Just a single article this week, but this one's gigantic - an eight page review of the Mortal Kombat series, encompassing nine main fighting games, three spinoffs, several movies, comics and TV shows, and numerous version comparisons as you'd expect from HG101. While often looked down upon by more serious fighting game fans, Mortal Kombat has always been great for a goofy bit of fun, and the fact that such cartoonishness was ever controversial heralds back to the quainter times of the Clinton administration.
Our Spotlight Article highlights the many, many games that Jackie Chan has taken a part in over the years, including but not limited to, the classic beat-em-up Kung Fu Master (which originally tied in with the flick Spartan X in Japan), sidescroller NES/TG-16 title Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu, the silly digitized fighting games The Kung Fu Master and Fists of Fire, and the PSOne action game Stuntmaster. And the 500 Word Indies feature, which is going to be update every Friday going forward, is Perspective, a free experimental puzzle platformer by students at DigiPen.
That was an amazing article, I read the whole thing in one sitting and it took well over an hour. It was awesome. I know some people might complain because this site mostly focuses on obscure/underground/'hardcore' games but I think it's really awesome to get the HG101 perspective on a series as well known as MK. There is only a couple things I would've liked to have seen added to it... since all the related media was covered -- like the comic books -- why not mention the novels? The one I read is HORRIBLE, though it has a cool-as-shit painting of the MK characters, and it rivals Alex Ross's stuff on the inside cover. The novel itself is boring bullshit abou the outworld and how scary and dark it is, and stupid tired kung-fu cliches. Also, I think the most interesting thing -- by far -- about the MK games is the mysteries surrounding them, which the article touches on a bit, but it would've been cool if some of the glitches and general weirdness in the games was talked about a bit more depth. Also, how about comparing the fatalities for the SNES version of the originall game, or the Genesis un-ABACABB version versus the blood code version. Finally, I was surprised that the MK gang's cameo appearances weren't mentioned, like Sub-Zero and Scorpion being in NBA Jam. ANYWAY, brilliant article, those little things aside!
ReplyDeleteAlso, a quick question, is there going to be a Metal Gear article? Because all those interviews and your general love/respect for Hideo seemed to suggest to me that you would be doing an MG spotlight article but I didn't know. Or is this a secret? :)
great article on mk. you missed some minor details like fergality and mk2 for the psx but overall you covered every section of the franchise.
ReplyDeleteReally cool Article!
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