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MK4 Shots and Video!

Gamers came, saw, played. So did we. Here's our hands-on report.

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As part of Midway's Mortal Kombat 4 Road Tour, the game was put on display at Golfland USA in Sunnyvale, Calif. GameSpot News was on hand to put MK4 to the test.

The graphics have taken a step into the third dimension with visually stunning 3-D polygon graphics. The characters themselves are very smooth and are not the typical boxy polygons (as in Virtua Fighter 2 and Tekken 3). The backgrounds are also 3-D and look pretty good.

The game is only about 70 percent complete and currently features nine playable characters. Six boxes on the character select screen literally have question marks on them right now; later they'll be filled in for a total of 15 characters. There's no telling how many hidden characters will be in the game.

Of the nine playable characters, six are returning characters from previous Mortal Kombat games: Raiden, Sub-Zero, Sonya, Scorpion, Liu Kang, and Noob Siabot.

The three new characters are Fujin, a ponytailed combatant that features a levitation move; Shinnok, rumored to be the boss of the game; and Quan Chi, the character whose face adorns the side of the machine. The game plays nearly identically to Mortal Kombat 3 at this point in development, with only one major difference: Each character has his own weapon and can pull it out anytime during the match. Some of the weapons are swords, axes, and even a crossbow. The weapons can easily be knocked out of an opponent's hand and picked up by either fighter.

In addition to gameplay changes, fighters now have three grab moves - one the traditional throw, the second a graphic limb break, and the last is a sort of auto four-hit combo.

No fatalities were in the game yet, although information obtained by EGM2 reporter Mark Hain shows that Sub-Zero will have his original Spine Ripper fatality and Scorpion will have his Breathe of Fire fatality.

The consensus of the crowd on hand for the event was that the game was OK, but that it seemed to play a little too close to the previous Mortal Kombat 3.

Check the official MK4 site for remaining Road Tour stops.

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