Oh boy...*shakes head*

MK never had much originality to begin with. Ed Boon said himself that MK was meant to be kind of the MTV version of Street Fighter. Pretty much all the characters in the first MK game had something unoriginal about them. You had the Shaolin monk character that was based off of Bruce Lee, Ninja assassins, tough army chick, egotistical martial arts movie star, evil sorcerer that is likely based off of Lo-Pan, etc.

I'm pretty sure there were other games in the time of the first MK that had blood as well, but it was MK's popularity that made it recognized.

What MK has to do is to really step up as a fighting game and needs to be firm in offing characters like Baraka and Jax.

This thread makes me LOL.

Ed Boon did say afterall that there will be no more comic reliefs. And he did say he wanted to model the game after something like Gears of War. In terms of getting a darker and more violent game, I say we got what we wanted afterall. Alls we have to do is wait now till the game comes out. I somehow don't see any conflict between what he said and what we are probably going to see.

Darker and more violent is great. However, MK still needs more to it if it's going to be good.

I gotta disagree with ya when you say that all the next MK needs is more violence or a "total massacre". It needs so much more that it makes "extra violence" practically unecessary in the midst of so many more important things.

Boon and his guys shouldn't think "violence" when making the next MKs, but "reinvention". Think about it: MK through MK:3 (and, IMO, MK4) was all pretty much the same thing. Then along came Deadly Alliance and reinvented the series, bringing back only a select group of characters completely redesigned, and introducing new ones to the group. MK: Deception and Armageddon were, again, pretty much the same thing from thereon.

Now is the time for another "reinvention" moment. The MK Team needs to make some good choices about WHO to bring back, and then take those characters and work them from the ground up, without using any past MK as base. Then they need to work up a compelling storyline to give the game importance and draw the fans to it. THEN comes bringing back some of the original ideas: unique fatalities, blood and gore, etc.

Exactly.

Not more violence, but realistic violence.

i agree, mk1 was so original even though it was an experiment, mk2 was the best then it got rehashed into 3 and then 4 was okay, but then went gay after that. it wasnt about the violence, but yeh the fatalities kick arse, it was about the realisim, and i know that ed boon like it unrealistic, but the graphics dont have to be! bring back the digitised actors you lazy bums! cg is cheaper, mk was cheap to begin with, but you know 12 actors is alot cheaper than 50+ programmer and artists..goddamnit!

MK1 was not that original, from the story, to the characters, and things like that.

Digitized actors? Are you serious? Bringing that back is a bad idea, because that's outdated and doesn't allow for much freedom of movement, hence why they moved to 3D graphics in MK4 and later games. What would be better is to have photo-realism when it comes to the humans and human-like characters.

Is photo realism possible with todays graphics? To me, the first mk graphics appeared realistic (wasn't this because they captured footage of the actors? Did they use video cameras or photo cameras? How was the whole digitized process achieved? I couldn't really find anything relevant on google as to how it was done, so I thought it would be ok to ask.) more so then todays graphics. I mean 3d graphics today look pretty realistic and they can sometimes confuse you into thinking whats on-screen is real but compared to the digitized graphics of the first mk, the mk ones just come out looking more photo-realistic. Also, Sub-Zero, you made mention to digitized graphics not being able to handle much freedom of movement in another thread. What did you mean by this? Thanks. I still feel however that 3d is the way go, even if the graphics can't look like yesterdays.

I'm pretty sure that photo-realistic looking characters is possible with today's graphics. Back in the old days, the actors in the MK games had to do every single little animation, and that includes the reactions for all the fatalities, which makes things tedious. With MK4 and so on, such problems are not really there and you can do all sorts of animations for the characters. And when you put in universal animations, it could be applied to all the characters without them having to do it separately.

Just keep in mind that I'm not some expert when it comes to these things. I just happen to pick up little bits of information.

Anyone know some really photo-realistic games to give us for example ?

Well, there are no photo-realsitic games per se but there are a lot of games that look darn close. Screenshots however usually don't do a moving game justice but here are a few with some extremely impressive visuals. Most shooters are pretty close to being photo-realistic. Take a look at Crysis, Call of Duty 4, and even Rainbow Six Vegas. However, screenshots usually don't do any of these games justice and R6V in particular has watered down visuals for multiplayer.

However it's already been confirmed that the MK Team is shooting for something similar to the visuals seen in Gears of War. That game isn't exactly photo-realistic (but it's DAMN amazing on an HDTV) so that's pretty impressive.

The thing that concerns me the most is if the MK Team could do ANYTHING with the Unreal engine. Midway's attempts at using it so far have been kind of mixed. Stranglehold seems to have some good visuals but Hour of Victory was completely barf-worthy (actually everything about the game was barf-worthy).

So...in essence I would wager that the game would look similar to Deception but with a lot of the neato graphical effects and raw power in Gears of War. That'd be my guess as to what it would look like.

actually, the first MK, now that I think about it, was a huge rip-off. It seems to me that MK has actually become MORE original as the games progressed.

And Raiden was a rip-off of that guy from "Big Trouble in Little China".

1. For character looks well, lets take a look:



I chose Mk2 Raiden to compare because imO, that's the best "ol' skool" version of him, and I used the "newest version" cuz the outfits match up better(colors and all that).

So, speaking on pure graphics(not design), the MkA Raiden looks better. It just.....does. Why do I like the older one better regardless? I think it has something to do with "connection" or how "engaged" I was in that older version of the character. "Psychology", in other words. Everything, in my mind, lined up with Raiden to make him a great character to me.

What I'm getting at here is that it won't matter how "Real", or how good the graphics are if you don't care about the characters....Raiden as a whole, was an original character...and he still is. More-so now, than then might I add. That aspect of Mk has suffered lately, but it isn't gone....which has always been original of Mk.

2. Game looks such as arenas:

a.

b.

Now again, the newer one wins on pure graphical value. Mind you, this is just one example.

For this part however, I like the newer one better than the old. This example shows the progression video games are supposed to make imO. Ex #1 with Raiden does too, but for arenas, there's not as much an engagement factor there for me. Although I absolutely do appreciate something nice to fight on//in.

Point here? They're both "dark" arenas, both of them have engagement factors within them considering you can knock your opponent off the starting fight scenes. In this example, there is no real difference between "Now and Then". Bits and pieces maybe, but no real difference. That being said, Mk has stayed quite Original.

3. OverAll appeal: "darkness"//secrets//ect:

I think it needs to be understood what "darker" and "violence" brings to a game.

To simply say that "the next game needs to be darker", or "have more violence and gore" in it is a little too one dimensional.

For one, "darker" can mean too many things for Mk. Darker could mean "color of the characters and their surroundings". Which, to say that the next one should be more of this is simply ludicrous. Every Mk to date has been "dark" enough in that sense.

One more example, dark could contribute to "the mood" in many ways. But the way I wanna use it right now is simply an implication that "things are not happy". Also pretty ludicrous to say that Mk needs more of this....cuz it's been there the whole time too. Yep, every Mk.

Correctly describing "darkness" in future Mks (imO) would be to invoke fear or terror, "sense of urgency" throughout gameplay, chaos//catastrophe, or overall immersing the player in the game through different types of engagement(accomplishments and failures and real consequences for each.).

"Going through things" with your character could get this done. Aside from either fighting, or adventure type situations. Learning "important" FACTS about your character do this, which is a tremendous nod toward story line and how important that is to immersion.

Death, or injury, threats, and ultimatums with real, possibly dangerous consequences invoke some of my aforementioned "Darkness". Then you have contributing factors in the way your surroundings react to your decisions, music, and what your character is doing to prevent a harmful outcome, or in reaction to a harmful event......~

Fatalities should feel terrible to the looser. But at the same time, should be gruesomely gratifying(so wrong, but so right) to the winner. That's not exactly there anymore in Mk. Mk2 was one of the best at this feature for me. The fatalities in that game were so mean, it still kinda touches people to see them. Especially if they have only been exposed to the newer Mk games....almost nothing alike.

--

Far as violence, Fatalities in the more recent Mk games simply lack ideas. Whether it be a systematic issues for the programmers(not enough room on the disc), or they just wouldn't have had time to do things right and finish the game by a dead line. That's not "defending" them either...it just business.

But anyway, more violence isn't really needed. Just "newly expressed violence".

Listen, violence is "the act of harming". We have enough there already....we just have some of the most used up ways to do said harm. "More violence" implies we need more raving lunatics in the game who just randomly do shit to people("Violate" their opponent randomly.).

I say...just "kill" your opponent, there's no need to watch someone of "realistic" graphical value...really choke to death....or reallydrown....actually burn to death....or realisticallyconvulse excessively....

We're desensitized enough as it is(haha). The best fatalities aren't necessarily the "most violent" anyway, they're the ones that were the best ideas.
Mk2 Kung Laos "Body Slice" fatality for example...it was violent, but it was an amazing idea to begin with("who could've imagined that" ect.).
_____________

So essentially, when you say "resurrect its originality", I think you're really saying that Mk needs "fresh interpretations of what's already there".

And when we speak of darkness, violence, and gore, we're really saying that we want new ways to be "scared" or "freaked out" while playing this game.

Which is true I guess, because alot of these attributes have been ever more limited by societies limitations through rules and regulations of gaming. The rating of MA17 doesn't mean the same thing it did 15yrs ago....So the challenge is if they can "Find the loop holes", and exploit them so the players can have a more engaging gaming experience with Mk.

That says nothing for gameplay mechanics, or story telling btw...those are whole separate things.

What the MK team NEEDS to do is spend some good damn quality time in making the next game. Whatever it is they need to do in making it a great memorable game JUST do it and spend the time in doin it. No more of this we were rushed crap! Put the tlc into it. I have been a huge fan of MK since I first played MK2. I want the next game to shock the crap out of me and have plenty of replay value. So give me a wwwooooo if you agree.

I think MK needs to get a lot harder and faster.
Another thing is that they try to hard on FATALITYs, I don't believe any MK player wants to see a 1 minute-long FATALITY, where almost half of it involves your character dancing around.

Fatality's used to go straight to the point, kill the bastard after putting up with all his crap...
I agree with what Predator151 says about the darkness and stuff, cause when I played MK on the arcade, I used to get so nervous when they said FINISH HIM! and everyone was watching to see if he as gonna do fatality...And I liked what he said about renewing the same FATALITIES, like Reiko's throwing stars fatality was redone into NOOB on MKD, was awesome!, but Scorpion's Toasty on MKSM is still the same as in MK2, and looks kinda crappy even though it's the same thing...they need to move on in a sense, but still reataining some key things

So yeah, I agree with most you guys, especially with the Raiden guy, I feel exactly the same way! let us hope the MK creators will hear our prayers!!!

I think what shud happen is when they redesign the combat system they shud introduce some new techniques because right now all mk is is just button bashing action where as in real fighting you have to be propared and antisapate you opponants moves................i think they shud do something like the matial arts in Jet Li's rise to honour where you have to think about what to do and do lots of reversals and stuff like that rather than just punch and kicks

the martial arts shud be more realistic and brutal i thinkthe reversal stuff in rise to honour is spot on where you jus have to wait for your opponant to attack then make a move.

Will

Bearing in mind that any game out there is based off of "something' in pop culture would make MK not entirely original but when comparing Mk to similar games like Street Fighter or Killer Instinct MK is a lot more original in how they presented it (i.e. set your might/sight, run button, fatalities etc.). Ultimately what Midway needs to do is spend the time and put in the honest effort in making the next game. It's not neccesarily that they need more fatalities or any anything but reinventing the game like they did between MK4 and Deadly Alliance.

Did you know that there should only be 1 MK game? If you saw the MK History video in MKDA, you know that it was only meant to be a quick project. Nothing else. Why don't you tell them to fire somebody so that every game (except MK1) could be made the way you want. And,by the way, this thread belongs in general discussion.

Not quite. The original post was in regards to MK8. And fire the weakest link? Man are there too many...

lol... yeah but that movie was cool.



Pred, Your the man !!!

It was the second game I ever owned on Sega Genesis when I was 6. Right after Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It became my favorite game. Im addicted to it. But in the last years it has lost its shock value. And personally I dont think it is possible for them to save it. This is they're last chance. If Ed Boon, Midway, and the pure awesomeness of 360 and PS3 cant turn this game around, it will be done for good. Remember Twisted Metal Black? Even though it was cool, they knew it didnt need to be brought back.

I just want the next MK to be alot more serious and keep the theme consistent. Better storyline, better character models that dont look so much like action figures or plastic models. More realistic violence and blood. No more mini-games, if they want to do that, make a seperate game for it. All I want is the fighting game itself, I could care less about the extra content which I quickly forget about.

Yeah, MK doesn't really do that well. It would be cool to see someone throw a punch, and sweat comes out the other guy instead of a bloodbath, but MK is known for it's blood, so it wouldn't really fit