(even if you aren't vegan)
User:Patrick/reviews/1
Ok guys, here's my first review, so give me a break. If you saw the title on the main page, then you know what I'll review. If you didn't see, then I'm going to review a plug-in-and-play port of Mortal Kombat 1.
What I'm going to say first about this is the design. Here's the picture:
As you can see, it looks pretty average for a P.I.A.P. game (I think). It has a start/pause button, a red light to tell you that it's on, a non-existant reset button, an on/off switch, an 8-way d-pad which I'll get to later, and the attack/block buttons which look like the arcade. The MK Dragon was drawn a little weird, though. But that's fine.
Next, the actual game.
What can I say? It plays pretty close to the arcade version (I guess, I haven't played the arcade version). The controls are very responsive (sometimes because of the 8-way d-pad), but I find that Liu Kang's Flying Kick (Forward, Forward, High Kick) is sometimes unresponsive. So, it plays good.
The graphics are close to the original, too. The lifebars are a little different, but I don't care. There isn't animation in any stages that had them in the original (The Pit has clouds that stay in place), but I don't care. The animation on the fighters are pretty good. Some weird thing I found is when I'm battling Shang Tsung, Shang slowly sinks into the ground in his fighting stance. When Reptile appears before you fight Shang, you can see it better. I don't really care if he sinks into the ground, though.
The sounds are not just close to the original, but are taken directly from the arcade game. However, they don't have all sounds from the arcade, just most of the sounds. When you uppercut someone off the pit, they have Shang's flaming skull sounds instead of the original sound they're supposed to make. The music however, is not directly from the original game. It has MIDI-like music that sounds close to the original. It doesn't matter to me; as long as it's in the right place.
The only flaw about this is the d-pad; as I've said, It's 8-way instead of the traditional 4-way, and while you're playing, It may be tough to pull off some special moves, like Sub-Zero's freeze (Down, Forward, Low Punch), you may hit down, down-forward, forward, low punch and it won't work. It's the same when trying to pull off a fatality, like Sub's spine rip (Forward, Down, Forward, High Punch).
So, in conclusion, it's a good game. Really good. It takes 4 AA batteries, but that doesn't really matter. As long as the game's good. I'll rate this a 9.5/10. It could've been perfect, if not for the damn d-pad. It's pretty old, and if you can find it in a pawn shop, it'll probably cost about $5.00. That's how much I got for mine, and I have to tell you, in the immortal words of Homestar Runner, it was the best 5 bucks I have ever spent. Also, here's a warning: I heard there's censored and uncensored versions, and thank GOD that I have the uncensored version. If you buy one, and you find that it's the censored version, RETURN IT TO THE STORE YOU BOUGHT IT FROM. So, anyway, it's a good game, alot better than the crappy SNES port. This has been Patrick with another freaking review show, signing out.
