TRANSLATION OF MORTALKOMBAT.DE ARTICLE PART ONE
DISCLAIMER: I translated this at the best of my abilities, and translate just what MKDe's article said. I was not actually at this gaming convention.
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INTRODUCTION
Good, I'll try to write down the thoughts I've brought back with me from these two days. Please don't mind the language, I'm not paying attention much to correctness. This year the convention was bigger than ever; the halls nearly burst out of their walls. There were live shows from Kool Savas, Fanta 4, Ayman, etc and I thought these were quite cool. Savas was hanging around at Tony Hawk's Pipe often, by the way, in XXXXL baggypants, baggier even than mine. It was possible to buy food, but I had prepared a lunchbox for myself, so everything was ok. What's more left to say; I'll write about the other games I saw in the other boards. There were lots of other things, some of them amazing, some of them disappointing. So, here we go with some MK... shhh...
THE KONAMI-CASE AND THEIR VERSION
First I visited the two great halls and one of them was occupied solely by GIGA.de and their "Giga Liga" and stuff. I saw ladies play Counter Strike *lol* but they were really good... So it must have been a Liga. Finally I got into the Konami booth and first looked around some other things. And then, the moment had come.
First I wanted to fight, of course. Everything was totally guarded, by the way. And there it was; there was quite some buzz around the game. Set up on a plate of plexiglass, it claimed to be 75% complete. When it was finally my turn, even more people had gathered around the machine. I had to go quickly through the menu and picked Scorpion. I began fighting in the Netherbelly.
So... graphically it is bombastic, full of contrast and full of detail on both consoles. Forget the blurred scrap from IGN and Gamespot! No spots, blocky animations... 60 fps and cool details in the background! In this version, following backgrounds were playable: the Netherbelly, Sky Temple, Yin Yang, The Slaughterhouse, that crumbling volcano, Red Dragon Palace (looked great). I can't say much about the sound, I barely heard a thing.
There were many bugs, however. The speed was very bad, so that everything took off rather slowly. Also, who didn't like MKDA because they couldn't play the game, should also let this one be. You need to learn it from scratch, which isn't simple, yet not impossible for beginners. MK DAN will agree with me, this is a fact. For the rest, I did like the gameplay. It's clear that a lot more has become possible; it all looks like a martial arts movie. The spirit of the gameplay has remained intact, however. The selection of fighters was the same as in E3. Same select screen, loading screens, etc etc.
The XBOX version crashed every now and then, so that we had to let someone come over to help us out (hehe). Was this the way Konami was presenting this game to us? I played for a while with a racing heart, like a fan meeting his ido (woohoo). I coulnd't play any other of the game options because heaps of nerds kept playing against me and this way, I always remained in Kombat Mode. After a few bouts, I went on, and now it comes...
THE MICROSOFT-CASE WITH XBOX LIVE AND THEIR VERSION
So, after the first day I visited the Microsoft booth, which was immensely big. It had Halo2, Fable, and the whole caboodle. I went up the stairs, looked behind me and what did I see there, to my great surprise? Another MKD stand! Well, where should I start.
I had good chances there, because there weren't that many people crowding around. And this version was more like it, too. It looked a lot like that of E3 and Konami, but here, everyone was selectable in their alt. costume. Incredibly so, however, each fighter was selectable only in their alt costume... whichever button I pressed, my opponent got their alternate costume. On top of that, arenas such as the "Dark Prison" were playable. When I went over the dark spots in the character select screen (the npc's), I could recognise the names, confusing in any case, because above the cyborg, it read "Shujinko" and I also recognised Jax. The rest is already known, I guess. No Raiden, but Liu Kang and Kobra where there (so, no Ben). The order was different from E3. I'll go into detail about that a bit more later.
The game rocks the shit out of the cows *lol*, the speed was up to par, and quicker than Konami's version. Hier the adrenalin level was at boiling point; MKDA was pretty lame compared to that, even when it was still tense. I remained here throughout the whole second day while I had passed the rest of the first day in Leipzig, without any money. I did drink a lot of water, for my blood circulation, etc.
Okay, what else did I see? Still no intro- or endingmovies (it was impossible for me to keep fighting through the game, sorry). Partially different loading screens. Scorpion's alt outfit is mega. I'll spoil you a bit: he seem to have a knight outfit in silver or platinum, with his shoulder and kneepads from his first outfit. His skull has some fleshier bits and he also has a bone collar. From his back, one or two bones, much like those of dragon or dinosaur skeletons poked out. That really looked awesome.
Ashra looks very sweet, simply put, without her hat and with her pony tail. A bit like Kung Lao's alt in MKDA. Hotaru - no, it's not Cyrax -, Hotaru's alt is indeed the one with the helmet. Bo' Rai Cho has his MKDA outfit, and so has Kenshi. And Sub-Zero the one with the pony tail and the mask. You'll probably know the rest.
I played here for a long time, with pauses and visits to other booths. I explored the "Dark Prison" a bit. The cells are great backdrops; nothing happened when I passed nearby. The characters (they are all known already) just jump up and shout when you get close, I tested that thoroughly (hehe). The Yin Yang stage was also very cool, and an optical piece of art.
Another cool thing was that every character has their own way of getting up after losing a round. This shaking was critised in MKDA, but now those days are gone. Scorpion, for example, pulls himself up with his rope, Kenshi floats back into position in lotus-manner, etc etc. There were no winning poses yet, no one could pull of a fatality, but the death traps were there. The Sky Temple, the one with the Buddha Statue (wow), except for the Yin Yang... I tried to push the opponent into the water.
Konami did still have this shaky losing animation; I didn't understand this at all. Why did they present two versions that were so vastly different?
At long last, I began playing the single player mode. And then, I had Noob as an opponent. He was fast as always, with his leathery sadomasochist-like outfit (hehe). It's the one that everyone believed to be Smoke's, in black and grey. Noob's outfits seem to be as good as fixed. Later, I also faced Jade and Smoke, who appears to be transparent and surrounded by a thin mist. The moves are completely awesome, and there probably would've been more, if there hadn't been time pressure. So many impressions, and still I forgot some bits.
I also puzzled a little. Entertainment sans end. I didn't play Konquest, don't ask why... Chess. I hadn't played chess for a long time, it was innovative and new. A lot of fun. There were 1000 things I should have done, but time was running out. Besides, I couldn't set up a camp there, could I? The convention lasts for another two days, so anyone who has the chance, go there, especially if you have a digital camera.
(coming soon: A FEW LAST COMMENTS)
