The Hall of Shame 11.06.08: Mortal Kombat Special Forces

Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 11.06.2008

Oh it's special all right. Click here if you want to git some suka.

A couple weeks from now Midway will release the latest Mortal Kombat fighting game where they'll crossover against various characters from the DC universe. This game is going to be Teen rated, a departure from the series that has always been known for it's high level of violence that fans have come to love. With the Fatalities not being as fatal as before, many fans are criticizing against Midway for doing this. Well, at least it's impossible for Midway to make this the worst MK game in history, considering they already accomplished that eight years ago.

That is one butt-ugly Jax.

Back in 1997 Midway released an action-adventure game of sorts called MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero, which focused on the character's background story before the first MK tournament. It wasn't a very good game, but it did sell well, so Midway decided to try once again with MK Special Forces, this time focusing on Jax. Once again it would take place before the first MK tournament as Jax tried to hunt down his nemesis Kano before he gets the eye of shitian. Now, I'm not into the MK series, but was Jax really popular enough to have his own spin-off game compared to the other cast members of MK? You'd think Liu Kang would've been one of the first to get a separate game considering the major role he plays in the games and being around since the very beginning, but he didn't get one until 2005 with MK: Shaolin Monks. Also, of all the names to make up for whatever the hell Kano is after, they come up with SHITian? Seriously? Why not call it the "Eye of Fuckobia" while you're at it?

Before this game even begins, you get this opening sequence which made me think that I was watching a crappy version of Cowboy Bebop. Take a look:



Doesn't that intro just scream Mortal Kombat?

Another problem with this game is the way the story gets told. The first being that this is supposed to take place before MK1, but Jax has metal arms which he didn't get until MK3. The good news is that's the only plothole this game has. The bad news is the reason being that there's not much of a story to begin with, and honestly, do you REALLY care about Jax's backstory with Kano? Most cutscenes in the game have Jax talking to someone called Gemini and all you see is text with bad voiceovers. Compared to how MK Myth: Sub-Zero had FMV cutscenes, it's a big step backwards. Jax's voice in particular is dreadful because he sounds like he's trying to channel the spirit of Shaft or some kind of stupid 70's TV cop. Once you get to the scenes where the characters are actually face to face, you see just how awful the graphics are for this game. It's already a catastrophe for a PlayStation game released in 2000, but I don't even think this game looks as good as games from PlayStation's early days. The characters look horrible and the environments are so boring to look at they cause me to fall asleep. The music is just as bland as the environments, and you'll want to mute the game just so you don't have to hear Jax's witty retorts like "Want some fries with that whoop-ass?"

The action consists of using combo moves and special attacks. Special attacks use up your special meter and can only be replenished by using combos with such ridiculous names like "Git Some Suka." Seems like a decent system until you realize that all you have to do is keep mashing on the same two buttons, because it's usually enough to kill all the enemies you come across. At least the ones that don't block your attacks 80% of the time. Later you fight enemies that use guns, and this adds to the frustration because they usually start firing where you can't see them. Occasionally you'll switch to a gun to take out enemies but doesn't change much of the gameplay, unless you decide to fire in the first person view. But all that does is worsen your view because instead of getting the view at full screen it's regulated to a small box, so the option is entirely pointless.

Tonight on FPS theater: "Your ass getting pwned"

When you're not fighting the same enemies over and over again, you'll be on the hunt for keys, because that's the only way you can progress in this game. In fact you'll actually be searching the entire level for keys and other such items more often then actually fighting. Sounds like fun doesn't it? Really represents what Mortal Kombat is all about right?

So why did this game wind up being such an abomination? Because one of the main men behind Mortal Kombat, John Tobias, left the company. There weren't any specific reasons as to why he left, but it is believed that Tobias (along with other members of Midway) left because he didn't like the direction the franchise was going since Mortal Kombat 3, when the games started to take a downturn in quality. So halfway during the making of Special Forces, Tobias left the company and Midway made several changes to the game because of it. One of them being not including Sonya in the game, who from what I've seen has a bigger rivalry with Kano. That was one of the main plots of the first live-action movie, so having Sonya nowhere to be found and instead getting only Jax makes no sense. It's like all the changes Midway made to the game did nothing but make it suck more and more, as if they were trying to spite Tobias for deciding to leave the company. On that theory, I think that explains why Tobias never came back to Midway to work on the Mortal Kombat games, although he is illustrating a pack-in comic that comes with MK vs. DC.

Midway knew it had a crappy game on it's hands, but instead of canceling it, they released it for the PlayStation at the bargain bin price of $19.99. The game was hated by nearly everyone and was one of the many atrocities coming from the franchise. Eventually Midway realized how bad Mortal Kombat was getting and decided to hold off on doing anything new for a couple years before releasing Deadly Alliance, which received a positive enough response to keep the franchise going.

Let's just hope them sukas don't make another pointless adventure game again.