Mortal Kombat

Yesterday for the snip of 800MSP I downloaded the arcade versions of the first three Mortal Kombat games. I used to love these back in ta day (home versions anyway) so I thought I'd relive some classic memories and play some Mortal Kombat.

Firstly, yes I know there's a newer one, yes I've played it and although I didn't hate it, I can't say I particularly liked it. Nowhere near enough to actually part with cash for the thing. If  it turns up in a 2 for £20 with Rise of Nightmares, I'll pick them up, but not for £30/40 thanks.

But the old ones? I thought yeah, lets go!

I started off with Mortal Kombat, looks dated yes, it's old, no doubt me and my grey mop also look a fair bit more... classic then I did in 1992. Nobody's judging me on it (to my face) so I'm not going to pick on that, I started ploughing through the single player mode, as I doubt the wife would fancy a bit of this game. It was still fun, still played mostly ok, felt a little jerky and maybe not the quickest, but good! I remembered (some of) the moves, even Scorpions fatality (10g for that too), struggled through the endurance rounds and then I got to Goro. The bastard.

Suddenly, I was being beaten like Arsenal on a Saturday. Nothing I tried was working and this 4 armed motherlover was beating the living shit out of me (well Scorpion anyway). So I tried again, same result and again, you know where this is going. Eventually I scraped 2 rounds against him and moved on, but I was shocked at suddenly how hard it had got.

Next was Shang Tsung and once again, for an old bloke, he was damn tough. He spent 70% of his time as Rayden and the rest as Goro which really didn't help, but once again repeated beatings started. Then in a lapse of AI judgement he decided Johnny Cage was the way forward so I kicked his behind quite easily (Cage being the worst choice.. ever) and then to my astonishment he went Sonya Blade / Cage the next time and boom he was down and out.

Scarred from the horrible difficulty of it, I thought I'd give 3 a blast (well it's 'Ultimate' MK3 which apparently is quite a minor upgrade) I started, waltzed through the first few in a very similar style, still holding my determination to play as Scorpion, I got beat the odd time on the way up and thengot to Montaro. I could easily write the bit about Goro again here, but this guy had a horses arse too. Bit he was overcome!

Then came the experience of the night, Shao Kahn. Seemingly impossible to beat in open combat. The others were frustrating yes, but this took the piss. I must have played this guy for 30 mins before resorting to such cheap tactics as dodge and uppercut, repeat to eventually beat the fecker. I'm honestly shocked the TV hasn't got a hole in it the perfect shape of a flung XBOX controller and thankfully nobody else was around to hear my language!

This is my point, they started out fun, but became annoying, too annoying. I've still got MK2 to play, but there's no doubt in my mind that'll be very hard and frustrate me too. I never remember the games being this hard, although these are the arcade versions not home and while I don't think I'm great at them, I'm far from rubbish. Apparently the new one is the same at the end as well, I like a challenge but this is bull to be fair!

I will play it, I paid for it after all, but I can't say I'm overly looking forward to it.