Introduction:

Throughout the years we’ve been enjoying our 2D brawlers like mad cavemen on a lifetime ambition to pummel someone into oblivion.

Back in the NES days we had awful Karate games that barely even functioned, we had Double Dragon which I reviewed last time but I’m not finished on beat-em-up’s and the unfortunate reality is they are not all good.
Throughout the 90’s the world of gaming was dominated by two of these games, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. Both even went on to have movies of the games due to their soaring popularity.

Street Fighter developers Capcom knew when it was time to change the formula a little, Midway however are more well known for milking things bone dry than Capcom are which is why Midway are out of business and Capcom are just verging on it. So obviously I’m going to take the game that signals when the series needed a change, Capcom usually got this right, Midway got it so wrong with Mortal Kombat Gold.

Gameplay:

You played Mortal Kombat on Genesis or Super Nintendo? Well it’s the same thing just in a prettier package. You still have very minimal movesets, this game to my knowledge includes the whole four special moves and the Fatalities. So every character has seven moves including punch and kick? While Street Fighter has many combinations Mortal Kombat got left in the dark. Once you see the Fatalities what else is there. the entire seven moves will get old fast. Oh and note due to the Dreamcast’s nature the Fatalities are virtually impossible to use, too many buttons. It’s not a Genesis or Super Nintendo where the combinations would have a lower possibility to work out.

One positive is the characters available are vintage Mortal Kombat and have a great range of choice that isn’t too overwhelming and is just enough.

But when it comes down to it, all we care about is Scorpion and Sub-Zero.

Sound:

The sound is pretty awesome I’ll give it some credibility. You can sense the pain, you can sense the agony of each blow connecting, the music is very Mortal Kombat. It’s a shame that they have everything pretty much nailed apart from the bread and butter of any game, the gameplay.

Graphics:

It’s a beautiful game. It visually does surpass every other Mortal Kombat game at this time. But what do they say? “Gameplay is better than graphics” I stand by that I’m afraid and this game plays like a friend who has taken away the cash and hotels out of a Monopoly box, the foundation is there but the tools are all missing. You wouldn’t be missing a single thing if you simply bought an older Mortal Kombat game. Some may even argue that there are more things to do in the older ones. Classic Midway (I know I should probably blame Eurocom for the console port, but Midway made it for arcades first)

Looks pretty enough. It isn’t enough to save you from this beatdown MK.

Final Verdict:

What could have been a really awesome game was mightily held back by it being a simple cash in of an arcade, an arcade in itself which offered little enhancements to previous console versions that wasn’t worth spending the value of whatever inserting a coin was wherever you live, so imagine paying full price for this pile of crap, Okay it’s only crap if you have the other Mortal Kombat games, I do so it’s awful. I’ve played it a million times before. while games like Tekken, Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibre and to some extent even Smash Bros which totally evolved the genre, Mortal Kombat Gold feels like it’s a pretty package but it so wants to be stuck in 1993. While it’s foundations are okay. It plays okay, it looks great, it sounds great, IT DOES NOT MATTER. The game is still repetitive, it has seven moves maximum. It’s a rental at best, even then you’d be better off spending money elsewhere. Besides thankfully you can’t rent this trash anymore.

To be fair though. If you’ve never played Mortal Kombat maybe this game is a good place to start? If you have played other Mortal Kombat games it’s not worth any money at all.

Still have a hankering for time travel? More retro reviews here

And there’s plenty more other game reviews to read here