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

Watch out Paper Mario, you got some competition! YouTube user ashram6 posted up what has to be one of the most labor intensive Mortal Kombat fan videos ever. Ashram6 created entire Mortal Kombat 1 fatalities out of paper using stop motion animation. The effort was worth it, as this video looks great and is very funny.



We're also glad to hear more may be coming soon!

Do you live in New York City? Do you like music? Are you a fan of Mortal Kombat? Then you should go buy tickets for a live demonstration of Modal Kombat. Modal Kombat is the game of Mortal Kombat played live using musical instruments to control the characters. For the low price of $15 you can get tickets to the live event that is happening all summer long as part of the Brick Theatre's Game Play event that is celebrating video game performance art.

Below is a clip of the Modal Kombat presentation via YouTube:



We hope that you readers in New York City area go check it out! If you do, we've love to hear what you thought of it!

Earlier today GameSpot announced their Editor's Choice awards for E3 2010. The highly anticipated Mortal Kombat (2011) won in two out of the three categories it was nominated for!

The first award it won was Best Stage Demo. Their ranked all the games that got a live on stage demo to the GameSpot viewers, and Mortal Kombat came out on top of the rest. Here is a bit on what they said, be sure to visit the award page to see their full reasoning behind the win.

"This year, Ed Boon, the cocreator of Mortal Kombat, took to the stage with members of his NetherRealm Studios development team to present gameplay from the new Mortal Kombat to the general public for the first time. And if you're a fan of the older Mortal Kombat games, it just might have brought a tear to your eye."

The second award is the most important for the game we feel. Mortal Kombat (2011) won Best Fighting Game! When pitted against the highly anticipated Marvel vs Capcom 3, Mortal Kombat came out a clear winner according to the GameSpot Editors. Here is a bit on what they said, be sure to visit the award page to see their full reasoning behind the win.

"In a lot of ways, this Mortal Kombat represents a homecoming for the series with a return to a style of 2D gameplay (with some new features, like the Tag mode) that made those first Mortal Kombat games distinct from their competition. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the gore and unrepentant violence that made those games popular is in full effect as well. One look at Kung Lao's hat-into-saw-blade fatality will make even the most hardened Mortal Kombat fan wince or, at the very least, crack a fiendish grin."

Congrats to everyone at NetherRealm Studios for all the hard work you have done, the game is awesome and I know I speak for the fan community when we say the awards were well deserved!

Now here comes the important part for you readers out there. From now until Friday July 9th, you can vote for Reader's Choice Awards of E3 2010. Mortal Kombat was nominated for Best Stage Demo, Best Fighting Game and Game of the Show. So be sure to visit each respective voting page between now and Friday July 9th to cast your vote for Mortal Kombat in each category! Lets do the game creators proud and show them we love their game! As of press time Mortal Kombat is still leading the charts for the two awards it already won, but lets see if we can get all three awards under it's belt!

A few minutes ago Mortal Kombat (2011) Producer Hector Sanchez revealed that the official Mortal Kombat podcast, MKast (iTunes Link), will be returning soon. There hasn't been a MKast since December 2008 shortly after Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe was released to stores. But thankfully we'll be back to hearing semi-regular updates in podcast form from the NetherRealm Studios gang. Hector didn't say when the new MKast will be available, but I don't think we'll be waiting too long for it.

To celebrate MKast's return, Hector has put some extra Mortal Kombat E3 2010 T-Shirts on the line for a giveaway that will only happen if the Official Mortal Kombat Facebook page reaches 85,000 fans. Seeing the page is already at just under 84,000 that shouldn't be an impossible feat.

If we can get to 85,000 fans on our Facebook page, I'll raffle a couple of t-shirts off to followers on our next MKast #mkastkonfirmed - @hecterrific on Twitter

Here are a few pictures of the T-Shirt from TRMK friend Dan Boczarski.


Front


Back

The T-Shirts are very rare, and were given out to those who got to sit through the Mortal Kombat Theatre demonstration at E3 2010 last week. The demonstration was so popular that they ran out of T-Shirts before the show even ended. Since E3 has ended only a few have made it to eBay, and one even fetching a massive $102 price tag! Luckily Hector saved a few for the fans out there.

So don't waste any time, go Become a Fan of Mortal Kombat on Facebook and be sure to tell your friends as well. Also don't forget you can Become a Fan of TRMK on Facebook as well at http://www.facebook.com/trmk.org. We may have a similar contest brewing soon!

Update 12:00pm CST: We just need another 300 to Become a Fan of Mortal Kombat on Facebook. Come on readers, we can do it!

Update 6/29: The Mortal Kombat Facebook page has well over 88k fans now. Last week Hector updated his Twitter with a few more details about the contest:

Hey so re:shirts. waiting on a box of extras. once we hand some out to the team, i'll grab a few for y'all.

FYI: No Warner Bros. entity, including NetherRealm Studios and WB Games Inc., is a sponsor of or associated in any way with this giveaway.

So we just need to wait for MKast to get released for further details.

During E3, word was passed down from NetherRealm Studios' own Rigo Cortes that comedian George Lopez stopped by to film a bit for his talk show Lopez Tonight. Rigo said Mortal Kombat would get a mention, but we didn't know what episode it would air.

"George Lopez was in the theater. MK will get a mention on his show." - Rigo Cortes on Twitter

We just got word that George's segment on E3 will be airing during the Tuesday June 22nd 2010 episode that is also featuring actress Helen Mirren and comedian Cedric the Entertainer. Lopez Tonight airs at 10pm Central (11pm in every other timezone) on TBS. Check your local listings for an exact time and channel in your area. We should have a clip and more details of the episode once it airs Tuesday night.

Thanks to Jennifer for the heads up on this news!

Update 11:00pm CST: It appears the like the E3/MK segment was bumped. We will let you know if we get word of it airing later in the week.

Update 9:45pm CST: Rigo Cortes posted to Twitter: "Looks like Mortal Kombat will be on Lopez Tonight at 10Pm CST this evening on TBS." We'll have a video clip up tomorrow if it does in-fact air this time!

Final update: We finally got the HD video of the segment edited and uploaded to YouTube. Enjoy!

Gamespot just concluded a live stream of Mortal Kombat (2011) a few minutes ago over at their Live E3 Site. It was the internet debut of the much anticipated fighter. In it they sat down with MK Team members: Ed Boon, Paulo Garcia and John Edwards. The host interviewed Ed while Paulo and John demoed some gameplay.


John Edwards, Paulo Garcia & Ed Boon

One new previously unknown bit was revealed. There will be a system of respect points in the multiplayer mode of the game. It sounded that other players spectating your fight can reward you respect for doing well, etc. These points will work towards Achievements and Trophies along with other things, Ed said.

Gamespot now has the video available online you can also view our YouTube stream of the gameplay.



Our previous video of the Gameplay Only:



Here are some nice screenshots we captured as well:



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After the full reveal at E3, excitement for Mortal Kombat (2011) has been spreading all across the internet. From major media sites to reactions on Twitter, there is a definite buzz in the air around the game. Some of today's biggest excitement for those of us not at the show came with the leaking of a shaky cam video of a few of the game's Fatalities from the website Screw Attack. You can watch the video below, but beware it's not for the queasy.



Sister site Kamidogu.com put up a great overview of the game along with a few booth pictures. Here is a small snippet that details the new dynamic blood system in the game:

Ed described the blood, which now has ultra-realistic properties. Blood sprays depending on the attack, meaning if Scorpion slashes his opponent in a circular motion the blood sprays in a curved fashion. Other advancements include proper bodily damage, which have been expanded to include actual lacerations in the skin. Not only do the characters lose blood whilst doing battle, they can also stain each other. Blood from your opponent can spray onto your kombatant, and stay there for the remainder of the match. The longer it stays exposed, the more it decays and turns darker

Long time Mortal Kombat fan and friend of TRMK, Dan Amrich aka Activision's own One Of Swords had a lot of good things to say about it.

"MK is going to make every old school fan very very happy"
"... MKII, much prettier, much faster, much freer-flowing combos"

Dan also posted the first screenshot of the game's menu that really shows the detail in the game's character models. I can't wait to see full 1080p stills in the future. This is an obvious step up in fidelity from Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe.

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Another friend of TRMK and President of Robomodo, Josh Tsui who previously worked on Mortal Kombat 4 and MK Mythologies Sub-Zero had a short message that he sent to Ed Boon on Twitter.

"@noobde IZZA SO GOOOOOD"

Newly re-launched video game magazine EGM also revealed that Mortal Kombat will be the cover story of their SUMMER 2010 issue.

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GameSpot also did a video interview with a clearly excited Ed Boon. He discusses many things including online and single player modes that we will see much later.


I wanted to bring up the interview with Ed Boon by IGN again as in this interview they touched on something I've been feeling missing in Mortal Kombat.

But what about Babalities and the like? "Certainly this Mortal Kombat game we're taking a little bit more seriously, so we're probably not going to have a friendship move and whatnot," says Ed, "but if we were to do something like that we're definitely not going to document it. That's what I think was part of the fun of the old games. 'You turned the guy into a baby!' What? Or, 'you pulled out a rainbow'! What the? It's such an odd thing. We really want these events – if they happen – to be almost rumors. That's a big part of what Mortal Kombat was. The question mark about - what else is in this game?"

I agree 100% with Ed, and feel that the game needs to ship with some hidden undocumented content. Stuff that you can't find in a Strategy Guide or even a moves or FAQ list until someone actually discovers it. The internet was in it's infancy but everyone in the newsgroups used to work together to uncover these hidden moves and secrets. This was great about the old arcade games, and I hope it's something they aim to do again with this game.

Also TRMK Forum member Tedakin gave us his review of the game. He touched on how detailed and lively the game's backgrounds are this time around:

When the characters are fighting in the Living Forest there's dynamic lighting breaking through the trees and casting accurate shadows on them. Also, there's a lot going on in the backgrounds. People are being tortured and strangled by vines. Birds are flying around. The big thing I noticed was in Kahn's Arena there is a second fight going on in the background featuring a giant monster that looks like a rancor battling a small group of warriors.

Tedakin also posted the first full picture of the game's select screen which clearly shows that Downloadable Content (DLC) will be possible in this game.

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Last but not least, Mortal Kombat won GameSpot's E3 People's Choice award. So congrats the whole team, it's well deserved. There are also plenty more awards for the game to win, so be sure to do your part and vote!. It's also currently up for Best Fighting Game of E3 over at IGN.

Update: Forgot Kotaku's very positive review of Mortal Kombat:

Mortal Kombat feels like a solid return to form, a gory, bloody bash, full of what made fans fall in love with the series, a few smartly borrowed mechanics that could make non-fans appreciate what it has in the fighting department.

Also Jeff Gerstmann from Giant Bomb also just posted his review. In this bit he dissects how the game is played, and mentions the market possibility for custom arcade sticks.

It sounds like there's potential for some sort of MK-specific hardware down the line, too, as the game's more advanced moves, like tagging and throwing, can be done by hitting multiple buttons on the classic five-button MK setup, as well as via their dedicated shoulder buttons. It'll be interesting to see if that develops.