'These are the words of Rayden... For nine generations the Mortal Kombat tournament was ruled by the Outworld's finest Warrior, Prince Goro. It was agreed that if the Outworld could claim victory in 10 consecutive tournaments, it would then rule the Earth.' Hang on, let's get this straight... if the Outworld wins 10 tournaments, they can invade? Just whose stupid idea was that? Who exactly 'agreed' to this obviously fair contract, eh? It's a fair bet that they were completely plastered at the time.. 'Ere.. you're my best mate, you are.. .. tell you what, buy us another pint, and you can invade Earth anytime. Hang on, make it fair.. make it if you win ten martial arts tournaments. Mine's a lager.' And so, Earth is doomed to occupation by the Outworld thanks to the stupidity of one extremely boozed-up wiseman.



And so begins Mortal Kombat Trilogy from the now defunct Midway games. Well, maybe that's not the plot word for word, but the end result is the same - an evil emperor from another world has invaded Earth, decimating the population and sending out his army to hunt down the survivors. And playing as one of the surviving Earth warriors, an Outworld warrior it's up to you to vanquish your opponents and give Shao Kahn the kicking he so richly deserves. This entails taking on a number of other fighters in a series of one-on-one bouts - remembering to be as violent as possible. In fact, that's pretty much what you had to do in the previous games - Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, all of which except the latter put in an appearance on the PC.. Mortal Kombat Trilogy features all of the fighters and most of the locations from the previous games, along with some new moves and a few extra characters, along an economy sized bucket of giblets.



There are a total of thirty-three raging psychopaths to choose from, each with their own special moves. Sub-Zero, a costumed ninja, favours freezing his opponents and knocking them off their feet with a high-speed slide. Sheeva on the other hand has a nice line on stomping up and down on her opponent. Each character has a unique set of moves and requires you to use a different attack strategy if you want to avoid being repeatedly smacked in the gob by a giant four-armed monster. All the action in Mortal Kombat Trilogy is viewed from a 2D side on perspective, as in the original Street Fighter 2. In fact this may sound a bit dated when most new beat-em-ups including Mortal Kombat 4 are 3D, but MK Trilogy holds its own against other 2D offerings. Although given that some 2D fighters these days are now in HD, the graphics are noticable a bit poorer than some.




Another quite infamous aspect of MK Trilogy is the blood and gore factor. Hitting an opponent results in a stream of blood spurting out - and then there are the fatalities. When you beat an opponent, you'll be instructed to 'Finish Him!' (or her - the women are just as likely to get gibbed - no sexism here). You can then do a Fatality move which will result in your opponent being dismembered in some gruesome and typically exaggerated way. Or if you're fast with your fingers you can pull off a Brutality in which your opponent is comboed to death. Plus there's a little comic relief in the form of Animalities, Babalities and Friendships, in which your fighter deals with your opponent in a slightly bizarre way. But personally, I find the amount of flying body parts a little disturbing. Not because of the general gore - I like gratuitous violence as much as the next reviewer. No, my gripe is that when you off an opponent there seems to be a disproportionately large and anatomically incorrect number of body parts on the screen. It's not unusual to pull off a fatality and find that you end up with three skulls, four rib cages and about ten leg bones on screen - what's that all about? I suspect that one or more of the programming team may have skived biology class at high school - educational standards aren't what they used to be.




The characters are all digitised - meaning that real martial arts actors were filmed doing their kung-fu thing, and then placed into the game. The result is that the characters are very well animated - though presumably the actors weren't eviscerated just to get the fatality scenes. Or were they? The backgrounds are equally impressive too with a myriad of locations including an acid pool (into which your opponents can be thrown), a bank, a bridge, a chamber of souls and others. And the sound and music are excellent, with great background and music and enthusiastic words from Shao Kahn whenever you give your opponent a good smacking.



But how does it play? Like a dream. A dream without instructions in fact, since GT have neglected to list all the moves in the manual, but a dream nonetheless. It's very addictive, with dozens of moves and characters to master - which could well take you several lifetimes. On top of that, it's a lot of fun to play, and there's a multiplayer mode with network play - although for a change two players can play on the same PC - something other games manufacturers could do with taking note of. If you've not played the MK games, you don't know what you're missing. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is well worth picking up, especially given that it  can be had for a snip from Amazon. Although I guess it didn't sell all that well on its original release, since none of the last four 3D Mortal Kombat games have made it to the PC. Still, as the series' last 2D entry, it's definitely worth it.

(Review written by me, originally posted on the now defunct Games Domain)