TRMK - The Realm of Mortal Kombat - Since 1996, The Definitive Source for All Things Mortal Kombat

Not only is today is the first day of PAX Prime 2010, but it's also the first day the general gaming public will get their hands on Mortal Kombat (2011). We're not expecting any new major changes to the game build since GamesCom Germany or the GameStop Manager Meeting. We are willing to be surprised though. To kick off the conference, WB Games sent along four new "Super High Definition" screenshots of the game which you can see below:

 
 

Sadly we couldn't make PAX, although we really wanted to, but we'd love to hear fan's feedback on the game if you get a chance to play it. Send us with your reviews, and we'll publish the best reviews in our recap of the show.

After E3 2010 a friend of ours donated a great item to us for a contest. Our friend is Dan Amrich, who is now Activision's Social Media Manager OneOfSwords, sent us his personal E3 2010 Mortal Kombat shirt to giveaway. We then decided to bundle it with some other Mortal Kombat Games and T-Shirts that we had sitting around the office. Here is a picture of all that is included:




4 MK Shirts (MK9, 2 MKvsDC, MKA), 5 MK Games, EGM "Komeback Issue" plus various Midway Swag


We've been waiting for a good time to do a giveaway, and now with the various video game industry events going on we thought it would be a good time. But since it's a pretty awesome prize package, we wanted to make you fans to have to do a little bit of work to win.

What we want you all to do is just a little creative writing. Simply describe to us, in at least 50 words:

How you would envision Goro as a character in the proposed Mortal Kombat Rebirth alternate reality?

E-mail your entry along with your name, address and TRMK forum username to: goro_contest@trmk.org. Feel free to send along anything like pictures or drawings to help explain your idea, but are not required.

All entries are due by Mortal Monday, September 13th 2010. Which is the 17th anniversary of the release of Mortal Kombat 1 for home consoles way back in 1993! We'll pick the best and then announce the winner later that week, and we may also post up the other best ideas that were submitted to us. Right now there is also no second or third place, but we're considering that option depending on the entry quality we get.

Best of luck everyone!

Last night was the big hands-on event at the GameStop Manager's Conference. Hundreds of GameStop mangers got their hands on Mortal Kombat (2011). As Ed Boon said on Twitter, it was "panda-f***ing-monium!!" last night with a overly positive response from all who attended. We've since heard back from some friends who got to play the game for the first time. Below are some impressions and information from them:

Trash sent along a great breakdown of how the game played and handled:

The game plays soooo smooth. And its very fast, almost seemed too fast at first. Its like the RUN button is always on. It's not clunky like MK vs DC was. I asked Ed if Capcom made it, I don't think he liked that comment. LOL

Combos just seem to flow out so naturally, the possiblities for them seem endless. I won my match by using a simple standing double punch into a fireball juggle, then shadow kick. (that seems like a good 40%) Ed said the combo damage will be toned down drastically in the next build.

Seems you can use your breaker to snap out of Scorpion's spear before you are combo'd/hit. Reptile does more damage while invisible. Also saw, when Sektor vs Sektor, the homing missles cancel each other out if done by both players at the same time.

Also saw a Kung Lao player throw his hat, teleport kick opponent into oncoming hat, teleport again, into a 3 hit combo, finished off by a hat throw juggle! That got applause from the crowd.

Another friend JRF gave us an overview of all the characters that he played as during the night:

Scorpion – His spear comes out very fast, and has a popup move with his blade and you can Teleport or Spear afterword. His old Mortal Kombat 2 Leg Take Down is really impressive, and can be linked at the end of a kombo. His Hellfire works as a nice stun move still.

Reptile – His slowball is great for an easy juggle setup, and almost seems to wait for you to use a few juggles. His fastball is quick and useful. He has a quick dash move that goes past you and elbows you on the other side like in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. His fast dash has really cool animation, where he almost phases out of view… really cool scifi looking. He also has the acid spit which is quick, and a forward quick dash that hits you from the front. I enjoyed playing as him.

Kung Lao – He seems more of a technical player. His moves are quick, and attacks different points in your body to keep you on your toes if you need to block high or low. His teleport has cool animation with wind swirling around. You can choose to just teleport or come out of it with a 2 legged jumping kick to push people back. His straight hat throw can be guided. He also has a hat throw where he throws it at the ground and it bounces up, hitting the person in mid air or when theyre walking up. This can be used in many ways, is a really cool move.

Mileena – She seems like another technical player. Her low game is quick, and she can go high and low to keep you guessing, and just roll under you quick or do her dropping kick. She was my favorite to play as tonight.

Sub-Zero - Didn't play as him, but his winning stance is kinda neat. The screen zooms out as he faces it, and shoots ice at it…you see ice crystals start to form around the screen.

Ed Boon also dropped a hint regarding a certain mysterious red ninja's presence in the game:

Ed was speaking about balancing characters, and how it’s a hard process. I said “It must be hard balancing Ermac because of his telekinesis moves?" Ed then smiled and said his moves are really cool.

Also because it's a Gamestop event, we got a bit of word on the pre-order bonuses and possible console exclusive content. I assume we'll get more official details on this as release date approaches.

The pre-order bonus for Gamestop will be a DLC code for an additional stage and a tattoo sticker sheet of some kind. Rumblings of the PS3 version getting an exclusive stage made for 3D.

Before anyone gets up in arms about this, it's likely just a way to quickly unlock a stage that everyone will have access to and not something non-preorder fans would have to buy on their own.

Here is some photos and gameplay videos taken at the event. There is likely even more to come, so watch YouTube, as a lot of people were filming and taking photos at the event. Sadly one of our friends had his camera stolen at the event by a fellow GameStop employee, and thusly couldn't get any pictures for us. Luckily JRF did manage to get a few photos, including Ed Boon playing the game on the big stage screen. He also managed to get two gameplay videos which we tossed up on the TRMK YouTube account and embedded below.

  




Check back later today as we announce our contest in which you can win a great prize package which includes the super rare E3 2010 Fatality Shirt.

IGN PS3 has released not only a new interview with Ed Boon today, but also an awesome new teaser trailer for Mortal Kombat (2011). This new "Shadows" trailer features the shadowy silhouettes of various fighters battling it out. The trailer features the song Another Way To Die by the Chicago based band Disturbed from their newly released album Asylum. Check it out:



Also released earlier today is a sequel to the first Mortal Kombat Paperalities video by Eric Powerup. It's a must watch along with his very retrospective Mortal Kombat Observations Part 2. We've included the Mortal Kombat II Paperalities Below:



Thanks to friend and TRMK forum member PEBKAC for the tip!

Update 9/1 Added an better format courtesy of MK Kommunity Manager Rigo Cortes

This week the Gamestop 2010 Manager's Meeting is in happening in San Antonio, Texas. The first day of the event was today and was mostly a day full of demos, including a Mortal Kombat (2011) Fatality Montage by MK Producer Hector Sanchez. Tomorrow the show will open for hands-on play of many games at the event, including the new Mortal Kombat. As we mentioned earlier in the month, Warner Bros. has created some custom Mortal Kombat cabinet kiosks for the event. One of our many kontributors at the event passed along some photos of the massive stage area along with the new cabinets. Along with the stage is an area where you can put your head thru a hole for a photo as either Mileena performing a fatality or Johnny Cage's torso being held up by Sub-Zero. Pretty funny.


  


  


We are hoping that these cabinets may eventually roll out to Gamestop Stores nationwide, or be just be used at other upcoming gaming events like this weekend's PAX Prime in Seattle. Either way they look very neat, and may become collectors items if they ever fall into the public's hands.

Also this stage will be host to a giant Mortal Kombat tournament tomorrow from 6-9pm CST. There seems to be various raffles and prizes being given away as well like t-shirts, headbands, etc. Hopefully some lucky winners get to take the cabinets home as well! We will have a few friends at the show tomorrow and hope to be posting their detailed hands-on impressions of the game for everyone tomorrow.

Last week representatives from NetherRealm Studios went to GamesCom in Germany and X'10 in Canada. In addition to the two characters revealed, some additional info was revealed in various interviews that have since been posted over the past week. We embedded the interview videos below, but here's a recap of what we learned so far this week.

With regard to characters, the bosses will likely locked at the start of the game. On the other hand, the majority of non boss characters will be unlocked and playable at the start of the game. I'm sure they'll hide a special character or two for us as well to find, but we will likely not know anything about them. We were also told that the Story Mode will be almost two times longer than Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe.

As far as online goes, big improvements are on the way according to Kotaku's interview with Ed Boon. The game's online mode will be able to rebalanced after release on the fly via various hooks implemented into the game. This is huge because previous games were seldom patched due to various reasons beyond the team's controls. Now they'll be able to tweak the game to make sure it's nice and balanced for those playing online. Thusly it should hopefully find a home as a featured game at upcoming EVO tournaments. Ed also said there is a possibility that they make make a PC version of the game.

Another common question was the DLC plans for Mortal Kombat. The team is looking to not only allow downloadable characters, but also stages and maybe even Fatalities. This is a bold move to have so much available. It would be an awesome way for them to expand the game beyond just making people buy another game like Super Street Fighter IV did. But anytime DLC discussion takes place, some fans get upset by thinking they are paying for things already included in the game. This is not the case here, as they are looking for ways to EXPAND the game after release. Thankfully an anonymous producer at NetherRealm Studios wrote a blog defending and clarifying their DLC plans. The article is a great look into what they are trying to achieve in this next game with regards to DLC and is a must read. Here's an excerpt:

What we are trying some strategies on, and this is what Ed alluded to in his article, is a method that once we start working on DLC, we can get it in the hands of all players, whether they purchased the DLC or not. We are still working out if this is possible, but in an ideal world, you'd be able to fight against a DLC character even if you have not purchased it...and that somehow requires us to get the content onto your machine. We're going through a lot of negotiations to see if we can make this happen...it may not be possible, but we are certainly trying to do something we think would be a very cool way to make DLC "seamless" in terms of both those who chose to purchase any new content and those who would prefer not to.

Kotaku also had an additional discussion with Ed Boon, in which they talk about the future of NetherRealm studios. Our favorite game The Grid was mentioned to be picking up steam before the Midway collapse of 2009. Also a sequel to the beloved Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is also mentioned as a possibility to see a release eventually.


Ed talks with with Germany's MK Universe at GamesCom.


GameSpot interviews Ed Boon at GamesCom


Producer Hans Lo sat down with G4TV at GamesCom

Xbox 360 Games - E3 2011 - Mortal Kombat

Executive Producer Shaun Himmerick talked with Console Creatures at X'10 in Canada

Today NetherRealm Studios unveiled two new characters and stages for Mortal Kombat (2011) at Gamescom 2010 in Germany. The two new characters are Kitana and Cyrax, who look great as they are very recongizable yet also have some new distinct stylings. Along with the new Kombatants, they unveiled updated versions of the Jade's Desert and the Belltower stages from Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Word is that the sand in Jade's Desert swirls around you in a very amazing way. NetherRealm Studios was kind enough to send along a few screenshots to show our readers as well, enjoy!

 
 
 

Be sure to click on the thumbnails above for the "ULTRA HD" (7680 × 4320) versions of the screenshots, which is also perfect for desktop wallpapers of all shapes and sizes!

Update 2:20pm CST: IGN has a great writeup on the game from GamesCom. Included in that write up is a description of Cyrax's fatalities.

Johnny Cage's fatality is a throwback to the original Mortal Kombat where he'll uppercut the loser's head clean off, and then rip the torso right off the waist. Or robot Cyrax takes his saw blades and sheers the opponent's body into five pieces that stay together, finishing him up with a body-shattering kick.