The whole game was pretty much half-assed.

The fatalities don't bother me too much. Its all about the gameplay and the gameplay in UMK 3 in my opinion is far superior than the previous titles. Then again, I think UMK 3/MK 3 was more about gameplay than fatalities.

The Fatalities were intentionally corny and stupid because of certain criteria needed to release the game, and the fact that they went for something fun to play and not watch.

I agree completely. It's only in Umk3 that the Fatals got really stupid, though - endless explosions with bones falling down the screen. Mk3 was quite reserved in comparison. They had a good reason though; after all this was Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, in that the idea was to do everything overboard and over the top!

Fatalities were one of the reasons why MK gained so much attention when it was new, but they were also what made a joke out of it to many people. It always seemed like the majority of people just wanted to see blood and gore and fatalities. Like "Oh shiiiiiit he split that other dude in half!!!!11!!1!!!!!" which is just stupid.

Honestly, MK3 and UMK3 looked different, I think, because it became a more mature game. The backgrounds became very grounded in reality, the characters were still outlandish but they moved towards the technology side of things, evolving the look a bit, and the gameplay was Massively improved. Even in MK3 it was greatly improved. And then in UMK3 it went even a step further.

The fatalities needed to be there because thats what MK was about for so many people, but it really seemed like the MK team wanted to get away from the usual. That would be one reason why so many of the classic characters were cut and some that made it were changed somewhat drastically, like Sub and Smoke.

It was time to make it a better game, and they tried to do that by spending less time on the juvenile fatalities and spending more time creating the best MK gameplay that exists even to this day.

Then MKDA and MKD came out after they realized the gimmicks and gore were enough to make a ton of money, and thus the gameplay died.

yeah they were an awful lot of femurs and ribcages and skull that would come from one body. oh and dont forget about the "purples legs" that were lying around too

yes,the fatalities in mk3 sucked.the animalitys looked so fake,babalitys were annoying,brutalities were cool,friendships are cool

now for fatalities
most of them were the same,uppercuts,ripping body parts,etc.not to mention how in a brutality,the opponent would have like 4 arms,6 legs,2 skulls,etc.that was a dumb idea.but hey i guess midway just cared about most was how the gameplay would be,such as the combo system,and run feature,which the combo thign was used in future games,yet the run feature wasnt.

Yes, hence the reason why UMK3 is still the best game. When MK4 came out they de-evolved the gameplay because they focused on recreating fatalities in the 3D look, then MKDA came out and the did it again in better 3D, MKD, I don't know what happened. Whatever the case may be, MK's like a pyramid of good gaming with UMK3 at the top and MK1 MKDA and MKD holding the bottom together, albeit weakly.

A lot of MK3 was pretty half-assed. Finishes included.