because people in popular mk fan sites make threads saying the game fails and they lose hope

I'm strarting to get tired of arguing my side so I'll try to make this quick, and to the point. Yes, the MK story, and charaters have helped attract me to the franchise, mainly becaue the MK movie was one of my favs as a kid but, the story itself has not been its main selling point. If you go back to MK1 everbody loved it because of its blood and gore, and the digitized actors. The overtop violence has made it the most memorable. For me personally , the thing that kept me intrested all of these years is a combonation of things. The characters, the story, the combat, and the gore. I'm not going to lie, I loved MKDA's combat, and the premise of the story. That is why I have continued to buy the new games over the years.When I bought MKA I was dissapointed by the gameplay, and the story but I had no idea that both were going to be a complete bust. I did like the gameplay of Konquest in Deception, but I hated how I could only play as Shujinko and the story was bad. At least in MK vs DC I could play as characters I actually cared about. Overall I think the story in MK vs DC is good enough for me. The main thing I didn't like was the fatalities. So I have one last question for you. If you're main selling point is the story, and you are dissapointed with every new installment, then why haven't you abandoned the series?

I hope I haven't come off as being mean sprited, and I do respect your opinion.

- To answer your question, the story element is not the main reason I buy MK. Just like you, I have bought MK for multiple reasons based on what each game had in them. Truth be told, the main reason I buy MK is because it's not the other fighting games. It's closer to what I believe a fighting game should be like than the other games. Even with all its flaws.

But, I don't really care for "pretty" or "glitz" from a fighting game...because, it's-a-fight. lol

- Don't worry about it like that man, just because I argue with you over something, doesn't mean I "ha3t yUr gutz" or whatever. Just means I disagree with you on some specific issue.

Hell one time, I beat the crap out of this guy, helped him up, turned around and bought him a couple beers. We had a good time after that..lol

i think people didnt buy mk for story. later on might have been different because they had started making movies and people became more interested in what was actually going and why. mk has always had one of the better stories for a fighting game anyway. i think they messed up the story when they killed lui kang off and brought him back as a fuckin zombie. you never let the main/popular hero lose....I bet you want see ryu dead anytime soon. just sayin.....

The point Pred was making, and you have kind of unintentionally reinfoced his point, is that people buy the game for different reasons. In your last post (the one I have quoted) you list all these reason why YOU buy MK games. That's all fine and dandy and I respect that, so please don't call others (like myself) idiots for having our own reasons for buying the MK series instead of other fighters.

There are many reasons why MK is the only fighting game I buy (such as the blood, fatalities and special moves), but one of the main reasons (for ME) is the storyline and being able to experience playing as my favourite character of all time.

No, I didn't reinforce his point. His point was the story seems to be the big seller, and it should've been better. My point was that the story was good for a fighter, but it's not that big of a deal because the main selling point for a fighting game is obviously the fighting. I can understand somebody enjoying the story of MK but, to only buy the games for the story sounds a little foolish. As far as your point about following Scorpion's story also sounds kind foolish to me. I remember when MK vs DC came out and Johnny Cage, didn't make the cut. It pissed me off that my favorite character didn't make the game I almost didn't buy it. Then I realized that Johnny Cage wasn't the only aspect that made me like the games so I bought it. Secondly, if you truly like playing games for the story then why not play something else? Finally, I didn't really mean to offend anyone because I figured fans of MK, and fans of fighting games could care less about the story. However, I guess I was wrong, and if you are going to pick a fighting series for the story then MK should probably be your first choice. However, if you buy VF5 for the story you are an idiot, because the only story you're going to get is from the players manual on the inside of the box. J.J.

His point was people buy games for different reasons, you stated your opinions, I stated mine and others stated theirs. I never said you alone 100% reinforced his point.



I never said I play all games for the story. There are some games where I hate the story - or they may not even have a story - but I still enjoy the game.
What I said was I buy MK for many reasons and ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS is that I like the story, especially Scorpion's. So basically, I pick MK over every other "fighting" game, because I enjoy the story and the characters have personalities (or at least more so than other "fighting" games).

My point here also helps reinforce one of Pred points that MKs story is a big part of why people buy this series.

yeah and mk in the 90's was one of the few gory and bloody games. now everyone has blood and gore in games, so it nothing special. so i guess im saying that most people Main reason for buying mk was gore and blood. story is most likely second then gameplay and graphics.

Boon is the guy who has the final say in all the decisions so it's HIS fault the franchise is dying

wrong.
The final decision goes to Midway as far they hold the rghts of MK.

It's not just Boon's fault that MK is failing, there's a HELL of a lot of other reasons why it's failing.

So do you guys think boon was telling the truth about a dark and gritty game for mk8 and midway said NO! and made him do a mk vs dc crossover??????

Whoa, this one stuck out. You're right. A simple thought could go a long way. Now that I think of it I would much rather have one long exciting round, and since it's only one round it would have to consist of variety. It's just one way to look at it without having all the fans expecting it.

prepare for wall-o-text
1.character involvement imo.
this may be a touchy subject but i personally think after character design went downhill even for the classic characters which i'd actually like to start with. for one i can't stand sonya's new look 1-4's designs were fine and shaolin monks look was ok i guess but mkda both standard and alt were horrible :s same goes for jax, jarek, some of the ninjas, raiden in mkd and especially kai. those imo are examples of unnecessary redesigns, the rest were fine. as for new characters the only ones i can say should've stayed were kenshi, li mei, the original blaze, kira, and frost. no offense to the fans of the other new characters but they didn't feel like mk characters neither by looks nor moves, they just weren't as unique as the earlier characters were.
2. gameplay
forced combos are very very annoying. it's ok to have certain combos that stands out for the character but the fact that you can't really do much unless you follow certain combos really sucks imo. this actually started in mk3, but that and 4 at least felt a little more free than the later games. i may be one of very few but i liked only having two styles to choose from, its simple hand to hand or weapon and i don't think another style is even necessary, the basics hardly differ from eachother anyway besides purpose.
3. lack of moves
what happened to sonya's diagnol bicycle kick, jax's ground pound and missle moves, cyrax's net trap, smoke's claw, shang tsungs transformation?! fatalites became less pleasing then were taken out completely. those things were what made the characters. animalities and brutalities were sweet, i could do without the friendship and babalities they were funny though.
4.fun >_>
remember when the only input you had to remember were fatalities, how enjoyable it was to see you're friends get ripped apart? why was that traded for memorizing combos? why does armeggedon lack so many stages especially ones from mkda and mkd? where's the secrets cleverly hidden like in the 2d games? what happened to TOASTY lol? it seems like every sequel was missing something.

I'll take a stab at this.
I have been a fan in the arcades since MK1, which makes me OLD. That said, I think I have a decent understanding of what MK was, what it is turning into, and why it seems to be losing its magic.
This series could be seen as failing by many people for many different reasons, three of the big ones being Ambiance, Story, and Gameplay.

1. Ambiance. This is a big one for me. MK1 and MK2, the reason I think they were so successful (apart from the controversial gore), was the realism of the fights. The characters looked real, when they hit eachother you could almost feel it yourself, and there was just enough mysticism in there to make it "almost" believable. Each special move was signature to that character, enough to make you go "wow, cool!". They were purposeful, powerful looking, and serious. These moves were meant to attack, and you knew it. Somehow along the way, we got away from that. MK3 introduced moves that were a little more silly and less believable (Kabal's run, for example, left me kinda "uhh..."). Plus now you have characters sharing moves all over the place. The MK characters have also changed a lot over the years. In the past we had more realistic graphics, and while I realize we cannot incorporate digitized actors into 3D, we can at least do our best not to make everything look like plastic figures fighting. MKvsDC was a step in the right direction for this. To make the fights look more real, to make the characters look more believable, the characters need to look more real and believable. That may also mean (sorry girls) toning down some of the rediculously huge muscles Scorp and Sub have developed.
Street Fighter can keep this look up, and keep it cartoony looking, because it has pretty much always been that way. MK started realistic, then went cartoony, and it is just too big a change. It needs to go back to its roots.

Even the physics of the fight have changed altogether. While uppercutting someone into the air isn't really possible per se, it was still made really believable since MK1. It was brutal, and the character flew just high enough into the air to make it believable. Now, in the new games, you have bodies that bounce off the ground like a beachball from a simple hammerfist chop. You have silliness like Drahmin's step on your foot and punch you like a rolly polly nonsense. For crying out loud, now you have every fighter defying gravity and taking their fights to the air in MKA (I'm sorry, I could not help but cringe in the intro video when I saw Kung Lao and Baraka somehow turn into super saiyans fighting in the air). In short, MK physics need to go back to more realism, just enough fantasy involved without turning it into the cartoon series we have now. And, personal taste here, but am I the only one who thinks that EVERY MK female HAS to dress like a skank and HAD to have gotten DDD boobjobs over the years? (I had to put the boobjob thing into the "physics" part of the discussion, of course).

Voice acting and music also adds to the atmosphere. Just about every other fighting game has characters with all different voices. Why does MK have to be different? Sharing voices AND victory poses just stinks of "cheap" and "rushed". Mks1-3 had serious voice acting (lets leave Liu out of this one for now, but even he sounded cool in MK1 and 2..3, not so much). When characters got hit, you could tell they were hurting. They attacked with ferocity in their voices. Now, they just sound silly, and that fact is amplified by the voice actors not taking their jobs seriously. How do I know they don't? Watch the voice acting video on MKA...just a bunch of people goofing around making stupid noises, then laughing about it afterwards. As far as music goes, it has been brilliant except for the past two installments. MKA, I'm sorry, whoever did the music for that needs to be flogged. MK is NOT a symphony/theatre movie type of game. It has a specific sound to it that Forden has accurately captured over the years. Stick with him if you can, but leave the symphony music OUT. It just did not mesh. The music in MKvsDC, while I did not catch a lot of it, struck me as kind of dull. While still being an improvement over MKA, it needed to be kicked up a notch.

Then there is gameplay ambiance: things in the game that don't affect the actual fighting mechanics, but add to the quality and mystique of the game, the overall package. I am talking about things as simple as secret characters to fight. MK games now are filled with content to unlock and easter eggs to find. While I do appreciate that, a lot of the actual gameplay secrets are gone (am I the only one that misses the "?" on the MK2 challenge ladder that had you fight Jade? Am I the only one here that kind of misses pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to access that back in the day?).

2. Storyline, enough has been said about that. I agree that since MK came to home systems, the storyline became a much more serious aspect to the overall entertainment of the game. But, they have to get it straight.
Atmosphere is one of the things I love about the MK games. MKD made me drool, because the atmosphere was so much THERE. It reminded me of an expanded version of MK2's atmosphere, with its dark worlds, now expanded with new realms to explore. Then came MKA and..well, I will leave that there, but let's just say they took all the work from MKD and gave it a swirley. MK Shaolin Monks actually gave me a disliking of MK2 after I played it. It really made me wonder if I had been playing the same MK games all these years as they were. Don't even get me started on the ending.
And, is it even a tournament anymore, or some grand adventure that kombatants somehow get swept up in? The tournament setting needs to return somehow. In MK1, it was a lot like Bloodsport, the ultimate Kumite. In MK2, the Kumite feel was still there, but the stakes were a LOT higher. MK3, ok, Kahn broke the rules, but I think I can roll with this. MKs4-now, no tournament, just events happening kind of out of control..Shinnok must be stopped, Quan and Shang must be stopped, Onaga must be stopped, Blaze must be destroyed, oh, who's the guy in the red cape and where did he come from? In all these instances, it was more of an adventure set up, fighting when we encountered enemies (that was made very obvious in MKA, the opening scene. Not much tournament going on there). If the tournament is getting old for some people, find a way to make that fresh, but right now it all just seems way out of control.
3. Gameplay. People like TonytheTiger, Check, Dan, Konqrr, and others can elaborate on this better than I. Gameplay needs to be fixed. The other night, I got a chance to play SF4 for the first time, and I was blown away. We played that for hours. After that, I got to play MKvsDC for the first time. We played half an hour before popping SF4 back in ( and it was I, the MK nut, who suggested putting SF4 back in). MK should never be boring, but after I played SF4, that is what it turned into for me, and it was a huge letdown. That was the first time I preffered a SF game to an MK game. Maybe it was the speed of the two games. I don't know. All I know is, something needs fixed. While it played more fluid (by a LONGSHOT) than past MK games, there is still some work that needs done here on the mechanics. I personally feel that Tekken is its own game, as is Soul Caliber and VF. Leave those alone. MK should not be compared to those, and should move away from those and be its own game. MK should return to the frentic, fast moving fighting of the past, while keeping it JUST realistic enough to be believed, not over the top nonsense. To me, SF has always been MKs main competitor, because they were both fast moving games that had a lot of jumping and special moves. The other three I mentioned are more ground based and technical, and seem to be in a class by themselves as far as fighting games go. If MK could incorporate a more fluid combo system like SF, somehow surpassing that, and keeping it fast and frentic like the old days, we could be in store for a real hit. It could mean that MK needs to go back to 2d completely. I don't know.
On the non-mechanics side there could also be improvements. Over the years, gameplay for Arcade mode has become bland, if not painful. In the past few games, whenever I start up the arcade mode, I fight the same people, same arenas, same everything. FIX THAT. Make it more random. Add additional challenge ladders. Put back in incentives to play, like the Treasures of Shao Kahn at the end of UMK3.

MK has made a lot of changes over the years, some good, some bad. In moving forward, however, they have left a LOT of things out that have been missed for a long time. I hope this made sense, as I have a tendancy to go with how I feel MK should "feel" and try to put that into words. As an artist, I can see it and feel it clearly, but putting it into words is another matter for me.

so you bacically saying that it needs to go back to 2d and tournament format and bring back fast gameplay, realistic but not over the top.I agree!!

Mortal Kombat, along with gratuous violence lost their significance.

You people are already desensitized by media and video games. WHAT can MK bring that would make it relevant? Barely anything.

Spoken with your trademark pesimism Chrome. What can MK bring? MK has the deepest history, atmosphere and story, and some of the most recognizable characters, of any fighting game.
What can ANY fighting game bring that can make itself relevant? Answer that question, and you will also answer what MK can bring.

Story, subjective and irrelevant from gameplay prespective.
Atmosphere, subjective for every man.
History, subjective. MK has not moved out of the Western hemisphere.

What can it bring? Extraordinarily playable mechanics. Unlikely given how the MK team worked so far... Fighting games overall are not relevant now. Casual entertainment at best, they were never meant to be deep. Most material inside them are to artificially prolong gameplay value.

MK is suprisingly still strong name .MK vs DC though being hated by everyone including me was still more than a success selling over 1.9 million (sold not shipped ) .

The main reason is that fighting gener lost its popularity , a big example is SF IV , though it meant to revive the series its sales is just like MK vs DCu around 2 million sales . SC IV is also around 2 million and I am sure Tekken6 will be around 2 million .

It is just huge change from 90s , many games have gore now , so MK is not that special .and I agree that MK fans are groing up and some quit playing VGs .

I am not saying that MK DA, MK:D ,MK:A & MK vs DCU are flawless but with a bad managment as Midway , the team is doing great .Of Course that wont last for a long time but Warner Brother may provide the team with what they need to make a great MK game .

2 million causal players probably bought mk vs dc(kids,comic fans) and soul calibur. but alot of street fighter iv players bought it to play a hardcore,in-depth,technical, and balanced gameplay. so they could compete with other players across the world. you guys are right, mortal kombat is not failing money wise, but the gameplay is what im talkin about. just because a game(same thing for albums) sells, that does not make it "great" in quality and depth.

i think small rosters (except MKA which sold more then MKDA and MKD) i would like MKA roster for all the next mk games

I dunno, I think that asking a question like "why is the MK franchise failing" could lead to several answers because it's really asking several questions.

For one:

---------------------Why is Mortal Kombat failing in sales?----------------------------

Well, it's not, really. Sales for MK vs DC have been consistent, if not better than the recent MK games. Sure, it doesn't put up the numbers of Halo or GTA or Wii Fit, but it's still in the range that most MK games have been in.

You have to keep in mind that the fighting genre isn't what it once was in terms of being a cash cow for developers and publishers alike. The fighting genre gave way to a ton of 3D action titles ranging from Mario 64 to Tomb Raider. That genre gave way to sandbox games like GTA and the millions of clones that series has spawned.

That genre now shares the spotlight with first person shooters thanks to Halo, Call of Duty, Killzone, Resistance and about a million other games that are too plentiful and too similar to even bother mentioning.

When was the last time a new 3D fighting game came out in the genre? Kakuto Chojin? Tao Feng? Alright, when was the last new 3D fighter that has actually had some STAYING power? Soul Calibur? That came out on Dreamcast nearly 10 years ago.

That alone should give you an idea of where the fighting genre is right now. So to expect MK to sell anything on the level of the Halo's and GTA's of the world is simply asking too much. The fighting genre isn't dead, but it's certainly not thriving right now like the FPS genre or the sandbox genre.

---------------Why is Mortal Kombat failing in terms of the genre?----------------

In other words, why isn't MK as good a fighting game as the more recent fighting game series like Soul Calibur, Virtua Fighter etc.

Well, for that, there are about a million answers, and they've all be discussed on these boards at various times.

Now, I can't speculate on how the MK team allots their time dedicated to certain aspects of development. Alot of people on these boards believe that the fighting aspect has lagged behind other games because the MK team is too busy making cart racing and chess minigames or packing the disc with as much nonfighting kontent as possible.

I have no idea if that's the case. What I do know is that MK seriously needs to look at some of the more modern fighting games and figure out a way compete with them in terms of graphical power, technical prowess and gameplay depth.

The graphics in MK games still look like they're a step below Soul Calibur 4 and Tekken 6. The technical issues such as choppiness, rigid characters, glitches etc need to go.

As for gameplay, well, again there are a million things that the MK team could do to improve here. A better wake up game, improved animation, throws, counters, escapes, more variety in characters moves, the list goes on and on.

-------Why is the Mortal Kombat franchise failing in terms of quality?-----------

This is similar to the last question, but I think that while the answer to the last question was "the quality is less in gameplay, graphics and techincal aspects" the answer to why the franchise is failing in quality could probably best be explained by Midway and the MK team as a whole.

Midway has been trying to crank out a new MK game each year for a while now. Of course, this isn't the 2D era where having 4 guys digitize some movements and calling it a game would allow for such a schedule.

Instead, you have much more sophisticated graphical engines, alot more people doing alot more things and it all has to be coordinated and working successfully in just as short of an amount of time as when you had much simpler games coming out.

Does that not seem a bit strange to people? I mean, Call of Duty has two teams that alternate years of bringing out games and that's more or less a shoot, kill, move on type of game.

In a fighting game, you have to create new concepts for characters, backgrounds, stories etc and then see those through. You have to create all of the moves for the characters, all of which require animations, you have to show damage, you have to have fatalities, balance characters, create extra modes, put in extra content.

Well, again, the list goes on and on.

But the problem here is also the fact that the core of the MK team worked on 2D games and let's be honest, these games simply aren't the same kind of animal as 3D fighting games. The MK team simply hasn't nailed down the nuances of 3D fighting.

Alot of the special moves are done on a 2D plane, so many of them can be easily sidestepped, thus nullifying the need to use them. The characters also don't take advantage of the vast array of moves allowed by 3D character models.

Look at a character like King in the Tekken series who has a seemingly infinite number of throws ranging from powerbombs to frankensteiners to DDTs etc. Then look at MK's "throws." They're basic at best.

So when you have a team that's not fantastic at taking advantage of what modern 3D fighting is capable of, working on a miniscule time frame where so many different things need to be done... Yeah, the quality is going to suffer.

In fact, when you put it this way, it's a miracle the games even run to begin with.

------------Why is the Mortal Kombat franchise failing the fanbase?-------------

Ah, to me, this is the key question. I think that alot of people on this thread have been answering this question specifically more than anything else. Because, if we weren't such big fans of the game, we'd certainly be able to forgive many of the other aspects and simply enjoy the game for what it is.

So here are my thoughts.

The storylines have become a jumbled mess. With the "what if" endings, and the "they're dead, wait, no they're not" moments, fans have no idea what's going on anymore.

At some point, I'm not sure when, but it almost seems like the MK team just threw up their hands and said "you know what? Who cares what happened in the past, let's just make a stupid story for this game and be done with it."

For me, there's no bigger frustration when playing the MK games than seeing the endings. For one thing, they should be movies, not pictures. But more importantly, TELL ME A STORY. Don't give me this "what if Kano won" crap.

Because it tells me nothing. So I guess that Scorpion didn't get thrown into the Soulnado after getting his butt kicked by Moloch and Drahmin in MK:DA because there he is in MK:D. Why did they even bother with that ending?

As for the characters, most would agree that the new characters simply aren't as well designed as the characters of the past. Their moves are either lame, some variation on past moves or they're entire move sets and/or special moves are ripped directly from other characters.

Li Mei has Mileena's sais.
Kira has Kano's cannonball and Sonya's kiss of death.
Johnny Cage and Liu Kang seem to have the same set of nunchuks.
Noob got Reiko's throwing stars.
Etc.

Then you have the fact that the things that used to make MK characters unique have all but vanished.

Everyone has a victory pose that's basically taken from a stock set of victory poses.

The fatality system in Armageddon...Just...Yuck.

So when you have stories that don't make sense or simply aren't very interesting or well done in terms of modern video games storytelling, characters that already didn't have much differentiation in their regular moves now swapping special moves, weapons, victory poses, fatalities and full move sets... Well, that doesn't leave me a happy MK fan.

It almost seems like the MK team takes a step forward and a step back whenever they release a game.

MK:DA had some interesting new characters, some flat out awesome arenas (House of Pekara, Wu Shi Academy and Lung Hai Temple among the best IMO) and a brand new gameplay engine.

But where were the stage fatalities? Where were the secrets? NEVER make a whole room and fill it with stuff that needs to be unlocked EVER AGAIN. It's boring. It's tedious. It turns the fighting into a chore.

No offense to him, but I don't want to fight for ten minutes so that I can unlock some pictures of Carlos Pesina doing martial arts.

On that note, where were the game modes? Okay, I've beaten konquest. How about a survival mode with a leaderboard? How about a tournament mode? Give me some more options here!

MK:D had some okay arenas, and they even brought back some of the old ones, which was cool. They also brought back some of the old characters that fans seemed to want. But the new characters in the game were less than inspiring. Kobra, Kira, Havik, Hotaru, Shujinko, Ashrah and Darrius were all flawed in one way or another.

Well, you might disagree with that, but would you put any of them on the level of characters from MK1 or MK2? Didn't think so.

Havik looked cool, but his story and his moves were awful. Shujinko just had a bunch of everyone elses moves, so no excitement there. Same goes for Kira. Kobra looked like a Ken from Street Fighter rip off and his moves looked like they could've been pulled from Armageddon's create a character mode. Nothing special at all.

Ashrah and Darrius were okay, but again, nothing special. Hotaru also had a cool look, but what? Two special moves and Scorpions Pi Gua style? Bad.

They added deathtraps and stage fatalities. A LOT of them. More than was needed. I never liked fighting while worrying that I was close to a red line and might get devoured by a metal monster...thing. Lame.

The villain was a large...dragon...guy. Seriously, how far away from the coolness of MK and MK 2 could this game have gone?

Oh yeah, and the whole "realms thing. That was AWFUL. Before, you had Earthrealm and Outworld. The good guys and the bad guys. For me, that was more than enough. But this game had to introduce Orderrealm and Chaosrealm and now Edenia was seperate from Outworld and the Netherealm and ugh...

Maybe it was the fact that going to these places in konquest mode was about as exciting as watching paint dry, but there was no reason to add all of these other realms. All it did was muddle up an already convoluted and not overly well told story. It was adding more for the sake of adding more and what they added wasn't particularly good. Really? We needed to create a whole realm for Havik?

While MK:DA showed us a fighting system that had potential, MK:D just ripped it off and added nothing to it. Characters still didn't have unique regular attacks, and while there were a few signature components added in, a large part of the characters simply felt interchangeable with other characters in the game or characters from past games.

Same issue with the secrets here. Only this time, instead of the weak konquest mode in MK:DA, now you had to play through the worst action game on the planet. You got to run around, sit down and meditate so it could be 12am in the netherworld at section G-4 and oh look! Now you can fight a hidden character and unlock them. Snooze. Just, awful.

As for MK:A, whether for memory constraints, laziness or a sheer stroke of genius, the MK team finally took out the blatantly unnecessary and somewhat confusing use of two hand to hand styles per character. They brought all of the characters back (some even got new looks) and there was the addition of the intriguing mid-air combo system.

The combo system was good for a while, but again, the fact that there wasn't anything really unique about the moves made it grow tiresome rather fast. No, Liu Kang doesn't throw mid air fireballs at the enemy, bicycle kick them, cartwheel kick them and uppercut them before monkey flipping them to the ground.

He just kinda punches and kicks them while they flip backwards in suspended gravity. Umm, okay, I guess.

Then you have the whole fatality issue. Not going into that again, but suffice to say, they probably had to do it, but I'm still not a huge fan.

Oh yeah, and the fact that Blaze was the final boss (guess he took some steroids) was lame. Seriously? The guy in the background of MK2? Liu Kang on fire? That's the boss?

Now, I liked the create a fighter mode, alot actually. But while it gave me a reason for continually trying to earn money that didn't feel so much like homework (thanks again konquest mode), it simply didn't feel like enough.

Give me a create a tournament mode, allow me to tell my own story. Or at least give me a lot more special moves. Why can't every special move used by every character be incorporated into this mode? I mean, they're already in the game after all...

Still, I thought that this mode was cool and was hoping they'd build on it in the next MK game. Then we got this:

As for MK vs DC, well, alot of hardcore fans didn't even want to see this game get made. Even now, ask any MK fan "would you rather have this game or MK8?" I defy you to find one MK fan who would take MK vs DC over a true MK sequel.

The storytelling was done pretty well, even if the story itself was horrendous. What do you expect though? MK...DC....And they're together, somehow. I liked the fact that there were alot of special moves, but I hated the fact that minigames were incorporated INTO the fights. That's just a huge no no to me when it comes to fighting games.

To me, that's admitting that the actual fighting engine needs some type of cheap thrill to make it more interesting. No, I don't want to have some rockem sockem robots minigame in the middle of my fight.

I don't want to play "guess which button my opponent is going to press" and I don't want to stop what I'm doing, interrupt my strategy etc so that my opponent and I can mash buttons as hard as we can. What am I? A monkey?

If I told you that these modes were in any other fighting game, would you like those ideas?

No thanks.

Plus, this game simply felt like a copout. A cash in. Maybe it's Midway's financial failings, but it really looked like another stab at trying to land a bigger audience. "Look! Batman vs Sub Zero! Please care about this!" should've been the tag line.

To me, MK has gained a little and lost alot over the last four games. They refined the fighting system to make it better than it was, but it's still not anything on the level of modern fighting games.

They have introduced a bunch of new characters, but few of them were memorable and even less were particularly fun to use. I don't think there's one new character in these four games that I'd say "MK is deminished for not having that character in the next game."

MK has also lost the sense of mystery and intrigue. By adding the krypt, they took those little moments of discovery that made the old MK games so much more fun. Who is the green ninja? What does "look to la luna" mean? Who is that white ninja peaking out from behind the tree? How do I get the code to unlock smoke?

Remember when the whole "superunlockable" debate was all over this board? I believe that it was MK5.org back then, but evreryone just assumed that there HAD to be secrets that weren't in the krypt because, well, it's Mortal Kombat!

I'm not even talking merely about the secrets though. The characters themselves are much more plain in terms of look and storyline. I want a story that gives me a bunch of questions and then either shocks me with the answers or at least feels satisfying in terms of developing characters and the story as a whole.

The MK team has done a great job with the intro movies of their games in the recent past, but as far as telling a complete, cohesive story, they're still 10+ years behind the curve.

Games have advanced. Metal Gear Solid came out in what? 1997? Same goes for Final Fantasy VII. Then you have games like GTA IV, and you can really see what games can do in terms of telling a story. Yet MK still has an intro movie and a bunch of "what if" endings. It's awful, especially for a game that only leads the genre in storytelling by default. MK could make this a huge advantage over the competition and they don't because they're still stuck in the past.

So in my opinion, it's a combination of all of these things. Yes, the sales are fine, but the actual games have dwindled in quality both in terms of the genre and with the MK fanbase as well.

Until the gameplay (both in the options for fighting and the fighting itself), the graphics, the creativity of the story and the characters all begin to resemble the level of abilty displayed by other fighting game companies or other game companies in general, until they stop toying with minigame modes or little hooks for the fighting and start making something that's fun, deep and technically sound, MK will continue to be behind the curve and stuck in the days when 4 guys could come together and create something great.

i agree. you have a lot of good points man.

i don't know what's your source is but SF4 sold 4 milion of copies only in the first wek of release,in totalthe game sold 4 million and when it will become a classic/platinum cheaper edition i think it will reach 5 milion