saibot – Finally playable as a hidden character in the game.
Scorpion and Raiden have been re-added to the game after being absent in Mortal Kombat 3
The game came with 3D graphics, full CGI cut-scenes, hilariously bad voice acting and a kick ass soundtrack.
Silly finishing moves such as babalaties and friendships were removed to make the game focus more on violence and to be taken more seriously however a new move that allows you to break your opponents bones during a fight was added which was really awesome.
Players can now also use weapons and stage hazards to hurt their opponents, adding a lot of new ways to fight which is really great.
Mortal Kombat 4 is a fantastic game and while its not my favourite 3D Mortal Kombat game it was a great first attempt.
Mortal Kombat 4 was the last game to be released in Arcades and its art does not disappoint, I love Quan Chi being next to a wall of flames, it reminds me of the art from the Mortal Kombat 2 cabinet which had Raiden using a thunder attack.
For more information on this arcade cabinet follow the link below
Mortal Kombat Gold was a dreamcast exclusive release of Mortal Kombat 4, it added Mileena, Cyrax, Kung Lao, Baraka and a secret character called Sektor to the game. It even added a few new cut-scenes for me personally this is the definitive version of Mortal Kombat 4 but a lot of people would disagree as the game was hit with mediocre reviews when it first hit store shelves.
I could not find a commercial for this game so we will make due with the opening sequence.
Taking place before Mortal Kombat Mythologies Sub-Zero, Special forces follows the character Jax who seeks revenge after his comrades were murdered by the Black Dragon Clan, Jax takes on a mission to obtain a mystical artifact called the Eye of Chitian which can open portals.
The game is a third person beat-em up and shooter, I found it to be quite simple to get used too and at first it was really fun but it became boring very quickly. The game is repetitive, the levels are all very similar and it lacks challenge in both its combat and its boss fights, overall its not great.
I couldn’t find any commercials or videos for this one so I am afraid we will have to make due with the box art.
The game was a bad port of Ulitmate Mortal Kombat 3, the limitations of the gameboy advance button layout made it very difficult to play and took a lot away from the experience. At times the game was also really unfair on its difficulties making it near impossible to finish on any difficulty above normal. This is one port you will want to skip.
In the canon ending of Mortal Kombat 4 (Scorpions Ending) Scorpion gets sent back to the Netherrealm by Quan Chi but Quan Chi is grabbed by Scorpion taking him to the Netherealm with him. Quan Chi escapes the Netherealm using a magical amulet which sent him to a tomb of dead bodies, he learns that the dead can be brought back to life and plans to build an army so he teams up with Shang Tsung who then murder Shao Khan and Liu Kang. This causes Raiden to give up his status as a god after realising that if the alliance is victorious Earthrealm will be doomed leading into the events of the game.
New characters in this game include
Blaze – A secret character and a fire elemental
Bo Rai Cho – Former trainer for Liu Kang
Drahmin – An Oni who seeks revenge against Quan Chi
Frost –Â Sub-Zero’s Trainee
Hsu Hao – A red dragon operative
Kenshi -A blind swordsman who was stranded in Outworld
Li Mei – An outworld native who wants to win the freedom of her native people.
Mavado – A red dragon mastermind
Mokap –Â A Joke character added in by the developers
Nitara – A vampire who wants to separate her home from Outworld
Liu Kang and Shao Khan are absent from the game due to their deaths.
The game looks great and its visuals are a huge improvement over Mortal Kombat 4, the combat remains practically the same although stage fatalities have been completely removed which really sucks.
Mini games came back in Deadly alliance in the form of Test your Might and Test your Sight, both of these games are very difficult but both are rewarding.
The crypt made its first appearance here, it was an area that allowed players to spend coins to purchase unlock-able content in the game.
A new mode was added called konquest, this was essentially a long tutorial mode for the fighters but it gave insight to their back stories.
Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance was an outstanding game and one of my personal favourites.
Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition was a GBA port of Deadly Alliance
While controlling a lot better than the previous GBA game in the series nothing about this really stands out enough for me to say its a good game, if anything its a lacking version of Deadly Alliance and overall it can be skipped.
After the events of Deadly Alliance Raiden attempts to fight Shang Tsung and and Quan Chi but is quickly defeated. Not long after this the dragon king Onaga comes to gain the power of the amulet, Raiden sends a powerful blast to try and stop the monster, this blast kills Raiden, Shang Tsung and Quan Chi but hardly touches the dragon king leaving only a few warriors feeling brave enough to try and stop the new threat.
The game came with a new konquest mode and I recommend playing this off the bat because it helps explain more information on the games antagonist.
The game is a full RPG with side-quests, rewards and really fun combat, this is what I wish the Mortal Kombat spin off games were like.
Two additional side games were added the first was Puzzle Kombat which was a tetris clone with a mortal Kombat spin to it and the other was Chess Kombat which was a game of chess in the style of Mortal Kombat, I recommend checking both of these modes out.
New characters this time are
Ashrah – A Netherrealm demon
Dairou – A Seidan guardman
Darrius – A Seidan leader
Havik – Archrival of Hotaru
Kira –Â A former weapons dealer
and Kobra – A deadly martial artist
Surprisingly Liu Kang and Raiden are playable but with re-designs, Liu Kang is now a zombie and Raiden seems to have a new colour palette.
The Crypt returns but this time is much smaller and easier to collect everything.
A new finisher called Hara – Kiri was added, its a controversial move which causes the other player to die by suicide.
Stage hazards and fatalities were brought back in this instalment making the experience even better.
Overall an excellent Mortal Kombat game.
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks was the third attempt at a spin off for the series and this time it was actually good.
The game takes place during the events between Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat 2, In this game Shang Tsung plans to take over Earthrealm after his defeat by Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat.
The game is an action packed beat-em up which stars Liu Kang a Lao Kung, players need to slaughter hundreds of enemies and occasional bosses to reach victory, players could perform fatalities in succession as well as a new finishing move called mutuality which kills multiple enemies at once.
The game is a lot of fun but for the best experience I recommend playing the campaign with another player, I feel not enough games these days allow co-op game-play on story mode so its inclusion here is a blessing.
The game is packed with secrets including a hidden battle with the ninja Ermac as a well as other characters such as Kano and Mileena. A full working version of Mortal Kombat 2 could be unlocked if you helped the Ninja Smoke on your quest. A hidden mode called survival could be discovered as well unlocking the ability to play the campaign as Scorpion and Sub-Zero after finishing story mode.
The game even had a traditional versus mode available with unlock-able characters hidden throughout the campaign.
Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks is a fantastic game and one the best Mortal Kombat games, it shows good spin offs are possible with the correct team behind them and I really hope that one day we either get re-release or a sequel.
Following the events of Mortal Kombat: Deception, fighters from all realms battle to survive in the battle of Armageddon, this battle sets everyone out to survive by doing anything necessary. The deadly warrior Blaze is awoken and must be defeated in order to save the realms from certain death and destruction.
The character roster in Armageddon is absolutely massive, for the first time ever in a Mortal Kombat game every character was back and playable including previous boss characters and characters who were deceased.
Fatalities were completely changed in this game and not many people liked this, instead of each character having set finishing moves, players had to brutishly destroy their opponents by combining multiple gory attacks together creating their own finishing moves, this was really cool but it took away a lot of character personality and the fun of learning to pull off tricky fatalities
Another disappointment was that the game had no end cut-scenes or art for players, its still had narration explaining each characters ending but the lack of the imagery to go with this made it really boring and not as interesting as it was in previous games.
On the bright side the game did have an excellent Konquest mode which introduced two new characters Taven and Daegon who have just been released from suspended animation to defeat the warrior Blaze.
The game-mode is really fun and takes a lot of inspiration from Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks making it one of the best parts of Mortal Kombat Armageddon.
Another new mode allows you create a fighter using a lot of fun tools and designs, more stuff for this mode could be bought in the krypt.
My favourite mode in the game is Motor Kombat which is a really silly Mario Kart knock off with Mortal Kombat characters, themed tracks and items as well as plenty of blood and guts.
Mortal Kombat Armageddon brought a lot of new ideas and modes to the table making up for the elements that were lost but overall the game for me a was a little disappointing due to its losses however it was still fin and better than some of its predecessors.
A PSP version of Mortal Kombat Armageddon was released titled Mortal Kombat Unchained, the game was very similar to the console versions however unchained did have an exclusive endurance mode which allowed players to fight constant waves of fighters until they fall in battle.
A port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was brought to the Nintendo DS titled Ultimate Mortal Kombat, the game was an exact copy of the arcade game.
This version came with a Puzzle Kombat Mode as a bonus that was not available in the original game.
Mortal Kombat vs the DC Universe was an odd choice for the next Mortal Kombat game as it would include regular Mortal Kombat characters battling characters from another universe.
The story has players choosing which side to fight for but both campaigns show that Shao Khan and DC villain Darkside both get sent into new realms however due to both of these event happening at once both worlds collide and a new villain named Dark Khan is born.
I always found the character roster for this game very lacking, yes both sides have the obvious choices but I feel that a few fan favourites such as Smoke, Harley Quinn, Reptile, Killer Croc as well as many others could have made the cut or at least came later on as DLC.
A new ability was added to stages allowing players to throw characters down to lower platforms beating the snot out them while they are doing this, this could also be done in a similar new feature called close kombat.
Test your might returns here although its now implemented into ground based stages, this means that in some stages you can trigger test your might by ramming your opponents through walls and other obstacles.
Due to an agreement with DC and its use of characters, violence had to be toned down in this game meaning that a lot of gore was removed from Fatalities and DC Heroes could only perform Brutalities that did not kill the opponent.
Over all not the best Mortal Kombat game but its one of my favourite crossovers, I wish they kept the gore but I understand why DC did not want Super Man brutally murdering someone or having Batman be sliced in half.
2011 brought us Mortal Kombat 9 (AKA Mortal Kombat) a retelling of the plot from the first three games however this one has a twist, it begins at the end of Mortal Kombat Armageddon with Raiden sending a message to his past self “He must Win” referring to Liu Kang needing to win the Mortal Kombat tournament.
While this does technically continue from the end of Armageddon in reality it was the beginning of a reboot of the series while keeping the events of the previous on going story canon. Throughout the campaign Raiden receives visions from the future encouraging him to make drastic changes to past events but with these changes came some serious consequences.
Playable Characters in the game included
Baraka
Cyrax
Cyber Sub-Zero – a robotic-ally altered version of the popular blue ninja
Ermac
Jade
Jax
Johnny Cage
Kabal
Kano
Kitana
Kratos from the God of War Series (PlayStation Version Only)
Kung Lao
Liu Kang
Mileena
Nightwolf
Noob Saibot
Quan Chi
Raiden
Reptile
Scorpion
Sektor
Shang Tsung
Sheeva
Sindel
Smoke
Sonya Blade
Stryker
and Regular Sub Zero
DLC character were added to the game in the form of
Freddy Kruger – From the Nightmare on Elm Street Franchise
Kenshi – From Mortal Kombat Deadly Allaince
Rain – A Purple Ninja who was first playable in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
and Skarlet – A red female ninja
These characters were free in the the Komplete Edition of Mortal Kombat that was released in 2012
This game is gory and the fatalities were finally fatal again, DC universe left a lot of people disappointed that the series would never go back to being R rated and Mortal Kombat 9 proved us all wrong.
Stage fatalaties such as the pit returned as well, which was very nostalgic for fans of the series.
A major new addition to the series introduced in Mortal Kombat 9 was the X-ray moves, these are specifically timed grab moves that break the bones of your opponent causing serious damage to the health bar, broken bones or not the damage you take does not affect how you fight in the game after you are hit with an X-Ray.
Apart from the amazing story mode of the game, new modes included a training mode which allowed you to practice pulling off moves and fatalities
.
Challenge tower was a new mode to the series it offered 300 challenges for players to tackle and if they are successful they would earn currency to spend in the games Krypt Mode.
Other modes included Test your Might, Test your Sight, Test your Strike, Test your Luck, Tag Team and online play.
A great reboot of the series, it held the Nostalgia of the original games while also bringing a new feel and new ideas to the table, Mortal Kombat 9 is one of the best Mortal Kombat Games yet.
A re-release of Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 and Ulitmate Mortal Kombat 3 for the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.
This version added online multiplayer and achievements.
Two years after the events of Mortal Kombat 9 Johnny Cage and Sonia Blade are fighting to imprison the Elder God Shinnok and Quan Chi. They are successful and Raiden traps Shinnok in an Amulet but unfortunately Quan Chi escapes, the main meat of the campaign then takes place 20 years later and shows Johnny Cage with a group of warriors that he wants to use to retrieve the amulet from Mileena who wants to release Shinnok. The campaign of this game helps to give a lot of sympathy to the characters we all know, the problems that they deal with in the game help to make them feel more like real people than video game characters, I wont spoil the whole campaign story as it gets really good and you should really check it out for yourselves.
New comers to the roster included
Cassie Cage –Â The daughter of Johnny Cage and Sonia Blade
D’vorah –Â A member of a race of insects called the Kytinn
Erron Black –Â A gunslinger from Earthrealm
Ferra and Torr – A young girl who rides a giant masked monster
Jacqui Briggs – The Daughter of Jax and his wife
Kotal Kahn – An Aztec Warrior from the realm of Osh Tekk
Kung Jin – A master thief and the cousin of Kung Lao
and Takeda Takahashi – The son of Kenshi
Paid DLC characters were
Tremor – A bronze ninja and a member of the Black Dragon Clan
Jason Voorhees – From the Friday the 13th franchise
The Predator – From the Predator franchise
Tanya –Â A woman from Edenia and a worshipper of Shinnok
Xenomorph –Â From the Alien franchise
BO’Rai Cho – Former trainer of Liu Kang
Goro –Â A tough four armed warrior who debuted in the original game
Leather Face – From the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise
and Triborg a ninja that is a combination of Smoke, Cyrax and Sector
All DLC was included with Mortal Kombat XL which was released in 2016
Apart from characters there really was not much new content in this one but the two main differences really affected the game-play negatively in my opinion. Instead of just choosing a fighter in quick matches now we had to also choose a fighting, style and all of these needed to be learned separately and it just made the whole thing much more confusing than it needed to be, I hated this IÂ just wanted to play normal Mortal Kombat not this new diverse version of Mortal Kombat.
Anyone who has been reading this website for a while knows that I hate quick time events in cut-scenes. In my opinion they make the story less enjoyable and are lazy attempts to advance a game, they don’t take much skill and are usually boring, these are no exception in Mortal Kombat X they don’t fit well into this series and it distracts players from what was originally a fantastic story mode plot.
With these complaints aside, I actually really like this entry to the series, it still is a lot of fun to play and minus the quick time events had the best plot in a Mortal Kombat game yet.
After Shinnoks defeat in Mortal Kombat X Raiden is left corrupted and dark, he wants to protect Earthrealm by destroying its enemies immediately. Shinnoks mother Kronika rewrites history to remove Raidens interfere by bringing the past and the present together which causes new Mortal Kombat characters to meet the original versions of themselves.
New comers here are
Cetrion –Â An Elder Goddess and Shinnoks Sister
Geras -Kronikas main underling
and Kollector – A debt collector for Shao Kahn
The games DLC characters are
The Joker from Batman
Nightwolf
Shang Tsung
Sindel
Spawn
The Terminator
Rambo
Rain
Mileena
Robocop
Sheeva
And Fujin
Fatal Blows are a new move that can deal serious damage to your opponent they are very similar to the X-Ray and do not show the bones breaking making them slightly less cool.
X-Ray has been replaced with Krushing Blows a shorter X-Ray move that does less damage but is executed much faster.
Mercy is a move that allows you to revive an opponent by giving them a small amount of health.
Character customisation was added to the game, this allows players to add new skins, weapons, abilities and more to the characters in the game.
There really was not many new modes or ideas added to Mortal Kombat 11 but that has not stopped the game from being an excellent entry into the series, I still prefer Mortal Komat 9 overall but this is a close second for me.
In 2020 Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate version released with all of the DLC from the original version included in this new package.
That leaves us up to date with the Mortal Kombat video game franchise so far, I grew up playing the original games and I have fallen in love with its reboots, this series has had a lot of good moments and bad moments but all of it is nostalgic and brings back a lot of gaming memories for me.
I learned a lot of history and information about the series from a very well put together YouTube documentary series, this series is much more in-depth than the information I have provided and I recommend checking it out if you want to learn more about Mortal Kombat and the impact it has had on gamers for over 20 years.
Join me when the next game is released as we continue to explore this ever expanding game series.
Want me to review a specific game/movie/product or do you have a general question you would like me to answer? if so please email me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
Make sure to subscribe to 616Entertaiment on Youtube who made the excellent Mortal Kombat history documentary series.
Scooby-Doo, Where are you! is an animated series about four teenagers and a great dane that work together to solve spooky mysteries.
The show was created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and it was directed by Joseph Barbera and William Hanna.
The show starred five primary characters Shaggy a hippie, Velma a brainac, Daphnie a pretty girl with red hair that often needed rescuing, Fred a jock and the natural leader of the group, Fred also drives the gangs vehicle the mystery machine and finally Scooby-Doo a silly, loyal and cowardly great dane.
Great characters need a good voice cast and luckily the casting here was perfect – unfortunately a lot of the original voice actors have now passed away but their legacy will always live on.
Don Messick – Scooby-Doo
Casey Kasem – Shaggy
Frank Welker – Fred
Indira Stefianna – Daphne (Season 1)
Heather North – Daphne (Season 2)
Nicole Jaffe – Velma
Im not going to review every episode of the show as they are all very similar in premise and follow the same formula which is.
A paranormal monster is scaring away locals.
The Mystery Gang find a clue and decide to solve the mystery.
Mystery gang speak to someone who has seen the monster
Gang splits up and searches for clues
Shaggy and Scooby do something comedic
A gang member finds a clue which shows that the paranormal monster is not real
The gang sets a trap and catches the monster
Velma explains how they caught the monster to the authorities
Fred removes the mask and discovers its the person they spoke to earlier.
A simple formula but very effective, but this formula would not have been as great with out some outstanding monster designs and Scooby-Doo, Where Are you! had lots of great monsters. Below are some of my favourites.
The Puppet Master
Ghost Clown
Spooky Space Kook
Compared to later versions of Scooby-Doo some of the visuals in this version are actually quite scary, especially some of the monsters, The Space Kook is particularly terrifying which is one of the reasons why its one of my favourite Scooby-Doo baddies.
The shows iconic theme song didn’t actually start until the second season which is something I didn’t realise until I re-watched the series ready for this review.
The second season also introduced some original music that played during chase sequences, this is something that becomes a series staple in some future versions of the show.
For its two season run Scooby-Doo, Where are you was an outstanding start to what would eventually become a massive franchise that is still relevant to this day and while its comedy and some of its dialogue may feel a little outdated now it still manages to withhold its charm and overall likeability making this a show that has really stood the test of time.
There was a revival third season that was released in 1978 however I will cover this in a future Scooby-Doo Review
I hope you enjoyed this review of Scooby-Doo, Where are you!
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Welcome to the first edition of my journey through the world of comic books, in this series I will be mostly only be covering the first issue of a series as well as a couple of random issues of classic series comic books here and there.
Let’s continue with our Halloween celebrations by taking a look at the first issue of Aliens: Dust to Dust.
Aliens Dust to Dust follows the journey of a young boy called Maxon and his mother who are part of a Colony on LV-871, Emergency evacuations are ordered leaving Maxon and his mum trying to get to an escape shuttle without being killed by the attacking Xenomorphs.
The story is great, it reminds me a lot of the film Aliens with Ripley and Newt, Maxon and his mother have a similar connection and make a great duo, I really enjoyed the fast pace of the comic, it takes no time to warm the reader up as from page one you are thrown straight into the action, the comic book is dark, creepy and full of suspense leaving the reader wanting more, my favourite part of the story involved a car ramming over Aliens which was a lot of fun.
I love the art style, it’s dark and eerie which helps with the creepy atmosphere of the series, there are so many little details that help the comic to stand out, the amount of work that must have gone into drawing the panels is astounding, everypage is an excellent piece of art and the artist deserves a lot of credit.
The first issue of Aliens:Dust to Dust is an exciting and thrilling story from the Alien universe, it has a great story and fantastic art work, the story puts the reader on edge throughout but still leaving you wanting more making this one comic book I can definitely recommend.
I hope you enjoyed this review of Aliens Dust to Dust if you respect my opinion I will respect yours.
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Next in the Alien franchise is 1997’s Alien Resurrection which was Directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet and was written by Joss Whedon.
200 years after the events of Alien 3 Ellen Ripley is cloned and the Alien Queen that was in her chest has been removed.
The reason Ripley was cloned was because scientists wanted to bring back and clone the Xenomorphs for studying
After an unfortunate issue with the imprisoned Xenomorph clones the creatures manage to escape onto the ship leaving Ripley and a group of mercenaries to find a way to escape and destroy the creatures once and for all.
This movie is by far the most unnecessary and pointless of the Alien films, but in its defence it is way more fun than Alien 3, its extremely silly in so many ways that you have to wonder if it was ever intended to be taken seriously, some of my favourite silly moments include the basketball scene, the scene where Johner shoots a small spider and the ridiculous death of General Perez.
The film is not all silliness though as it does have a couple of disturbing scenes, the most memorable has got to be when Ripley finds her failed clones with one in particular begging for death.
Even though its fair to say that this movie is not very good I have to admit that I really love the cast, everyone in this movie is over the top and full of sass and one liners even Sigourney Weaver doesn’t seem to take the role too seriously and this overacting from the cast suits the tone of the movie extremely well. Winona Ryder is in the film playing a character called Call, I wouldn’t say this is one of her best roles but she is still good none the less.
Alien Resurrection is considered to be one of the worst films ever put to screen and while I will admit that its not a good Alien movie it is a really entertaining watch, its cheesy, packed with action scenes and is hilarious, it never needed to exist and probably shouldn’t have but if you don’t take it seriously I can guarantee that you will enjoy it.
I hope you enjoyed this review of Alien Resurrection (1997) if you respect my opinion I will respect yours.
If you enjoyed this review please consider donating by using the donate button at the top of the page, your donations will help to improve the website by allowing me to afford products to review and to be able to execute any costly updates and changes, any amount in donations are welcome and much appreciated.
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Alien 3 is the third movie in the alien franchise, it was directed by David Fincher who before directing Alien 3 was mostly known for directing short films and documentaries, after Alien 3 David Fincher went on to make a lot of classic movies including Panic Room, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Fight Club.
After escaping the Ship Sulaco at the end of Aliens a fire is started in the escape pod where Ellen Ripley and three other individuals were sleeping in cryonic stasis, the escape pod crashes on a prison planet where the inmates discover the wreckage and pull out Ripley the only survivor along with the bodies of those who perished.
Its quickly discovered that an Xenomorph was the cause of the fire and is now running freely in the prison killing everyone is sight leaving Ripley the only person with experience with the creatures having to take a leadership role in order to save the inhabitants of the planet, she also discovers that she has been impregnated with a Xenomorph cutting down the amount of time she has to do this
The plot of Alien 3 is ok and it follows the story in a way that does make sense however within 15 minutes everyone apart from Ripley who survived in Aliens dies, these characters are given a very lazy send off and it really puts me off the film, I wouldn’t mind it as much if they maybe put a bit more effort into killing them off.
Put it this way imagine if you had just finished watching the Fellowship of the Ring so you decide to put on the Two Towers and the film opens with Frodo crying because Sam died in his sleep.
How dumb does that sound?
Alien 3 is just about as cheesy as aliens but maybe a little more serious, I didnt like the acting too much in this one as a lot of the lines felt forced however the cast was a lot of fun and the dialogue was silly enough to be funny, I cant get a decent picture of the Xenomorph however I have to admit that unfortunately it looks like it had just been pulled straight from a PS2 game and is not very scary in my opinion.
I know I havent said too many nice things about this movie however with all its faults its still a decent film, it has some good action scenes and some memorable deaths including one where a man who has been blinded by the alien accidentally rolls into an industrial fan, it also marks what I can only gather was supposed to be the end of Ellen Ripleys story and a scene at the end of the film where Ellen does the only thing she can to prevent another alien being brought into the world is really cool and and is one of the most epic moments in the franchise.
I hope you enjoyed this review of Alien 3 (1992) if you respect my opinion I will respect yours.
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nine years after the first movie, a sequel to Alien was made and this time James Cameron took the directors chair, before writing and directing aliens, James Cameron had done the same for the Terminator two years prior.
Fifty seven years after the first movie Ellen Ripley is discovered sleeping in status in a shuttle that is floating through space, after being rescued her employers do not believe her claims that an Alien slaughtered her entire crew and left her with no choice but too blow up the ship.
A colony has been set up where the alien eggs were found in the first movie, when contact with the colony is lost Ripley is asked to go with a group of marines to check out the disturbance, while at first unsure Ripley eventually agrees and goes along after it is confirmed to her that the mission is to completely destroy the Xenomorphs.
Aliens is more of a cheesy action movie when compared to the dark and creepy horror film which was the original, this film is crazy fun and has all of the cliches to go with it, you have a sarcastic sergeant who always has a cigar in his mouth, a bad ass child character who is way more useful than any of the adults and some crazy marines that are full of banter and funny one liners, this may seem strange when compared to the first movie but the silly nature works surprisingly well here and the combination of scares, action and silliness helps to make this my favourite film in the franchise.
Speaking of our child actor I want to give some credit to Carrie Henn that played Rebecca Jordan aka Newt, Newt was discovered by Ripley and the marines during the mission, Newt is an orphan who lost her brother and mother to the aliens and once she finds trust in Ripley she helps her and the marines with the mission. Newt is a great character and it adds more tension to the movie when there is a child involved and she is just fairly bad ass throughout making the audience root for her survival.
The set for Aliens is very similar to the first movie however there are more of them and since more lights are used in the film they help to show more details of the architecture. In my personal opinion I think the sets in Aliens are cooler,way more interesting and way more scary, the first film was scary because you couldn’t see much of the Alien but here there are loads of them and you get to see all of the grisly details up close including a horrific cocooning scene where the aliens cocoon their victims next to a non hatched Face Hugger egg leaving the victim forced into a grizzly fate.
Aliens is an amazing sequel to one of the scariest movies of all time, the first film created a genre while this one expanded on that and gave us a different take on the series, this the alien movie where aliens get blasted, flattened, burned alive and blown to bits and its awesome, the movie once again ended on a cliff hanger leaving audience desperate for more.
I hope you enjoyed this review of Aliens (1986) if you respect my opinion I will respect yours.
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They Live is a 1988 Sci Fi and Horror movie written and Directed by John Carpenter.
The movie stars professional wrestler Roddy Piper who plays John Nada a drifter who finds a construction job in LA, in the job he makes a friend called Frank Armitage who was played by Keith David.
While visiting a soup kitchen John Nada discovers a church in which a secret meeting is being held, after a police raid which destroys the shanty town where the church is located John returns to the church and finds boxes filled with sun glasses, it is quickly discovered that while wearing the glasses you are able to see subliminal messages such as consume, stay asleep and obey hidden behind advertisements as well as the ability to see alien creatures hiding behind human disguises, the aliens soon learn that John had learned their secret and he becomes a fugitive with his only chance of saving the human race is revealing the secret to the rest of the world.
The design for the aliens in They Live may look more like a zombie than it does an extraterrestrial,the reason for this design is so that it makes more sense that they could disguise them selves as humans due to the fact that they have similar bone structure and shape making them more believable when they are in disguise.
I have no complaints with the casting of the movie by far the best performance was Roddy Piper who did a lot of improvisation including the famous line “I came her to chew bubble gum and kick ass and I’m all out of bubble gum” as well as also giving a lot of help when filming an epic alley fight scene. Meg Foster also did a great job with her portrayal of Holly Thompson a Cable 54 assistant director and its only fair to mention Keith David who played Frank.
They Live is an awesome movie which is scary because in an odd sense its realistic, advertisements really can be quite corrupt and brain washing after watching the movie I began thinking about the advertisements I see, an ad for Mc Donalds is telling us to consume and things such as the law or general rules are forcing us to obey, perhaps I am thinking too much into the premise of a movie but the fact that it got me to stop and think is a sign of a very clever film.
I hope you enjoyed this review of They Live (1988) if you respect my opinion I will respect yours.
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Welcome to Extraterrestrial month, through out the month of October I will be celebrating the season of Halloween by reviewing horror movies based on creatures from outer space, we will be kick starting the season with an absolute classic from 1979 Ridley Scotts Alien.
Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto, Alien is an eerie chain of events which shows the effect that one small decision has on an entire crew of space merchants on the space ship The Nostromo.
Without giving away too many details one crew member of the Nostromo makes the decision to help a fallen comrade by bringing him back onto the ship, the fallen member was found with a strange creature attached to his face and the creature would not release itself, a few days after bringing the unconscious crew member aboard the ship the creature dies and the man wakes up, he seems to be absolutely fine until he begins having a fit which ends with an alien baby bursting from his chest. This leaves the remaining crew in a sticky situation as they try to find a way to remove the alien from the ship before it kills anyone else.
The Actors and Actresses all do a fantastic job but by far the best performance is by Sigourney Weaver who plays Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley, Ellen is one bad ass heroine that takes no crap from anyone, shes the only crew member that disagrees with bringing the alien aboard the ship and is the most intelligent and resilient when it comes to either getting rid of the creature or escaping from it, the character earned Sigourney Weaver recognition world wide and she has since become a staple in Sci Fi movies.
While the cast help to make the film memorable for me the best part of Alien is its pacing, that may seem an odd reason to favour a film but Director Ridley Scott does such a fantastic job its hard not too, the movie is genuinely quite scary due to the well designed creepy sets and well placed lighting to make the film darker, the creature doesn’t appear often either so the movie leaves the viewer on edge wondering where its hiding, in some scenes if you listen carefully you can hear the alien crawling through the vents which only adds to the atmosphere of the film.
Alien is a well directed Science Fiction Horror film that will leave you on the edge of your seat, it gave us one of the most recognised alien designs in history (the Xenomorph) and it is easily one of the greatest films ever put to the screen. It’s still a classic to this day and is a great example of cinema being a form of art.
I hope you enjoyed this review of Alien (1979) if you respect my opinion I will respect yours.
If you enjoyed this review please consider donating by using the donate button at the top of the page, your donations will help to improve the website by allowing me to afford products to review and to be able to execute any costly updates and changes, any amount in donations are welcome and much appreciated
Thank You for all of your support.
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Yay Mega Man one of my favourite video game series of all time, it’s made by capcom and like most capcom videogames it kicks ass. We all know about the classic Mega Man series for the nes, The Mega Man X series for the snes, the Mega Legends series and so on but what about the Mega Man starforce video game series for the Nintendo DS did you even know this existed I sure didn’t until I watched the Anime which is based on the games and this a review of that anime and that anime is Mega Man Starforce. I have never played the games this is a review of the Anime in general.
Ok let’s first of all discuss a problem and that of course is the fact that in the UK and USA only season 1 of the show is available as the later seasons were only aired in Japan why you may ask? I have no idea it’s probably because some new stupid show came out and they needed a time space for it to be aired so they just said bye bye to Mega Man Starforce and Hello to Super Kitty Rainbow Fight or something.
With that off my chest let’s talk about the show in general
Meet Geo Stelar He is the main character of the show and he wants to become an astronaut so he can go into space and look for his father who went missing, Everyone thinks that he is dead but Geo is certain that his dad is still out there. Ever since his dad went missing geo hasn’t gone to school and is instead studying at home (Ok let’s skip ahead a few chapters here as I don’t want to ruin much of the story for anyone who wants to check out the show). One night Geo is sat outside using a special pair of glasses his father once wore called the visualizer which allows EM energy to be seen by the naked eye and while Geo uses the visualizer he sees what looks like to lights fighting but one of these lights starts coming towards Geo and Geo gets hit by this light.
Now Meet Omega-Xis
That light which hit Geo happened to be an Alien called Omega-Xis who has the power to channel EM energy. Geo meets Omega-Xis in his room, Omega-Xis explains who he is and his purpose on earth he also explains to Geo that he needs his help to defeat any of the bad aliens which will use the EM energy to merge with people who they can then control to their own advantages. Just like the other aliens Omega-Xis can merge with people using EM energy so Omega-Xis asks for Geo’s permission for them to merge energy cells so they can become one to defend earth (and for other reasons which I won’t say because like I said before I don’t want to ruin too much of the story). Geo agrees to let Omega-Xis merge with him because Omega-Xis knows stuff about Geo’s Father, when geo and Omega-Xis merge as one they become Mega Man and fight for earth’s safety begins.
If you’re a Mega Man fan go and watch this show because even though we can only watch the first season it’s a really awesome show, it has great story line, really shows the capabilities of an Anime based on a video game series and in general like I said before it kicks ass so go buy it you can get on Amazon pretty cheap and I will even leave you link providing you live in the UK as I am British.
Next in the Alien franchise is 1997’s Alien Resurrection which was Directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet and was written by Joss Whedon.
200 years after the events of Alien 3 Ellen Ripley is cloned and the Alien Queen that was in her chest has been removed.
The reason Ripley was cloned was because scientists wanted to bring back and clone the Xenomorphs for studying
The film is not all silliness though as it does have a couple of disturbing scenes, the most memorable has got to be when Ripley finds her failed clones with one in particular begging for death.
Alien 3 is the third movie in the alien franchise, it was directed by David Fincher who before directing Alien 3 was mostly known for directing short films and documentaries, after Alien 3 David Fincher went on to make a lot of classic movies including Panic Room, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Fight Club.
The plot of Alien 3 is ok and it follows the story in a way that does make sense however within 15 minutes everyone apart from Ripley who survived in Aliens dies, these characters are given a very lazy send off and it really puts me off the film, I wouldn’t mind it as much if they maybe put a bit more effort into killing them off.
Alien 3 is just about as cheesy as aliens but maybe a little more serious, I didnt like the acting too much in this one as a lot of the lines felt forced however the cast was a lot of fun and the dialogue was silly enough to be funny, I cant get a decent picture of the Xenomorph however I have to admit that unfortunately it looks like it had just been pulled straight from a PS2 game and is not very scary in my opinion.
nine years after the first movie, a sequel to Alien was made and this time James Cameron took the directors chair, before writing and directing aliens, James Cameron had done the same for the Terminator two years prior.
Fifty seven years after the first movie Ellen Ripley is discovered sleeping in status in a shuttle that is floating through space, after being rescued her employers do not believe her claims that an Alien slaughtered her entire crew and left her with no choice but too blow up the ship.
The set for Aliens is very similar to the first movie however there are more of them and since more lights are used in the film they help to show more details of the architecture. In my personal opinion I think the sets in Aliens are cooler,way more interesting and way more scary, the first film was scary because you couldn’t see much of the Alien but here there are loads of them and you get to see all of the grisly details up close including a horrific cocooning scene where the aliens cocoon their victims next to a non hatched Face Hugger egg leaving the victim forced into a grizzly fate.
While visiting a soup kitchen John Nada discovers a church in which a secret meeting is being held, after a police raid which destroys the shanty town where the church is located John returns to the church and finds boxes filled with sun glasses, it is quickly discovered that while wearing the glasses you are able to see subliminal messages such as consume, stay asleep and obey hidden behind advertisements as well as the ability to see alien creatures hiding behind human disguises, the aliens soon learn that John had learned their secret and he becomes a fugitive with his only chance of saving the human race is revealing the secret to the rest of the world.
The design for the aliens in They Live may look more like a zombie than it does an extraterrestrial,the reason for this design is so that it makes more sense that they could disguise them selves as humans due to the fact that they have similar bone structure and shape making them more believable when they are in disguise.
I have no complaints with the casting of the movie by far the best performance was Roddy Piper who did a lot of improvisation including the famous line “I came her to chew bubble gum and kick ass and I’m all out of bubble gum” as well as also giving a lot of help when filming an epic alley fight scene. Meg Foster also did a great job with her portrayal of Holly Thompson a Cable 54 assistant director and its only fair to mention Keith David who played Frank.
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