The long-awaited Mortal Kombat reboot delivers on all fronts and then some, the 360 controller is a problem though.
The game is filled with content, there's the challenge tower with 300 challenges, and some are...well, challenging to say the least, but you can dish out coins to skip the ones you find too frustrating. There's the classic ladder mode, VS. and online, but the story mode is where it's at, it's actually really good and surprisingly lengthy, and it's clear they spent a lot of effort into it. Be aware however that it is pretty hard, not only do you have to fight against two enemies tag teaming on you, or 3 enemies in a row, without getting your health replenished, but Shao Kahn is one of the cheapest bosses in the history of fighting games, no surprise really, he's always been cheap. However, the cheapness canbe exploited, and after reading so much complaining about how unbelievably hard the final fight is, it's not THAT difficult if you exploit his patterns. The first time you face him, you use Liu Kang, Kahn spends a lot of the time taunting you, which gives you the opportunity to land free hits, I just spammed the bicycle kick, and there you go. The final time you fight him is harder, in that he doesn't taunt you as much, and fight more seriously. Strangely enough, I defeated him faster this time than the first fight. Use the teleport when he brings out the spear or the hammer, and then back, forward A his ass over and over again, yeah, it's cheap, but it gets results. The only problem I have with the story mode, I guess aside from some cheap fights, is that you cannot skip the cutscenes, oh, and also there's no subtitle option, that would've been appreciated.
Fatalities are back in full form, and they are better than ever, really bloody and gory, and not least creative. As usual you collect coins to unlock stuff, like extra fatalities, artwork, costumes and whatnot. Luckily there's only one type of coin here, not like in Deadly Alliance where there were different types of coins, and when you were looking to collect a certain type, you would get another, glad they opted to stick with one type in all here. Easier and quicker to unlock the extra goodness this way. If I have one problem with the game, or rather, not a problem with the game itself, but a problem with the 360 controller, it's not exactly ideal for fighting games, certainly not Mortal Kombat, I know some games have moves where you press down, diagonal down direction and right/left, that's when an analog controller comes in handy, here there's no diagonal button commands, at least not that I've discovered, it's all straight directions, which means a good D-pad would've been more than appreciated. Also, the PS3 version has that, and Kratos and an exclusive stage, why couldn't the 360 version have some exclusives? Like an exclusive Mortal Kombat: Legacy episode or something along the lines of that. But practice with the controller and you'll eventually get the hang of it.
This Mortal Kombat reboot succeeds in every way, and brings the franchise back in a big way, it's one of the best fighting games I've ever played, if not THE best. Granted, I am an MK fan, and this was everything I hoped it would be and then some.