That is just unfair and makes no sense. If MK cannot live up to realistic features, they should go back to a Teen rating? No, that's not right at all.

Yeah, I'll agree on one thing, after MK4 the fatalities have gotten a little bit silly, but they were still gory. Hotaru's body slam was pretty gruesome. But now, the developers have more time to think things through and with more time handed to them, they can do things to this game that we may have never seen before.

I think it's not right to compare this game to GoW. They're two different games, it's just like comparing WWE's video games to the MLB's video games. I just think we need to not compare these two games together even if they're both gory.

And the last time I check, kids still play this game even if the rating is Mature.

Of course a lot of kids play MK, most of the people visiting this website are aged 13-17:
http://www.quantcast.com/mortalkombatonline.com

All I am saying is that if you are making an M-rated game, the gore better be worth all the sales that you are losing from it not being a T-rated game.

Anyway, violent high-profile games like GOW3 and MK will always be compared in the media. All I am hoping is that MK will try to reclaim its gory greatness, now that the technology for more realism is possible.

why does this question still exist?

Umm... 13-17 year old people are NOT kids... They're teens. Kids are under the age of 13. Sure 13-17 still act like kids, but they're certainly not kids.

But, the thing is, this game is going back to a M-rating, there's really no point to say "oh it should go back to Teens" just because the fatalities aren't as scary as they used to be back in the 90s.

The reason why it was such a great thing in the past was because controversial games were just being created. The ESRB wasn't established until 1994, a year after MK came out... That's why this game made such a huge issue to the media because of it's themes of violence and gore. Violence was a big hit in the 90s because games were getting more and more controversial, people had to restrict this by creating the ESRB. But now, games are getting ridiculous as time flies by. Games are producing more gore and violence, how can we create something that's already been done?

If the game isn't as scary as we think, then oh well they tried. The game may look a bit cartoonish lately, oh well so what. Other games do as they try to look as realistic as they can. What more do we all want? Actually have live-acting back again and make it real?

I've played through God of War 3 as well and the same thing came to my mind too. MK and gore, that belongs together. Although I don't expect them to exceed the gore we've seen in GoW 3.

Icebabay is right(BTW, sorry to be off-topic, but I just noticed you're deviantart ID in your sig and I am now watching your page)

It may not be realistic, but gore is gore. According to the ESRB system, gore belongs in Mature rating. Yes, I'm aware that younger audiences still play these games, but ratings still need to be there on the game, and because of the content of Mortal Kombat games (Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, etc.), it needs to be rated M.

While there is tons of violence nowadays in FPS games involving shooting, GOW and MK are the flagships for over-the-top primitive, visceral violence. Whether I am watching Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom, or doing Kano’s heart-rip fatality, THAT is what makes MK awesome.

I just hope MK can try to out-do God of War 3, and accomplish something cool!

I like a bit of gore. It's not the whole reason I like MK. I mostly like the characters, ambience and obviously the gameplay. I guess the whole mortality thing is a big part in MK's "character" though.

It would be amazing to see more "realistic" gore. I don't necessarily mean limiting each person to 8 pints of blood. I mean having tangible guts and gibs and stuff. Physics engine, or animated or whatever. They can do better than having a ton of femurs exploding out of people.

Exactly!

I mean, who is going to care if you use the same intestines model for every character?

All they have to do is make ONE heart, ONE liver, ONE brain, etc, and then they can reuse them for almost every character. As long as they put some soft-body physics on it or something, then they won’t look fake when they hit the ground.

They can use rigid body physics if it's one of Sub Zero's fatalities.

Actually, they already did that with Sub-Zero in MKDC.

It was one of the few that were actually good in that game!

yeah i agree. mk needs to be way more violent and gory. its one the top 5 reasons people play the game and what made mk different from other fighting games.

gow and other games are outdoing mk at its own "game". its kinda sad to see because mk help started all the violence in the first place.

You know, if the MK team is having trouble thinking of cool fatalities, they should do what Dead Space is doing:

Make a contest to let us fans come up with some cool ideas, and then the winners ideas will get incorporated into the game, and get a free copy of the game, or a lame t-shirt or something.

Could not care less about fatalities. Or blood. Or physical realism. Playing MK for fatalities is like playing Street Fighter II for martial art clichés.

I will say this, though: no more explosions. They look terrible now. I think the picture perfect fatalities was both of Subzero's MKD finishers. Sleek, but not over-the-top.

yeah but ed does not seem to like to take ideas because of law suits. he does have a point. they also had more time so lets see what happens with the creativity.

(but i guess the dead space idea would be really fun, i love that game by the way,its better then res5, i was scared in the day time lol).

To me at least, the more unrealistic violence looks in a game, the less shock value it has on me. So for example, if someone talks about ripping your opponents head off and ripping out their heart with your bare hands, without the intervention of a weapon, the less believable and violent it becomes. Same thing with massive amounts of blood coming from a punch for example, like how MK does.

And if you're using weapons during a round of fighting, depending on the weapon used and where and how much/how deep you're cut, then this determines how much blood comes from the wound, as well as how it looks. I'm not sure how hard something like this would be to implement with today's technology. Also, I understand you have to take in consideration that this is a game and it can't always be like real life for one reason or another, unless of course you want gameplay to be like real life.

So for example, if you want super realistic looking blood (like what I was mentioning earlier), it also becomes about design decisions you want for a game. So lets say during a round, someone was cut horizontally across the mid-section using a sword, with all their strength. And this was at mid to close range, and the other person wasn't wearing armor. It was visually obvious because the character performing the cutting animation did it slower, which suggests power being put into his swing.

Okay, so what do you do from here? Do you make the other persons mid section fall over (killing them) which would most likely be the outcome in real life (depending on the force). Thus being the end of the match? Or would you just make the person bleed more than normal? Or instead, just restrict player attacks to to minimal movement/timing, so it looks like they are using less strength. So when someone's cut they don't die instantly? But then you have to consider that limiting movement and timing also affects gameplay balancing.

So, you can see how tightly integrated realism and gameplay are with each other.

And while I haven't completely thought this through, since I would also need to see these sorts of scenarios play out in front of my eyes, it's hard to make judgment calls about what looks and plays best. Then I would find a medium between reality and gameplay. This of course, if I were making the game.

I'll get back to my thoughts later, on this thread.......

My vote is for the realistic gore. Go ballz-out with it! I'm hoping and praying for maybe a "cut-to-live-action" Fatality after entering a sequence??? I doubt it'll happen, but add a little cinematic flavour to the game and change it up. To me, MK always had a "part Horror Movie" feel to it with all the blood n guts. I just don't want to see silly things like Jax growing a hundred-feet-tall and stepping on someone...lolol...

If Dead Space can have a violent finishing move contest without a Lawsuit, then so can MK!

I just hope that Ed fired whoever has been coming up with these stupid fatalities the last few years, and hired someone that can make some COOL fatalities!

: )

yeah but most people who got into mk AT FIRST was because of the blood splashing .........no????