PlayStation Experience Hands On — Mortal Kombat X

Mortal Kombat X

While At The PlayStation Experience I Was Able To See Mortal Kombat X In A More Intimate Setting Than Just A Trailer. I Was Able Beat People To Death. Here’s What I Thought Of The Game

There was no new character for Mortal Kombat X announced nor was there an exclusive character just for the PS3/PS4 mentioned at the PlayStation Experience but the latest build was available for us all to play. This included all characters, levels, variations, and moves that have been seen up until the Quan Chi announcement. That was a hefty bit if I do say so but it was well under 50% of what it looks like we will be getting in the final version of Mortal Kombat X. None the less NetherRealm had a great set up for us to try the game and try we did. Here are my thoughts on Mortal Kombat X.

To say that Mortal Kombat X felt like Mortal Kombat 9 would to the game disservice at this stage. There are similarities; I mean NetherRealm wasn’t looking to rebuild the wheel but to expand on a great IP already. Improve they did in the most notable way too as everything was insanely pretty. Even those without the morbid brains like me couldn’t take their eyes away from the beauty of Mortal Kombat X in the visuals. In fact I heard many times “Wow!” instead of “You suck!” when X-ray moves were fired off during the gameplay. I won’t lie I was in awe as well with the detail added in here.

You won’t be able to pick up Mortal Kombat X and flow like you used to from the start though. I know this is going to upset many people out there but the controls, specifically the moves, did not carry over from previous MK titles. Some of them did but not all. I would peg this as being the issues/bonus of having the variations for each character. I gave Scorpion a good old try just to see how he translated over from Mortal Kombat 9 to Mortal Kombat X. Not all of his moves are in the same variation and this led to some of his greatest combos being balanced more even though there was the learning curve frustration now. Like I said, it can be seen as an issue as well as a bonus. I personally like needing to learn my new games so they actually feel new.

After Scorpion I gave one of the new characters, Ferra/Torr, a try just to see how the newbies for Mortal Kombat X would handle. Especially in this case as you are technically playing as two characters at the same time. I blame it on the lack of time and availability of the dev team to properly show Mortal Kombat X at the convention but outside of one throw move I was completely lost with the character. As long as this doesn’t translate over to the final product the inaccessibility of the new characters in Mortal Kombat X will be welcome for the same “new” feeling aforementioned. I just don’t want to have to keep going into the pause screen to have to keep referencing moves and kombos during live gameplay.

At the end of the day Mortal Kombat X really does feel next-gen so far but I was not able to confirm if the visuals were going to stay even across all platforms. Obviously we were only show the PS4 version of Mortal Kombat X but I wondered if it was going to have the same issues I ran into for Destiny. I have more faith in MKX in not falling to those issues though. NetherRealm looks to be on the right path and I can’t wait to see the rest of the roster and even the story mode for Mortal Kombat X. I also want to be able to play more than just two matches before I pass final judgment.