mortal-kombat-2011
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Mortal Kombat PS Vita live action trailer suggests there's a little Kitana in all of us
Quick, get her out of us before those fan blades cut up our intestines!
PSN Spring Fever extended: Mortal Kombat diskounts tomorrow
Sony's had such success with its PSN Spring Fever discount promotion the last few weeks that it's been extended an additional week. Joining the launch of Wheels of Destruction tomorrow are discounts across the board for all Mortal Kombat kontent.The Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection, which contains the original Mortal Kombat and sequels Mortal Kombat 2 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, is on sale for $6.99, and $4.99 for PS Plus subscribers. In addition to that, all DLC content for Netherrealm's Mortal Kombat reboot is on sale, either as individual fighter downloads for $3.49 each ($2.44 if you're a PS Plus subscriber) or all together in one bundle for $10.49; $7.47 if you're a PS Plus subscriber.Finally, you can download Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe at a reduced cost of $13.49, but you may want to read a few reviews before pulling the trigger on that one. Just saying!
Mortal Kombat hits Vita May 1
The Vita version of Mortal Kombat, complete with 150 new Vita-centric Challenge Tower missions, touchscreen fatalities and the console version's DLC characters, will be available in North American on May 1.Seeing as Mortal Kombat is part of the official EVO 2012 tournament selection, this may be a good way to squeeze in every possible second of combo practice during your daily routine. It's also a much cleaner, less illegal way to murder people while on crowded public transportation.
New Mortal Kombat trailer shows off Vita-centric gameplay
Mortal Kombat is a fairly tried and true formula by fighting game standards, but what happens when you introduce the Vita's massive array of sensors into the mix? As this latest trailer shows, the results can get positively wacky.Fear not though, fighting purists. Most of the truly outrageous stuff, like tilting the Vita to balance Skarlett over a pit of spikes while skulls are thrown at her, is relegated to the Vita-specific Challenge Tower, which introduces 150 new trials and tribulations designed specifically for Sony's handheld.
Street Fighter X Tekken can't take local teams online on Xbox 360
There's a major difference between the Xbox 360 version of Street Fighter X Tekken and its PS3 twin, it turns out. According to the manual included with both versions, the game's tag team modes allow you and a local friend to sign on to the same console and fight against two other people online; your buddy presses start at the character select screen and off you go. In actuality, this functionality only exists in the PS3 version of the game.The issue has been acknowledged by Christian Svensson at Capcom, who stated that Capcom has no plans to patch the feature in, and that its inclusion in the manual was a mistake. "The reason for this difference is because of the architecture differences between [Xbox Live] gamertags and PSN IDs. I'm not sure of the technical details, but basically it amounts to: Sony made it so you can mix and match online and offline, and Microsoft made it so you can't."That sounded like a reasonable explanation, until we remembered that the 360 version of Mortal Kombat does that exact thing, allowing two local players to take part in tag-team battles online. If it's possible for NetherRealm Studios to include the feature in Mortal Kombat -- the MK studio's first release under the NetherRealm banner -- its exclusion from Capcom's brand-new flagship fighter seems strange at the very least.
Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition trailer looks back on Rain
Fans really wanted Rain to return in Mortal Kombat, designer Brian Lebaron says, and it was a task more difficult than developer Netherrealm Studios expected.
Batman: Arkham City shipped 6 million in 2011
Tucked away in the dark, crowded bowels of Time Warner's financial results statement for fiscal 2011 is news that Rocksteady's blockbuster, bat-centric beat-em-up (that would be Batman: Arkham City) has shipped 6 million units, as of December 31, 2011. Now, "shipped" is a much different statistic than "sold," but it's a strong figure nonetheless.It's difficult to tell how Warner Bros. Interactive did on its own in 2011, since its financial results are lumped in with two other Time Warner subsidiaries, (Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Bros. Television), both of which brought in astounding amounts of money with their respective Harry Potter and Big Bang Theory licenses. Overall, Time Warner's "Filmed Entertainment" (tv, movies and gaming) reported revenues of $12.6 billion; a 9 percent year-over-year increase.The statement also mentions Mortal Kombat and "several LEGO titles" as key contributors to the division's successful year.
Ed Boon wants NetherRealm Studios to branch out in 2012
Right now, most of us are thinking about the next Mortal Kombat -- and no, we don't mean the Vita version. It's gotta happen, right? We're sure it will, but according to MK creator and NetherRealm Studios head honcho, Ed Boon, his team is more than just a Mortal Kombat studio."I would be surprised if Warner Bros. and us never released another Mortal Kombat game again. We don't have a title to announce, but if this last one sold over 3 million and counting, there's a certain amount of assumption that we'd consider doing another Mortal Kombat game," Boon told GameSpot. "But at the same time, we want our studio to do more than just make Mortal Kombat games. We love making them but we also want to do different types of games. Different genres, different IPs."It's hardly telling of the future for NetherRealm Studios, but Boon did mention the studio's Arkham City tie-in for iOS as an indication for his studios' plans to branch out. "The Batman iOS game was kind of like us dipping our foot into that whole different types of games to do. We're going to continue in that direction, but I would be surprised if we never did another Mortal Kombat game again." Finally, when asked whether 2012 would be a year of diversification for NetherRealm, Boon responded, "Oh yes, without a doubt."
First details on Mortal Kombat for Vita: 60FPS, touchscreen fatalities and more
Having a scorpion in your pocket isn't usually the kind of experience people rush out and pay for, but Mortal Kombat progenitor and NetherRealm Studios creative director Ed Boon doesn't seem too worried about that. In fact, the Vita port of Mortal Kombat is starting to sound pretty legit: The title will include all of the characters and modes from the PS3 version, run at 60 frames per second and support both local and online 1-on-1 multiplayer via wifi, according to an interview with PlayStation Blog. The handheld homage to hemorrhaging also includes a second, brand-new Challenge Tower that takes advantage of the Vita's touchscreen and accelerometer in 150 new challenges. While unable to speak specifically on how the Vita's tech has been implemented in these challenges, Boon teased being able to tilt your Vita in order to change gravity's orientation during a hypothetical mission. The touchscreen will also be used for activating X-Ray attacks and swiping direction inputs to initiate fatalities, but beyond that no Ultimate MvC3-esque touch controls have been implemented. "We goofed around with ideas like that," said Boon. "It was an interesting novelty at first, but literally everybody who tried it said 'Oh, that's cute,' and then went right back to the normal control scheme." Mortal Kombat for the Vita is set to tear out tiny, adorable spines sometime this spring.
Mortal Kombat goes portable on Vita in 'spring 2012'
The folks at Mortal Kombat dev studio Netherrealm have had their hands on a PlayStation Vita dev unit in some form since way back in September 2010, so it stands to reason that the upcoming port of last year's Mortal Kombat to Vita will be packed with bells and whistles. Said port will arrive sometime after the Vita's North American launch this February, with publisher Warner Bros. Interactive pinning a "spring 2012" launch window to the portable fighter. Studio head Ed Boon promises both "original game content" and "new features" will arrive in MK's Vita iteration, though the announcement PR only teases the inclusion of "several" additions to be "revealed in the coming months." But if Netherrealm follows its usual marketing plan, all of those details will be leaked much, much sooner. The Vita iteration also include the PS3's exclusive character (God of War's main angry dude, Kratos) as well as all four DLC characters (one Mr. Freddy Krueger, Kenshi, Rain, Skarlet are all pictured on the box above). So it's kinda like that "Komplete Edition," just shrunken down.
'Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition' koming to konsoles February 28
Warner Bros. has officially announced Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition, which will include all previously released downloadable content for the critically acclaimed fighter. The bundle features all character DLC (including dream master Freddy Krueger), the Mortal Kombat: Songs Inspired by the Warriors album, and the 1995 Mortal Kombat film through PSN or Xbox Live Zune Marketplace. There are also 15 Klassic Skins and three Klassic Fatalities for Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Reptile. The Komplete Edition was outed in early December, when the British rating board gave it a mid-February launch. Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition will be available February 28 for Xbox 360 and PS3.%Gallery-120488%
Joystiq Top 10 of 2011: Mortal Kombat
Fighting games are pretty serious business. The community that supports the arcade and tournament scene is composed of roughly the same people it was fifteen years ago, and as a result this particular corner of the gaming kingdom has a longer lasting, more detailed memory than most of its non-competitive contemporaries. This makes fighting game players hard to impress, especially when their opinion of your legacy titles is less than stellar. Mortal Kombat had a heavy coating of nostalgia working for it prior to its launch, but it also had to contend with the series' long and storied history of brokenness and balance problems: Nearly every character in Mortal Kombat Trilogy had an infinite combo, for instance, which serves as a perfect example of what competitive fighting game players remembered about the franchise. Not to say that the old Mortal Kombat games weren't fun, because they were, they just weren't "tournament ready." So, when April finally rolled around and Mortal Kombat landed in disc trays around the world, that's what everyone expected: The fun, over-the-top, painfully broken hodgepodge of violence and pseudo-Asian mythology we've all come to know and love over the last twenty-odd years. Little did we realize that what we were actually getting was not only the best fighting game of 2011, but one of the ten best games to come out all year.
Mortal Kombat 'Season Pass,' Deadliest Warrior: Legends are today's XBLM holiday deals
Microsoft's end-of-the-year countdown has Mortal Kombat's "season pass" and Deadliest Warriors: Legends discounted for day four. The Mortal Kombat "Season Pass," available half-off today for 600 MSP ($7.50), will unlock DLC characters Skarlet, Kenshi, Rain and Mr. Freddy Krueger. Individually, the characters are 400 MSP ($5) apiece. Deadliest Warrior: Legends, a "cerebral, satisfying and deep" fighter, is also on sale. Both the core game and Joan of Arc DLC are half-off for 400 MSP ($5) and 120 MSP ($1.50), respectively. Now ... FIGHT!
Gamefly discounts used games in end-of-year sale
Finish your holiday shopping already? Well, if you've got some spare coin and are looking to treat yourself for getting your shopping done early for once, you may be interested in Gamefly's end of year sale. It's a pretty big sale, guys. Gamefly's used titles on Xbox 360, DS, 3DS, Wii and PS3 have been discounted through January 3, and any purchase from Gamefly also qualifies for free shipping throughout the duration of the sale. Sheer quantity alone of what's on offer is impressive -- highlights include cheap copies of Mortal Kombat, L.A. Noire, Kirby's Epic Yarn and many, many more. Or we guess you could just pocket your remaining cash. You've already bought all your gifts, so sit back and relax -- unless you forgot the batteries, in which case we imagine you're running out of the house now to ... yeah, you've already left. Okay then.
Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition outed by BBFC
It would seem Warner Bros. is looking to re-release Mortal Kombat, perhaps bundled with all of the DLC characters released. At least, that's what we gleaned from a recent rating that popped up on the BBFC, the British Board of Film Classifications. They also rate video games. February 17 is the listed launch date for this potential re-release. But right now, outside of the date and our own speculation, there isn't much else to go on. We expect that will change soon enough.
New Mortal Kombat movie coming from MK Legacy director
Did you like Kevin Tancharoen's Mortal Kombat: Legacy web series? New Line Cinema evidently did, as it's hired Tancharoen to direct a new film based on the bloody franchise. So, to sum up, that one self-produced "Rebirth" short got Tancharoen a job first as a web series director, and now on a feature film. The movie will reportedly feature a more "realistic" version of the Mortal Kombat characters, like the dead ninja who controls fire and the monk with the razor-sharp hat. "The new game and the online shorts have prompted us to consider a reboot of a brand we hadn't been actively thinking about," New Line president Toby Emmerich told the LA Times. So, the rebooted game series gave him the idea to reboot the film series. The fate of this new film isn't entirely assured, however. The film rights to the series are still in question, following ongoing lawsuits between Warner and Lawrence Kasanoff, a producer on the previous MK movies. Not even Shao Kahn himself can defeat the lawyers of Earthrealm.
The Tommy Wi-Show is exactly what we expected and we don't know if that's good
This could just be us, but the rickety, MST3K-inspired spaceship that Tommy Wiseau claims is not his house in the above video looks exactly like the environment he would have grown up in. And the alien? Obviously his voice coach. This isn't a sequel to The Room -- this is Wiseau's new video-game webseries, The Tommy Wi-Show, and he kicks it off (literally) by playing Mortal Kombat. "Playing" is a loose term here, but he does manage to beat Kung Lao with Sub-Zero, after getting stuck in the PlayStation home screen in the first minute, and before losing to Sonya Blade, mumbling racist, sexist and indistinguishable insults the entire time. This could also just be us, but we half-expected the alien to command Wiseau to do a barrel roll during his play time, and we half-expected Wiseau would try.
Mortal Kombat's latest patch solves desynchronization errors, makes balance changes
As we've discussed before, fighting games make use of a language unique to the genre: Terms like "OTG" and "yomi" are common across the pantheon of games that populate the modern fighting scene. Within that universal language, however, are several distinct and established dialects, each centered around a different title or series. For instance, in Mortal Kombat's vernacular, there is no word more offensive or infuriating than "desynchronization." The desynchronization error, a plague upon both systems that was eventually quarantined to Xbox Live, caused matches to disconnect after selecting specific DLC costumes, alternate costumes, and default costumes. Thankfully though, the latest patch pushed by NetherRealm Studios seems to have finally cured the pandemic: we tested Scorpion's Klassic Kostume DLC and encountered zero errors, which is a massive improvement over the one-hundred percent guaranteed desynch rate associated with the costume previously. The patch also provides some desperately needed mechanical tweaks and balancing adjustments, and while many of those changes are undocumented, you can peep a list of the important stuff after the break. Fight!
Hit Box stickless fight stick makes for malicious Mortal Kombat mayhem
Run of the mill controllers work just fine for hanging out with a group of scrubs friends and frantically beating the hell out of each other, but serious, tournament-ready fighters have to either invest the coin in a well constructed stick, or build one themselves. If your fighter of choice is Mortal Kombat, however, Hit Box says you're better off with no stick at all. As we discovered last year, Hit Box manufactures custom controllers for fighting game enthusiasts which eschew traditional joysticks for more buttons. Thanks to Mortal Kombat's relatively simplistic input philosophy (all directions, no circle movements), the Hit Box is capable of some blindingly fast and accurate maneuvers. Be sure to teleport past the break for a second video showcasing the Hit Box's capabilities as a destroyer of worlds.
Mortal Kombat sells 'close to' 3 million worldwide, has paid for itself
When Midway bit the bullet and liquidated all of its assets during the first half of last year, the future of one of gaming's most ubiquitous and legendary franchises, Mortal Kombat, was completely up in the air. People didn't know whether or not MK's new baby-daddy at Warner Bros. Interactive would continue the series' proud tradition of increasingly ludicrous violence, or if it would continue the stagnating series period. Fast-forward a bit, and thankfully it seems to have worked out for history's favorite murderers, with Warner's first entry in the franchise garnering critical acclaim and millions of dollars. According to WB Interactive President Martin Tremblay, Mortal Kombat has already paid for all of the assets acquired from Midway by selling "close to" 3 million units worldwide. To put that number in perspective, as of June 30, 2011 Super Street Fighter 4 has sold 1.6 million units, and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has sold 2 million, both of which have been on the market for a significantly longer amount of time. Considering the sorry state of affairs that Mortal Kombat was left in as little as two years ago, we can't help but be a little surprised by the modern-day, gore-soaked Cinderella story this saga has become.
