totally disagree with you,and street fighter 4 is not 2D

Street Fighter 4's Gameplay IS 2D mechanics over 3D Models and is basicly Street Fighter 2.5, No Parrys, Tech rolls or Air Blocks and Throws are still Cheap. Mortal Kombat will never be as deep and engaging as Tekken,Soul Calibur or Vurtua Fighter due to one simple fact: Boon and Co. aren't paid enough.

1. Mortal kombat jumping back to 2d would kind of be counter productive at this point. maybe down the road they can release a little 2d fighter on xbox live/playstation store for nostalgic purposes, but otherwise i see no real reason to go back. I also think the projectiles have worked pretty well considering. it's not hard to make work, it's just hard to pull off which adds to the challenge/cheapness of the game depending on your perspective

2. I do agree with this point. throwing everything you've got into a pot and expecting great things is not a wise move but, for whatever reason, sometimes it works (GTA III)

3. Unreal Engine 3. well, they've got the engine with an ass load of potential, lets see if they can make it work. and the clunky argument doesn't really hold water with me. every 3d fighter i've ever played is clunky to some extent. mortal kombat is no exception, but i wouldn't go as far as to say it's was borderline non-responsive. I've always found mk to be the faster of most of the 3d fighters with DOA probubuly being the only one to rival it, but that's just me.

4. Huh, the dark humor is probubly one of the best things it has going for it sometimes. Plus, we must not be reading the same story because i've always found mk's storyline to be pretty serious aside from mk armageddon's which some how turned into one big joke. but that's what happens when you concentrate on everything but storyline i suppose. Tekken's story (aside from the mishima family) has been the cheesiest for me, but whatever.

5. Drahmin, Quan Chi, Havik, and Shinnok were pretty awesome, aside from shinnok which had the story going for him but was just plagued by bad gameplay. and Quan chi, Quan fucking Chi....bad! man, he and Havik are probubly my favorites out of the newer breed of charactars, but that's all personal taste and nothing else i suppose. I agree on the whole cutting back to around 25 charactars. i'd rather have 25 fleshed out charactars than 60 half assed.


"Finally, Never let STORYLINE, be the reason why characters aren't in a Fighting game. Ie... Eliminating Sonya and Kano for storyline reasons in MK2."

I personally disagree with this. look at MKDA, they killed off arguably one of the most popular and accesible charactars in the series and it worked. I didn't miss liu kang for 2 seconds because it made sence to me that he had to go. look what happens when you cater to the fans and put in somebody because he's missing.....Zombie Liu Kang for fucks sake. when you're a story driven fighter like mk, charactar sacrifice sometimes has to be made.

good points though,

Oh no it doesn't "need to return to 2D". MkSm is a perfect benchmark for where the fighting games "direction" needs to head. Mortal Kombat has always been a game of the time that we are in. So going to 3D was inevitable. (even though I HATED Mk4)

Personally, I always got the vibe that MK was heading in a direction, and trying to actually let us play old Martial Arts movies. Which now, that idea matured, simply looks like movie choreography to me...Which they couldn't be closer to if they stayed in 2D.

I mean, it's right there in our faces technologically speaking.....and MK wouldn't be making the biggest jump either. Since they started out using actual people in their games anyway.
Without going 3D, they'd close off 2 whole dimensions of possibility. I just feel like, Why even have the limit there?

.....

Next, I wanna know how Mk is a projectile based game. Fighting is the base, even if all the martial arts in it aren't correct and precise. Which, btw, I don't want it to be precise. I want MK to be perfectly incorrect like it started out being. Characters and their persona's should influence the way they look, feel, and fight. Story should also be a heavy bearing on Mk.

All the other entities in the game are selling points. Storyline, Blood, Fatalities, all the ridiculous mini games, and all the modes. ect.

==========


Why? Why make a decision like that when MK has always had weapons and hand-to-hand fighting in it?.....and fantasy, and great potential story-wise? A Jack of all trades always takes longer to master his craft.

And I hate those other games, and it's because of how "stuck" the mentality is behind them, motivating those games. Well, I love Soul Calibur, but I hate the tech fighters. There's just SO much you can't do. SO much they won't ever explore simply because it will "tarnish" the one thing they're undeniably good at.

I'm thinking, before I really like some of the other fighters out there, they will have to expand beyond perfection.

I think they should pay attention to the tech fighters, so don't get me wrong. But it should only be as an pure, symbolic example for entities that MK encompasses already.

i.e. Animation. Look at how smooth other fighting games are, then replicated that with your own style. MK is a western game, so it's not going to perform with emphasis on the same things even if they got one of these other games' blueprints. Cuz we don't veiw fighting the same as Easterners do...which is all good and fine btw.

There's also nothing wrong with inheriting another games end result, or "stealing"( as some would call it) some end result that another game has.
I look at it like the associations surrounding science. Everybody's trying to figure one thing out, and once someone finds the answer, everybody credits the source, but uses the best way from then on out....the video game world is exactly like that anyway. RpGs' all pay a homage to Mario Bros even today.

Anywho....

I think that there's alot in MKs' history that worked well..they just fail to ellaborate on the high points, and the only good correspondents they have about their end product, are their worst correspondents.. Us Fans.

I'm not sure they're getting a clear message consistently. And then, on top of that, they risk it all, and everything that may have had a chance if they would have elaborated on it, they throw it away. Just for the sake of getting something fresh and new.

Which I think is asinine and ludicrous imO. Because, if you find something through trail and error that works....you're supposed to build on it. You're supposed to become an expert at your strong points. And right there is where I personally have a problem with Midway, and MK as a franchise and series.

One of them won't let the other one finish, which makes the other, guilty of deceit. Something people generally hate is when they are
"sold on a product".

And I know you've heard that one before.

==========




Again, I don't like, and wouldn't have them look too far into those other games. And instead, just have them "watch closely" to certain things. Then just let them accomplish those things on their own. I'd just point things out to them, and maybe explain what's happening in the other games that should be universal for everything in the Fighting genre. Everything in video gaming...really.

Animation, from a mechanical stand-point, is universal. So I strongly agree with you here.

How people feel about risk reward systems, point of contact, bugs, glitches, and gapping pot-holes in camera view and it's transition animations.....are universal. People all feel the same way about them, they//we just don't know how to explain it to developers correctly.
Which I don't blame them/us for. I don't understand alot about games, but I know how to talk to people.

I particularly HATED VF5 btw. It's critically annexed by systematics, and one of the slowest, deadest, most boring Fighting games I've ever played. There's no "awe" for all the perfection that's there.....for me anyway.



Agreed. Although I disagree on the homage to old Hong Kong movies thing, I think they have it a little backwards.

"Actual Reality" is boring. There's nothing we can do about that but change it.

"Fighting", is only funny when something screwed up happens to somebody.

"Death" is not funny, it's entertaining. But only when the on-lookers are not literally attached to the characters in trouble. When there is no real consequence for the person playing the game or watching the t.v., it's entertaining. That's one main reason why men like action, fantasy, and horror movies. Cuz we can enjoy it, without actual people getting harmed in the process.

I also agree with you on "cheesy dialog". People come from different places, and have accents. That's reality. Conversations are fluid, and ALOT of the times, their intrusive on one another. People don't wait for the person to finish their sentences All The Time......

Come-on. Large breaks in conversation are annoying. Missed opportunities to circulate information are ridiculous. We're in the information age. It's far more engaging to have all the information about a thing, and still have troubles with the situation you're in. "You might have missed one little thing."
or, you could be challenged talent or ability-wise.

I say it like that because no one on the MK roster is a "joe shmoe". They are all exceptional...somehow.

MK looses big points for emotional representation in the game too...and especially through conversation. Voice acting just gets the job done but is largely horrid.



I agree on not whoring them out. They wouldn't fit anywhere else anyway. But I disagree with some of your "crappy character" choices.

The main problems with any number of the characters on the roster is presentation and backstory. It's pretty tough to go forward with a character, when the past is unknown or dumb, and the present is in shams.

I don't think that lately, character design has been a real problem. MK is generally sound when it comes to making things that look good. I said "generally" now, don't read too far into that. But everyone who got a reinvention on the MKA roster looked good for the most part. There's only a select few who are repulsive to look at for me.

I hate the bulky shit, that's gotta go. Sleeker, more pre-MK4 looking characters are what we need. MkSm got the closest to this lately.

I also agree on your point about less characters. Somewhere in between 15-25 is all we need for hell, 3-4 games at a time. Big "booms" like MKA should be side projects like Mythologies or Shaolin Monks.




Totally disagree here. One of the biggest entities in Mk IS it's story, and should be used to extricate weak or stale characters.. A number of characters should be long gone by now.

A couple of ninjas(including and mainly like, Sektor, Cyrax, or really Smoke), Jarrek, Jonny Cage, Kano, Liu Kang, maybe Kung Lao, and Shang Tsung, Tanya, Baraka, Motaro, Shao Kahn, Goro, and now, Blaze should be gone for good now.

And that's just because they got copycatted to death, or beaten and became stale, or most importantly in Mortal Kombat, THEY WERE MORTALS, AND-THEY-DIED.

That says nothing for the characters I believe are redundant, useless, or who I just don't like for one reason or another btw. Just mentioning the ones who played their role to the series' title(Mortal Kombat), and should(imo) absolutely be gone because their stories took them out of the game.

...........

As far as your MK2 example with Sonya and Kano, I just think that they didn't live long enough to let us reasonably except their absence in that game....But now? Kano can go to hell and Sonya can retire without much fuss. And I despise Kano, but love Sonya. Just knowing the story behind these two allows me to let them go though.

The only outs from story-line exits are cases like Raiden(still a god and nothing has changed about that fact.) & Shinnok(still seems to have some god rites), Shang Tsung(escaping death is his thing) Scorpion(restless soul with a mission), and Noob Saibot(same type of M.O. as Scorpion). Or things like Kung Lao or Bo Rai Cho, where they "came out of retirement to assist". There's other outs, but we haven't seen them in MK yet.


=======

See, I view Mortal Kombat like a never-ending action//semi-horror//drama//fantasy flick.

Good presentation, AND the writing started this view of the game for me. One without the other one now, is a tremendous disappointment and now, if they don't show me they've mastered these things.....

They could kill my interest in the series. We'll see what happens.....

Wow, I don't know where to start. I don't have to time to learn how to pick apart each paragraph in a quote so I'll just try to jump around so hopefully you guys can keep track of whom I'm responding too. I just came from work, so I wasn't able to respond earlier.

One guy said that Boon isn't paid enough and that's why MK isn't a deep technical fighter. Now I know that Midway is always seem to be in financial trouble and that MK is one of their sure bets. After all, that is why they wanted a plan of releasing a New MK fighter Every year, back in the MKDA days, and then switched to a every other year with an adventure game also coming out every other years that way you get a MK based game every year, just not a fighter every year. So from a Business side of thing, you have to released your fighter as often as possible, in as many system as possible so that you can sell that million or 1.5 million that MK hovered around when you combine the sales.

Now, Problem with that approach though is, that your trying to release a game that hopefully appeals to as many buyers as possible, but not really a game that is the best possible. Meaning, Sega Just announced Virtua Fighter 5 version D. Then they intend to have a semi update like a Virtua Fighter 5 evolution. Tekken 5 went through several changeds, including the Dark Ressurection. Soul Calibur 3 for example wasn't intended to go into the arcades after the console releases, but ended up doing it with the most updated version yet. Even the Japan, US, and European versions were different as with each release, they tweaked the gameplay abit for balance reasons. These games seem to do all the can to tweak,update, and balance their games so that they can have the BEST fighter out. They focus on the Best, and buy doing so get sales. It seems the opposite for Mortal Kombat. They are focusing on Sales, and if it ends up being the best fighter, they'll be happy too (which it NEVER does).

Now, take a trip to shoryuken.com, Virtuafighter.com, Tekkenzaibatsu.com, Guardimpact.com, Soulcalibur.com, you'll always see these sites promote their respective game as the best fighter. And you will find heated conversations to prove the competition isn't up to their standards. But they will always respect the other games as at least being decent to good fighters. But whenever Mortal Kombat get's thrown around, it's always a Near Universal Slamming of MK and it's fighting system. That too me tells me that, to the people that mostly care about a great fighter, they simply do not think MK is there an belongs to be mention. That is a problem. Something that can't be said about any of the others.

I guess I could agree in some part that MK going back to 2D may be to late at this point. but that is why I said, that I would prefer 2D but would accept a fluid, deep 3D system. Another person asked why is MK a projectile based fighter. The reason is because, at it's root, back in the days, Projectile played a big part of the game. This is the same problem the Street Fighter Makers had when they were trying to go 3D (the days of the EX games, and the days of Capcom Fighting Allstars). I think they relize that, if you are going to have full side stepping and 8-way run abilities, having projectiles become completely useless. Either that, or it's implementation is bad, which to me is what MK has been trying to do since MK4. Also, MK was never a weapon fighter in the sense that Soul Calibur is mostly weapon other than kick, and Street Fighter is only hand to hand, other than Vega's claw. Mortal Kombat is trying to do both, but Excelling in NONE. Concentrate on being a master in one, than Jack of all trades but master of NONE type of approach is the way I'm getting at.

What I meant buy not allowing storyline to remove a character is that. I think the approach should be, If a character sucks or isn't that popular, or a character is Broken, or a character's mechanics will make your fighting system broken if it is updated in your next gen game then I agree will eliminating him. But just removing that character for the sake of story is bad to me. Liu Kang was a great character that was eliminated for story, then brought back as a zombie. I don't want Zombie Liu Kang, I want the real Liu Kang, that's even worse. Now take Virtua Fighter, they felt like Taka-Arashi's weight and hitbox difficultieswould present a problem in VF4 and 5 and he was eliminated. I'm fine with that. Look at Street Fighter 3. I and everyone else is convince that it's initial lack of sucess was partially due to Capcom eliminating a large portion of their classic and iconic characters only to be introduced by some alien looking characters straight out of a B movie. POOR Move. Then they make Second impact and brought back a few of the old ones, then by 3rd strike, they include a few more. Till this day, i say SFIII had the best 2D fighting system period, but I want to play with M. Bison, Vega, Sagat, Blanka, Dhalsim, Guile, I don't want to play with Q, Remy, Twelve, Hugo, Sean, Oro or Necro. That is what MK did by getting rid of guys like Raiden, Scorpion in the original MK3, nad replacing it with guys like Hsu Ho and Striker.

I'm getting tired, Trying to do like that one poster did and responding to each comment is difficult. The way I view the fighting game field is like. If you were to rate the top 3 or 4 best 3D fighters, you get VF, Tekken, Soul Calibur, maybe DOA, if you were to rate the best 2D fighters you get SF series, Capcom Vs. series, Marvel Vs. series, King of the fighters series and a few more but you can often find Ultimate MK3 or MK2 in the 2D discussion but you'll never find the recent MKs in the 3D discussion. It might be more wise to focus on what you did best, than to just go with the times. If you are gonna go with the times (ie.. 3D), then focus on the elements that make a great 3D fighte (ie.. Frames, Parries, real reversals and couters, moves that break guard and stagger, a decent to large move list, importance on positioning, fuzzy guard, throw escape and other advance moves. Remeber back in MK DA when instead of have a real true reversal system, they instead had some secret couter move that you could only use 3 times???? come on MK. You can do better than that.

Thanks For listening though. Hopefully you guys can thow in your imput. To the guy that had the long post. I do agree and I think we agree with a lot of stuff though. Some how maybe if we can get to Boon and the other guys at Midway, that we want a focus on great gameplay, instead of Minigames and boring storyline konquest modes. Fix the core than work on the rest.

Heres a few problems with youre analysis.

#1, 2D doesn't appeal to fighting fans anymore. And it's not because of what happened to Street Fighter either. It's the fact that it is an outdated and obsolete method of doing things. Things naturally change and advance. That's the first point. The second point is, if the MK team were to make such a game, say for the sake that they love 2D MK games, the game would bomb and Midway might be put out of business because of this simple blunder.

As for the weapons. Totally agree. Make youre decision Midway. If you want weapons, make them intricate. I'de be fine with no weapons either. However I do prefer that characters have weapons. I don't know this is a tough one.

3rd. You don't have to worry about the engine man. Let go of everything that happened from 2002 till 2006. We are getting a brand new engine. That is a fact.

Yeah the jokes should be gone. Boon also said this MK was going to be very dark and serious. There that should solve the problem.

Please don't go on talking about how great VF characters are. It makes you look like a total tool. You know why? All they do is introduce the same character year after year. Last game they introduced two new characters. Am I supposed to be impressed? I think not. Hey you talk about how these characters are engaging? I don't see it.

2d sucks. But i guess I've just never been a fan of street fighter. I don't know.. I just don't see how that'd be better in any way. maybe if they made some dumb spinoff series or a 2d minigame or something

1. 2D linear gameplaz never defined MK as all fighting games were basically 2D at that point.

2. If the MK1-4 gameplay returns not only MK will be the no.1 laughing stock of the century for gamers, but also a pretty fine definition of failure.

3. Why would someone oppose the natural evolution of games? Besides it is pretty much common sense that 2D fans are ebcoming a minority.

4. At this point you have absolutely no influence over the games development. MK8 should be entering development phase soon, and I highly doubt they are using the Unreal 3 technology for visuals only.

I absolutely completely totally wholly entirely DISAGREE with ever little thing u sed!

2D SUCKS!!

The best thing they ever did was change to 3D.

But, I do agree that they should cut down the character roster to 20-25 or so. BUT I don't agree on a couple of the characters u think r crap. Shinnok and Quan Chi r awesome, and have awesome powers and storylines.

So basically, you call yourself a mortal kombat fan, but you basically hate everything mk has become after mk3???

That doesn't make sense.

This is not just a reply to you but the guy below you as well.

You guys mention that 2D sucks, but yet the best MK games were 2D and the 3D ones were either Terrible, or at best Decent. Plus, I think you guys are still misunderstanding my stance. Now while I would like 2D I already state that I understand tha for Midway, MK is one of their sure fire money makers. 2D may not initially have success, and Midwayy can't roll dices as a result. Plus, I love 3D fighter, it's just that 3D fighters have special needs. If you ignore what makes 3D fighters good, and instead go for shock, awe and over the top, then your game will suck. For now, forget story, forget minigames, forget konquest, forget characters, the first and most important requirement is to have a good fighting engine that isn't broken, clucky and stiff, and allows for proper offense and defensive strategies. So I repeat, I'm fine with sticking to 3D.

You state that if MK returns to the gameplay of 1-4, that it would be the laughing stock of the century. 1st off, MK SubZero, Special forces, Gold, MK4, were already laughing stocks of the century. MKDA, Deception, and Arm took them away from being the lauging stock of the industry to decent status. But if you contract your sites from the industry as a whole, to fighting games, then MK 5-7 WERE laughing stocks. Like I said, just mention MK to any of the other core groups and see the response.

I'm not oppose the natural evolution of games. Some games are best in 2D some games are best in 3D. I treat 2D as a subgenre of fighting games, just like I treat JRPGs and Western RPGS as subgenres of RPGs. So, evolution is creating the best, deepest, most balanced game of that respective genre. Anyways, Like I said, I don't mind 3D anyways, so we don't need to constantly bring up 2D vs. 3D, I rather discuss what makes a good 2D or 3D games as oppose to the fact that they are 2D or 3D.

I never said that Virtua Fighter characters were engaging. In fact, that game doesn't even bother with Story. Would I like a great single player storyline type of stuff like MK, Soul Calibur, or Tekken does, Sure, but for fighting games, the first and by far the most important aspect is to have a great Gameplay, everything else is Tertiary (i didn't even say Secondary). I even said in a post above that one of the things MK has going for it is a great crop of characters,something that VF DIDN'T have. MK characters were in movies, cartoons, and who doesn't like Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Raiden and company. I just felt tha they created a slew of Terrible characters recently. What I did say about VF though is that they release them 1-2 at a time, and an occasion 1-2 again if they have a "evolution" of the original game. That way, the focus is on Balance. You must balance your characters. Make sure everyone is nearly just as likely to be a beast as the next person. This then ties in to the fact that we already agree on, and that is, to keep the roster down to about 20 so that you can Focus on that balance.


And Yes I'm a fan of MK, but doesn't mean you can't be disappointed. I use to like Sonic back in the days as well, but you can't help but feel the pain that Their fans have been in as they see bad after bad Sonics come out, while their cheif rivals Super Mario, keep releasing Great games, including this years Gamespot, IGN, and Gametrailers overal game of the year.

Thaks for listening.

I just remembered my old user name and password.

I don't know if this site have a "has been around for X amout of years" but like I said in the first post. I WAS part of the MK5.org community back in the days prior to it being mortalkombatonline.com. At the time, we all hated MK4, and was hoping the new reinvention of MK5 would bring the rebirth of MK. I think I joined around 2000 or 2001. I haven't signed on since Deception though, so i'm essnetially new again.

actually i see that a lot of ppl and the starter of the thread want MK become like VF and Soul calibur..boring in other words!

MK have his style,if you don't like it just leave.
i HATE soul calibur,i really don't see why the roster needs to be "cleaned & refreshed" and i don't see why we need a new beginning.

however 10000000000000000000000000000000000 ppl and more are ready to flame me,so i'll end right here.

however i'd like to give a warining:you're ruining MK with endless complaints and cries.
Tekken fan keep on complaining and crying since tekken 4.
a lot of VF hardcore fanboy didn't like Virtua Fighter 5 for his lack of online mode(lather improved in xbox 360 versions).
i just hate soul calibur and it's a pretty overrated series.

WHY IN THE HELL WE SHOULD CHANGE MK?

Get this out the way. You're gonna wanna choose one account, so they can ban one, instead of both.
==============================

Anyway. You make good points man. In my opinion, this is becoming a little political when you consider the construction of a fighting game. But it's none we're//I'm not aware of about MK. A little illustration...

For a fighting game,

1. Gameplay
2. Story
3. Characters
4. Graphics

should be the order we are able to notice when we play the games. You could probably swap Story and Characters keeping Graphics last. Cuz that's going to evolve anyway. But instead, we've seen something like this from MK:

1. Characters
2. Graphics
3. Gameplay
4. Story

Which would be okay, except that people want things to friggin' work right.

I mentioned earlier that Eastern and Western interpretations of fighting in general are different. Well, I think that difference has put a lasting watermark on how Western fighting games (Mk especially cuz it's the biggest one) are put together.
I also mentioned the associations surrounding science, and how when someone figures out the solution to a thing, everyone credits the source, but uses that solution from there on.
Well, someone(the technical fighters in general) in the gaming industry figured out a good blueprint for fighting games....MK has neglected that blueprint for sake of carving there own path( I believe) in fighting games."There's always more than one way to do one thing"...ect

It's a difference that's not exclusive to the video game world. Westerners emphasize different aspects of a fight in all sorts of media(namely movies), while Eastern games might emphasize "the art" of such.

That's why you're gonna see more visually motivated fighters sell better. MK is not absent from this, they're the pinnacle and prime example. Westerners let our markets influence us more than morals. Which is probably ashamed, but that's the way it is.

========
Now, getting right to MK. To fix the game play problem, I think they're just gonna have to hire different, and or more people. I mean, that's the bottom line really. The people developing the game there now, are limited in some way in this issue imO. And it's not just in the time that they're given to make the games.......And it's not just for game play either. As a huge part of what sells the game, I think Vogel at least needs some strong support by the looks of MKA and overall character build up // development.

I keep saying that Mk is not short of talent in making their games look good. Hell, sales alone can tell us that. Graphics also has it's problems(toy-ish looking), but that is much, MUCH less a problem than Game play, and Story elements.

So, I think they should spend some money on more experience. Good news lately, is that Midway has decided to make less, better games. It's an indication that the sales techniques of "yester-year" are going out the door. Even if the name "Mortal Kombat" alone sells the games.

Says that "balls to the wall", "sink or swim", they're gonna have to spend the money to make the games better. Specifically for MK, that means an answer to the game play difficulties of the past...hopefully that is clear by now.
The whole world has been screaming the same complaints for years now.

In reference to my statement about the "Jack of all Trades", MK hasn't ever been the best technical fighter. BUT, they've always had all the elements of fighting in the game, and they have been good.

They've been a "good" hand to hand fighter. They've always had "great" characters. They've just about always had weapons(whether character specific, or full compliment to the game mechanisms). They've always had a "wonderful" fantasy element in the game. And they've always had a "great" base for "great" story-telling...but never renowned for game play.....so where else do you go?

So while this isn't a conversation about 2D vs 3D, when you mention other fighters vs MK, you're essentially saying you want MK like them....which is Eastern....Which would not be MK at all.

===========
The only place I could see MK going that fits what seems like what they've been trying to do, but have been incomplete and unsuccessful, is Western Martial Arts Movie Choreography, Western Story-telling, Western Art Direction and Character Design, with a big Influence from everywhere else.

Mechanically, that has nothing to do with an Eastern game. So it's always going to look, feel, and perform differently.

By the way, Now that I remember my previous ID again, I'll be using this one again.



Nice response, makes ton of sense. Obviously they need to do something with the hiring process, but first they need to be willing to change the actual approach of the game prior to hiring anyone. Like they say, and Organizations' success starts from the Top Down.

Now, you mention East Vs. West often. Obviously I mention the games from Japan often because, like you said, they focus on the art of fighting and therefore has the passion to reproduce it accurately, or artistically reproduce it in a fashion retain some of the elements.

Western Fighters, the few that I know, tend to be over the top, or focus on graphics. To tell you the truth, at this point, I'm not even sure about the rest of the Western Fighters. I mean, I don't consider Deff Jam a fighter, it's more like a brawler. Sort of how I don't really consider Super Smash Brothers a fighter. If it is, then it's a completely different subgenre of a fighter, away from the 2D sTreet Fighter Mold, and the 3D virtua Fighter mold. Anyways, like I said before, I guess I agree, but I can't even think of a western Fighter other than MK, so I can't really make a great East Vs. West response.

There really aren't any other successful western fighters outside of Mortal Kombat and various Wrestling titles so Mortal Kombat is all us Americans have.......wow thats kind of depressing

Weell I don't think they should change the way they think about making the games, or the approach really. More like, "be receptive to more possibilities during a fight". And then I guess, that would change alot having to do with method of execution.

Allowing us to assault or defend if we're turned around with our back to our opponent, and or on the ground, getting up, falling down while running or jumping, environmental adaptation is now something to think about...ect. Various things to consider as to "how" there.

Then translate all that this means as accurately as possibly, into the game so that it works like they intend it to look..



Lol! So true...

1. I doubt this would go over well, especially after having the last four games in 3D. Personally, I don't want to see MK go back into 2D again.

2. I’d like the weapons for those that have them to be more incorporated into their fighting styles, like the 2D MK days of Kabal and his hookswords or Scorpion with his axe, but much more elaborate. The weapons being the enders of some combos, without going into another stance.Or maybe have a temporary stance, Tekken and Soul Calibur has this. It isn’t as basic as pressing L to change the style, it’s normally switched into after performing a quick button command or combo. Voldo (SC) has several stances like this, in one he has this bizarre stance of almost laying down and another one of facing backwards. After performing a combo in the temporary stance, it goes back into their primary.

Like the other guy above me said, fix the engine. For example, it took MKD like 1 day to get an infinite already. before long, several characters had infinite. I'm still waiting for 1 infinite in Street Fighter 3 and Virtua Fighter 4 or 5. balance the Characters, balance the engine. Most important thing in a fighting game.

Here is another simple one, even though people via infinites, have found ways around it. When you float someone in MK, you get an arbitruary 3 hits before the guy doesn't float in place anymore but floats away from you so that you can't hit them anymore. Combined with the fact that after the 3rd hit that the attacker performed, they are given a magical increased Lag Time even though the move itself should've had much less lag time. This is the kind of Poor Programing and gameplay making that I'm talking about. It's as it they said, hey lets make it so that they could only hit them 3 times, so that you don't get any crazy comboes. instead of having a real weight system, and a semi physics type of system. Virtua Fighter was able to do just fine without a 3 hit limit.

I agree that there shouldn't be a specific Weapon stance. it should just flow with the normal moves like Lei Wulong or Lei-Fei.

Anyways, it will be interesting to see what Epic's unreal Engine 3 can do for MK. Are the character's going to look like Steriod pooper Marcus Fenix, or more normal. How are they going to move, fall, you know, the general engine portion of it. Because it is where the first part of the gameplay lies. The engine seems to be great at Making Dark games, it sure don't have the range of say crytec's new engine, or Valve's Source engine, but when it comes to night scenes, in door scenes, corridor scenes, dark to make the world look like it's being destroy type of scenes, this engine can't be beat.

I have to agree with the thread starter to an extent.

The mk games that I enjoyed were the ones in 2d. MKDA-MKA simply left a bad taste in my mouth, because they were just too drastically different from previous mk games and they were gimmicky as hell.

However, I don't think future mk games have to go back to 2-d gameplay to make them enjoyable. They can certainily borrow aspects from mk 1-4, but it doesnt have to be 2d, perhaps 2.5d like Street Fighter 4.

P.S it's nice to see another user from the mk5.org days. There arent that many of us left.

First off, This is MORTAL KOMBAT online. Not Virtua fighter, not tekken, not Street fighter, not DoA and not Bloody roar. It's unfair to compare one game to five others. I agree with the majority and say that taking Mk back to 2D would be the wrong way to go, especially now that we know Mk 8 will be powered by Unreal Engine 3. I mean why waste so much potential by going back to the old ways? I strongly disagree with your views on characters. About 92% of characters in MK are decent (with the other 8% consisting of Hsu Hao, Kabal etc.) However I agree that creating 64 characters for Armageddon was a bad idea. A small amount of quality characters work better than 10 characters mimiced by the other 54.

I see where your coming from

Deadly Alliance and Deception were awesome for their time. Old and out of date now. Not horrible. The horrible one was MKA. If they completely fix everything wrong with MK now (fighting system, lame character models) the game is unstoppable.

People can hate games whether or not they're fans. There are hundreds of reasons why people hate the MK games after MK3. I know I have some issues.

But to get on with this topic.

It would be a change to see this game go back to 2d, but then you will lose many, many crucial elements.

Having too many characters isn't a bad thing, as long as each one of them has a good enough storyline, but yet, not that many people are that patient to think of a story so good for 30 characters, just look at the bios that were created for Armageddon. There aren't that many becuase they ran out of time and probably patients.

I do not fully understand the Unreal Engine becuase I don't have a clue about technolgy that has advance over the years, its either that or I'm a girl who doesn't understand things like cars. So we're going to skip that.

I do not agree with you on creating a character that only relies on weapons, their specials, or just fighting tatics. I personally don't agree on this because if this new thing somehow came into MK, I am sure that there will be characters that will be given the wrong kind of style. Lets take Sub-Zero for instance. (I've been using him a lot lately in examples) If Midway created him in a weapon-based characters, then what's the point with his ice powers? Same with Scorpion. Better than that, Shang Tsung. So I'm sure that there would be characters that would be having wrong styles if they headed towards this direction.

Though I do agree with you that they should ditch the jokes. I'm tired of joking characters like Cage and Bo' Rai Cho. I beleive that MK should become completely dark. Make it Gothic-like. Or go back to its original concept from the very first game.

So there are somethings I agree with you, and there are some that I don't.

CHEERS!

P.S it's nice to see another user from the mk5.org days. There arent that many of us left.


Thanks, I still still keep in touch with all the community. I'm usually active on which ever community that has a game coming out. Was very active on VFDC when VF5 was coming out. Naturally, I'm now focusing my attention towards the new MK and new SF. Both are coming out, both will be next gen, both will have a lot to prove. SF for finally making a new SF after like 10 years (to me it is the easier job, as their gameplay in any of their game or spinoffs, were never terrible). And MK, which will use this oppertunity to reinvigorate the series.

I've seen enough about unreal engine 3. And like all Unreal Engine's before it, it's very flexible and very good. but that doesn't translate to a better game. It just translate to better graphics.

I think we can agree that we all prefered MK1-3 over 5-7 with 4 being the inbetween game that we all quarantined from our memory. So instead of trying to use other games as an example, which some of you don't like. I've changed my focus to this. I believe that the attitudes of the game producers and developers matter in the final product. Therefore, Shigeru Miyamotto games will have a certain element to them, Hideo Kojima games will have another similar element to then that ties them together and make them good. Ie.. For the most part they dont' make bad games.

With that said, What should the attitudes and focus of the MK team be to result in a good game. I specifically left it Open so as to not inject my preference into the question.

Uhm, but MK2 isn't regarded as one of the best MKs due to its being 2D. I'd rather say it's because of better characters, practicability, no tiresome and never-working combos, no immature, brainless gimmicks which only turn the game from deep and gothic to "bread and games" for the hungry masses. Animalities, non-cheap arcade mode, space-fillers like Li Mei, Jarek, Kai and Drahmin... when THAT and and a few other things are gone, then MK will reach the fulfilment.