My question to you is did you ever play MKvsDC? In that game there look and their personalities are more militaristic. Through out story mode they seemed very by the book military, and very bad ass.

As far as being uniform and working together there isn't much time for them to do that. In MK games they are the only special forces characters and there in a fighting tournament they don't exactly have time to pull a uniform mission with guns. I really like Jax's new look, because it seems military but also MKish.

I can't really argue with there past designs though. In MK2 and MK3 they look like clowns. One looks like personal trainer barbie, and the other looks like a gayer unfinished robocop. I still like those looks because they match the style of the game and I find charm to that cheesieness. However I hope Sonya looks more realistic this time around. I think her costume goes through the most changes each game. There has never been a look for her that people are satisfied with. at this point I hope it looks serious while also having shout outs to her very first design.

MKvsDC featured the best Jax ever. I thought his overall portrayed and entire design were flawless.



Except I'm not pissed at all. If anything, I think this is a great thread and it's nice to read the discussions.



Agreed.

Yes of course I played MK Vs. DCU and they honestly weren't very military like at all in that one either, especially in regards to looks. About the only thing it really showed was their base of operations which proves they have men, equipment, and resources.

Again let me reiterate, what would you do to fix the SF - if you think they need to be fixed at all? What do you think of the recently released Jax?

Jax looks great. I don't think they need to fix the SF. MKvsDC interpretation was fine with me. I'm not in the military so I only have movies, tv, and games to compare Jax and Sonya to. So to me there militaristic enough as of right now. If Sonya's spandex return we might have a problem.

Absolutely!

I would definitely add more story and background/unplayable SF characters and members from the OIA to give these organizations a bigger sense of realism. I would make them more active and "palpable" within the MK world. I too want to see more of how they operate and I want to see a more realistic approach of the OIA in the general story, after all, they are the main defenders of the planet within Earthrealm!

Like, have an actual army of SF soldiers march into battle along side the Edenian rebellion during the final events of the game. Or have various cutscenes featuring their base of operations and showing them "in action".

But, will something like this ever happen?

It would definitely be amazing to watch, but, I doubt it is necessary because the whole purpose would be to make MK more realistic and the SF more traditional and believable (I'm assuming). Sadly, I doubt that's a major concern in anyones book. I'm guessing that kind of time is used in Sonya and Jax because they represent all of that.

I do think that MKA was a huge step in the right direction when trying to give us an idea of how the SF/OIA operate. Sonya was featured leading the defeat of the Tekunin Warship and giving orders to what were obviously more than just 5 OIA/SF members. We even read in her bio about teams gathering in different areas for different purposes, etc. I wouldn't mind seeing more of that (she's shown as quite the professional, tough and intelligent leader if you ask me).

To make us feel the presence of the military and SF agents in the game like it happened in MKA's story would definitely make MK more realistic and believable.

MKvsDC was the first game to give us an arena or location featuring a base of the SF/OIA (a dream come true). It was amazing, however, it would had been even better if if featured random soldiers moving about and actually doing something (there were random soldiers in the DC space ship after all). Like, it is annoying that after Sonya defeats Catwoman she states that "security will take care of you" and goes away. Come on, have some actual SF agents jump in and capture the feline! That would had been a nice touch.

I guess that what we are hoping to see is more action from the SF itself that doesn't exclusively feature only Sonya (or Jax). And I agree. It would be fantastic if we had a cinematic of SF soldiers and more military characters gathering during the final battle joining forces with the aliens from MK (Edenian warriors, etc).

I guess it's too much to ask to have them involved from beginning to end (that's why we have Sonya and Jax), but, I certainly would like to see the military more active in some parts of the story similar to how they were featured in MKA. This time though, we should get a glimpse of the army and soldiers doing the attack.

Regarding the new Jax...I'll post on him later. He looks great, but, overall, I'm not really too excited about his new look. His MKvsDC was simply flawless and much much better than the one we saw in GTTV.

As for the overall designs and costumes for Sonya and Jax, I still agree with the majority: I rather they stayed more in the "fantasy" side than make a complete turn to the very boring "realistic style" as seen in the first pictures you posted. The new Jax, for example, looks like great mixture of military and fantasy (even though his MKvsDC look was a thousand times better).

What do you think about this?

I've always believed that AT LEAST the soldiers could look more like the realistic counter-parts they strive to portray. Now that I see what they did with Jax this time around, I understand where the lines are drawn a little bit better but, if they ever make anything like a SF2 game, I'd expect representations to be alot more on point.

My problem is stuff along these lines:

1. There is no such thing as a woman in the SF in real life. I mean seriously. So? Can they explain how-in-the-fuck Sonya became a lieutenant , and then a general in the United States Special Forces please? And then, make her look like what they explain her to be. Which btw, should not be anything to fool with if they peg down what she should be capable of.

There would be no bikini in sight. Even though she could still retain all her sexiness and beauty or whatever. And... this doesn't necessarily HAVE to play too far into the reality of a character like this. Afterall, it would have to be fictional in order to work in the first place. It's a fictional character.

2. Sonya and Jax should have specialties. I mean, sniper, rifleman, grenadier, morterman, heavy arms, small arms, intel....gimme something! lol Sonya's like, a general general? wtf is that?

--

So yea, I can understand why they'd take liberties with the costumes in Mortal Kombat. But then, I would love to see an adequate alternate that represented what these characters are supposed to be trying to portray.

The bigger gripe is that the personalities and the overall story element is lackluster when it comes to these characters. It's as if we're supposed to just accept them as is, just because they have a prestigious title in "some part of the military".

It's not so ambiguous anymore is what I'm saying. More people know more about these sorts of positions in the military. Even if that understanding still remains largely misunderstood, make them convincing to some degree. Base some of their habits off of habits seen in a movie or something.....hell, idk... what about "We Were Soldiers", "Saving Private Ryan", or any number of other films out there that have really good representations of soldiers in them.

Sonya's personality should really resemble something like G.I. Jane + Million Dollar Baby. While Jax's personality should resemble something like the guys out of the 1st Predator movie + "We Were Soldiers" or "Saving Private Ryan" .

Now after seeing what they did with Jax this time around, they got him right without getting away from what the character started out being back in the 90's. He looks like he could have been some kind of extra that didn't make the cut of the 1st Predator movie. So that's cool. But when they tell his story, his resume should be on point according to what his rank says he is.

Expert hand-to-hand combat in 1,2,3 styles, small arms expert, proficient sniper, excellent rifleman, spent time in xxx country as a grenadier with whatever unit, started out as a infantry morterman, and eventually specialized in heavy arms, small arms, and was unusually effective when it comes to information technology. This could also make him excellent when it came to first aid no matter his habitat.

wah...

Now THAT starts looking like the personality of a general in the Special Forces. He can kill you any way you want it...but that's the easy part. And then of course....he's gotta LOOK THE PART! So far he looks like he can do this stuff in MK's very mythylogically laden environments. Now we need his story - to tell us - that it is so.

Oh, and a more realistic, more seriously toned alternate costume wouldn't hurt.

Forsooth.

Stryker. Not army or soldier, but SWAT (which is less stringent than SF). So there's that.

Yes. As for the question of whether or not women are allowed in real life SF units...no, they aren't. They're not even allowed to be (currently) in the infantry. Regardless it doesn't really matter considering other games including Ghost Recon have had female operators for a while now.

I do want to hear exactly as you said where Sonya came from though. She has worn a 101st Airborne patch on her jacket in the past so I assume she did time with them. What she did there though? Who knows. One thing is for certain a promotion from Lieutenant (O1-O2) to General (O7 and above) is an impossibility. That is a MASSIVE jump in rank and honestly if I were Jax sitting as a Major I would have been pissed as fuck.

Honestly I see a more realistic take on the SF/OIA as being like SG-1 from the Stargate series. I think the comparison is pretty much spot on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-lu9XIj4pY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_pj_9JZQTQ



Stryker isn't SWAT. He's a riot cop. In all actuality I think that's actually what allowed him to survive the Outworld invasion. He's trained to combat and deal with large groups of hostile people.

Sonya was never promoted to General. Her Deadly Alliance ending didn't come true.

You mean to tell me if you were part of the last few humans on Earth and played a major part in defending Earth from crazy things from another dimension, and saved every human being's on Earth's souls, they wouldn't give you a huge promotion?

I mean to tell you that canonically, she's still a Lieutenant because the ending that gave her a promotion isn't canon. That's all, nothing more, nothing less.

Actually, that was directed at The_Truth. I'm aware of the non-promotion form the non-canon ending. Just trying to exaggerate a point.

Jax looks like those guys only black, metal arms, and no shirt.

I like Jax's look in this game - It's more realistic but still MK-ish. Mainly, I just wanna say that it's a HELL of a lot better than his look in MKDA - MKA. It was always pretty cruddy, but it was made worse by the fact that he looked like the guy on the Cream of Wheat boxes, lol.

I think MKDA makes a pretty good argument that Jax should never EVER be designed without facial hair. It's just not right.

I agree with the guy for the most part. It makes sense. It seems like Sonya and Jax are the only two military people involved with outworld and the black dragon. Which is odd. I'd like to see a non-playable character of a high military rank give them orders. I'd also like to see them aided by a non-playable squad of super soldiers. It would be cool to see them firing weapons at some outworld threat during cut scenes. Outworld is to dangerous just to send two people in without backup. It doesn't make sense.

Does that make any sense to y'all?

As for the attire. Sonya has been to skanky lately. And my only complaint on Jax is that he needs a shirt. But they don't need to go over the top on military garb.

Sonya and Jax have always been more G. I. Joe than realistic US soldiers. For better and for worse.

Sonya had a squad with her in MK1, they were all captured by Shang and executed when she lost the tournament.

Everyone on Earth was dead except the playable characters in MK3.

In Deadly Alliance, the OIA base was bombed and Jax was the only survivor. (Sonya, Cyrax, and Kenshi weren't there at the time)

And since MK2 was a tournament, it's probably just a case of Jax literally couldn't bring anyone else along with him because he was the only one allowed to compete by Kahn. A unit of soldiers trying to sneak into Outworld, make it all the way to the arena, and free Sonya would've just been caught and slaughtered by Kahn's superior infantry with their magic and Tarkatans.
You could probably make a similar case for MK4 too. They could have brought soldiers to Edenia to fight Shinnok and Quan Chi, but those soldiers don't have the fighting skills and chi powers Sonya and Jax have learned, and guns are nearly useless against the threats one always faces in other realms, so they would have been lives just thrown away meaninglessly against an army of demons. It's safer for them to just send only those who can handle the threat.

Well this is pretty much MK1 again so we will see what happens. But I think Jax and Striker are both good examples that bullets do work in outworld. Not well but they so work. I still wanna see Jax and Sonya command a super soldier group. If we see them get slaughtered... So what? It's MK. The Mk team needs to show how powerful outworld races are by showing what they can do up against elite super soldiers. I wanna see a tarkatan slice through someone. Or a grenade that takes out multiple demons during a cut scene.

Do you atleast agree on that?

It's 1 thru 3, not just 1. I do hope we get to see Sonya's whole unit and their capture, though. I have a fear that the game will start with everyone already at the island and we won't get to see them meet each other on the boat and stuff like that.



They don't kill instantly like they do in the real world because everyone has super-durability. And hell, in MK4, the villains had the ability to respawn 'cause they'd just go to Hell and walk right back out again. Reiko does exactly that in his bio, he dies in the prologue and immediately returns to battle because the whole point of that game is the gates of Hell were hanging wide open.



Depends on the context. Like I said, I do want to see Sonya's squad captured. But Jax taking a whole unit with him in MK2 literally does not fit the plot, the only reason he was able to go through the portal to Outworld and get close enough to rescue her was because he was in the tournament. Kahn's forces wouldn't even have allowed a bunch of soldiers through the portal, and in MK3, there WERE no soldiers, everyone got their souls sucked out the second the invasion began, except for the "chosen ones" that Raiden protected.

I'm aware of this as well but it still really fucking nuts to promote somebody from nothing to something. A promotion to 1st Lieutenant or Captain (depending on if she's an O1 or O2...it's never specified what rank of Lieutenant she is) along with commendations (Bronze Star, Silver Star, MOH, etc.) would be more in line with what would honestly happen.

As stated though it was a "what if" ending so whatever. It still didn't make sense.

EDIT: LOL at the Cream of Wheat box. I never noticed that before.

I would like to have more realism in not only the representation of Jax and Sonya but in Mortal Kombat overall. It doesn't have to go to the extreme of ultra-realism, especially since there are supernatural/fantasy elements. Some argue that Mortal Kombat is just a video game series, that it's merely fiction. Well, yes, of course it is. However, Resident Evil and Ghost Recon are also video game series and are fictional.

Although Sonya had taken down the Tekunin Warship, that alone doesn't prove anything as we later see. What do I mean? When she confronted Taven, she was wearing her MK: DA primary costume in the middle of an extremely cold environment with giant monsters. Not only that, where the fuck is her squad?

Again, MK doesn't need to go ultra-realistic, even with the Special Forces. Just make them competent enough to be believable. I know that this series can't be taken too seriously with some bits of humor. At the same time, it doesn't have to go all out with silliness and cheesiness. Even though I don't really care much for Jax and Sonya as characters, at least make them believable as soldiers. Even Stryker does much better than them and he isn't even a soldier.

I remember that there were extermination squads lead by Motaro that looked for any remaining humans after the initial invasion.

The surviving humans those squads were hunting was Raiden's chosen ones. Liu Kang was their most wanted target. They are what killed Johnny Cage and scarred Kabal's face.