Pokemon its officially the best selling videogame franchise of all time and one of my personal favourites to sit down and play, I have only ever covered spin off’s on this website so far but I feel that we should start deep diving the main series, starting with Generation 1 and covering Pokemon Red, Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Yellow (Green never left Japan so I wont be discussing that one here)
If you are new to this series you may be a little confused as to why we are covering three games today, to makes things even more complicated all three are the same game with just minor differences. The reason for this is because Pokemon games are made with the idea of trading with friends as its main feature, in order to make it impossible to catch all 151 Pokemon on one cartridge developers split the Pokemon into two packages, the basics are in both but certain Pokemon were only either in Red or Blue meaning that in order to catch them all you needed a friend with the other copy and a Gameboy link Cable. Yellow was released two years later in 1998 and changed some dialogues, sprites and gym battles to better represent to anime television series.
I will be covering as many differences as I can throughout this review and will try to give Gen 1 as much justice as I can.
After your initial set up and introduction to the Kanto Region by Professor Oak you soon find yourself at his Laboratory where he will offer yourself and your rival one of three of Pokemon, you get to pick first first from either Charmander a fire type, Squirtle a water type or Bulbasaur a grass type. I always choose Grass as it is strong against Rock and Water types which just so happen to be the first two gyms of the game.
In Pokemon Yellow, you dont get to choose instead you are given a Pikachu, your Rival who most name Gary would then be given an Eevee.
Either way after choosing your first Pokemon you take part in your first battle, at this point your level 5 Pokemon will only have a few moves, normally scratch and growl, Scratch an offensive type will damage your opponent and growl will weaken their attack.
As you level up by battling you will earn money to buy moves but with patience Pokemon will learn most of the best moves when they reach certain levels or evolutions.
In the games there is a total of 151 Pokemon and players can build a small team using Pokemon that they trap in Pokeballs, their are different types of Pokemon who will have advantages and disadvantages against others. In Gen 1 there are 15 types you can get Normal, Fire, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Fighting, Poison, Ground, Flying, Psychic, Bug, Rock, Ghost, Dragon, Dark and Steel.
As you progress through the game these encounters become more challenging and better Pokeballs such as Ultraballs are needed to ensure capture.
There are specials moves you find throughout your adventure which allows certain Pokemon to interact with the environment, these HM moves are generally very useful for example cut allows you cut down certain trees, flash can light dark areas, surf means you cross water, strength can move heavy boulders and finally fly allows you to fast travel back to areas you have already visited.
As Pokemon level up they may start to evolve this will change their form and ultimately make them stronger, it will also count as a completely new Pokemon which helps you on your quest to get all 151 (if you decide to actually do that) some however cannot exist or evolve without help from an item, early on in the game you get to choose between two fossils and which one you choose can resurrect an extinct Pokemon later on in the game. Items such as elemental stones or moon stones can help evolve Pokemons for example I used a moon stone on my Nidorino to get a Nidoking and then I used a thunderstone on the secret Eevee you can find to get my Jolteon.
Your journey takes you through many trials and landscapes, the main goal is to beat the gyms these are buildings with trainers and a leader focusing on one specific Pokemon type, gaining badges allows you further access to use HM’s and in turn further progress through the game.
For me the best part is actually exploring the different areas throughout the world, the SS Anne is a ship that is filled to the brim with Pokemon battles, its a great place to level up early in the game, Pokemon Tower a grave site for deceased Pokemon’s while pretty creepy its a fun place to catch the few ghost Pokemon of the game and my absolute favourite thing to do is find and catch the four legendary Pokemon Articuno, Moltres, Zapdos and Mewtwo (Mewtwo is only obtainable after beating the elite four)
A casino area in Celadon City is available in all three games, here you can play slots to earn or lose money, once you get high amounts of casino coins you can trade for rarer Pokémon’s, in Yellow a surfing minigame was added as one of the new features, it is a pretty fun game and is one of most memorable parts of Pokemon Yellow.
The Safari Zone might also be considered a type of minigame, you need to complete this to get Fly but its main purpose is as giant wild area filled with easier to catch Pokemon’s, you cant battle these but can make them angry or bait them in hopes of having a better chance of catching them, you only get 30 balls and can take 500 steps so try to finish the area and get Fly before you are forced to pay and start again.
As you slowly progress towards Victory Road and the Elite Four you will be catching and training many different Pokemons, its up to you to decide who will be your main team but you want strong Pokemon with a good balance of status and offensive attacks to win, this final stretch has you fighting 5 battles in a row with no chance to heal at a Poke Center so taking all of the potions and healing items you need is completely necessary.
This time around my final team was Venosaur, Ninetails, Snorlax, Nidoking, Jolteon and Lapras.
The soundtrack is one of my favourite videogame soundtracks of all time, there is not a single song that I dislike, I feel they all suit the game extremely well, the opening gets you so pumped for the adventure your about to go on and from there it just gets better and better, the creepy music from lavender town always comes to mind as quite unsettling, the silph co music is ton of fun and of course that battle music is insanely good. It could be nostalgia talking but this particular soundtrack really does mean an awful lot to me.
The first generation of Pokemon is what made up a lot of people’s childhoods, many a day was spent trading Pokémon’s and battling our friends using the link cable and today it holds up very well, there are not many people to trade with these days but the actual main campaign is a lot of fun, it has a great story, memorable characters and really fun areas to explore. The game can be very challenging because the difficulty does increase vastly as you progress so some grinding and strategy is required to beat the game.
The only issue I had with the game was that the item storage system was badly organised and I had to rearrange it and empty it a lot, the PC storage system has a limit so that filled up quickly as well, one final slight annoyance was that status effects happened far too often, I would get poisoned or burned then use the item to get rid of it but the opposing Pokemon would just reapply the status effect almost immediately, this happened a lot and while I know it is part of the game I feel maybe the developers could have made these effects happen just a little less often than they did.
Apart from these tiny set backs Gen 1 is a really a great set of games, obviously Yellow is slightly better than Red and Blue because you can get all of the starters in that game and that extra minigame is a bonus but these are pretty solid titles that even today I would give Red/Blue 9.0/10 and Yellow 9.3/10.
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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 – 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 – 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 – A special forces officer
Kitana – A female ninja and assassin
Kung Lao – A Shaolin monk and friend of Liu Kang
Mileena – Kitana’s sister and who is an assassin working for Shao Khan.
Reptile – The mysterious ninja from the first game
and Shang Tsung – 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 – 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 – 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 – 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 – 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 – 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 – The daughter of Johnny Cage and Sonia Blade
D’vorah – A member of a race of insects called the Kytinn
Erron Black – 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 – A woman from Edenia and a worshipper of Shinnok
Xenomorph – From the Alien franchise
BO’Rai Cho – Former trainer of Liu Kang
Goro – 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 I 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 – 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.
In the past four years of writing reviews for this website I haven’t really delved into the world of super heroes, we’ve all seen the movies but what about the video games that came after them?, I haven’t really played many super hero games but after Sam Raimi released the first Spider Man film I remember begging my parents to buy me the game that Christmas, I recently repurchased the game for nostalgia but was it as good as I remember?
The first thing that stands out with this game is that it doesn’t have much in common with the movie at all, the first stage of the game actually takes place long after Peter is bitten by the spider as its his mission to track down Uncle Ben’s killer.
The rest of the game has a unique story line, Spider Man ends up taking on all of sorts of super villains including The Shocker, The Vulture, Scorpion and Kraven the Hunter (Kraven is only in the XBOX version of the game), of course the Green Goblin is still the main antagonist in the game but apart from one level every time you fight him its different to the movie, even the final battle doesn’t take place where it does in the film, I personally really like that the game is so unique but some people may be a little put off by its differences.
Spider Man is a general beat em up game and it consists of 24 stages, most of the game is boss fights which are all really fun, some stages require Spider Man to hide in the shadows and sneak about but most of time you will be beating up bad guys and trying to complete a goal to finish the stage, Peter doesn’t just fight with punches and kicks as he can also use different fighting techniques by using his web, there are a lot of moves you can unlock but for me the most useful was shooting my web at enemies while I was swinging through the air, other useful moves include tying up bad guys with your web, pulling enemies towards you by lassoing them with your web and creating an exploding shield around your body, you do have to be careful though as you can run out of web and it can only be topped up if you find a blue spider, you can also top up your health by finding red spiders and you can unlock new fighting moves by finding gold spiders.
The biggest problem I have with this game is that when you are outside you cant land on the street otherwise you will die, its kinda annoying because in the movie Spider Man is able to walk about in the street so why cant he here, it doesn’t make any sense what so ever.
The game controls pretty well when you are stable or fighting, I found the controls to be tight and responsive but when I was swinging I had a lot of trouble trying to make Spider Man go in the direction I wanted him too go, he just kept bumping into the sides of buildings and due to the way the game is designed sometimes he would grab onto a building when I bumped into it, this slowed me down and was a particular pain on levels where I had to chase the villains.
Graphically for a game that came out in 2002 it looks fairly impressive, I was very surprised with how smooth the animation was when I was playing the game, for some reason the cut scenes look quite pixelated which really sucks considering how great the game play looks.
I don’t remember any music in this game at all which isn’t a good sign because that means that it blatantly wasn’t that good and I cant really comment on it because like I said none of it was memorable to me.
Through out the game you will gain points depending on your performance, these points will unlock loads of really cool secrets, the best in my opinion is pin head bowling where you can team up with a friend and can swing into bad guys to get points, other unlockables include secret cut scenes, being able to change Spider Man’s model so you can play as Mary Jane, a Police Officer, Peter Parker etc, you can unlock the ability to play a Green Goblin campaign if you beat the game on the Hero or Super Hero difficulty, this campaign is almost exactly the same as the main game and I recommend skipping it.
Spider Man is a pretty fun licensed game, it’s not perfect by any means but it definitely stands out with its unique story and different game play styles, it’s really cheap to pick up these days and if you ever come across it I recommend picking it up especially if your a Spidey fan.
6/10
I hope you enjoyed this review of Spider Man the Video Game 2002
If you respect my opinion, I will respect yours
you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com
Elizabeth Vincken and her son Fritz seek shelter in a cabin in the woods during World War 2, two American soldiers invade the cabin in hopes of finding a bed for a fallen comrade, its not long until three German soldiers turn up and try to kill the Americans but some how Elizabeth convinces all of the soldiers to leave their guns outside and spend Christmas together.
When I heard that this was based on a true story I was genuinely shocked, the plot seems very far-fetched and you would think it almost impossible that enemy forces in World War 2 could ever become friends even if it is Christmas.
Like I said almost impossible, this apparently really did happen and if that is the case then this movie being bad would be quite an insult to all of those involved in the real life historical event.
Luckily this film is fantastic all of the actors do a fairly decent job of expressing convincing emotions of sadness,fear and happiness, the movies only actress Linda Hamilton who plays Elizabeth does an exceptional job in her role as the caring mother who hates the war and only wants peace.
Throughout the movie all of the soldiers slowly warm up to each other and they slowly start to realize that even though they are fighting for different sides of the war all of the soldiers share many similarities.
Silent Night is a wonderful movie, it is surprisingly charming and family friendly for a film that carries such a serious subject matter, very young viewers will likely find the film to be uninteresting and boring but anyone who enjoys a good drama or has an interest in History will surely love this film.
With all 12 Christmas movie reviews finished, this brings Raggle Fraggle Reviews to an end until 2016.
Thank you for joining me on what I consider be the most successful year for the website.
I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year.
The first thing that stands out with this game is that it doesn’t have much in common with the movie at all, the first stage of the game actually takes place long after Peter is bitten by the spider as its his mission to track down Uncle Ben’s killer.
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