I honestly do believe that WB won't make a MK game with an "M" rating. Why? Because if WB picks up MK, we're doomed to see MKvDC rehashes for the rest of eternity. And if that happens, then "oh noes! Batman can't get decapitated by Scorpion!! Itz BAAAAAAAAAAD!!" is sure to follow yet again.

Take a stab at the number of recent games made by WB that have an "M" rating. One. One game, and it's 300 for the PSP, so honestly, it doesn't count. It's based off of a significantly violent movie, so they were handcuffed with that one.

Look, I'm not saying that they're incapable of doing it, because any developer is capable of anything... that's what they get paid for. I don't think they'll do it because they don't have the same ties to the franchise (nor do I think they'll give the MK team as much creative control) as Midway does. It probably doesn't matter much to them.

I don't want WB anywhere near MK.

...as well as The Watchmen game, FEAR 2, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, and Condemned 2. All recently released by WB, carrying the M rating. That's 5 total, counting your "one" M rated title. (Haven't we been over this many times already?)

MK/DC was a one-shot T rated title simply because DC didn't want their iconic characters being brutally killed. A single crossover title isn't the best representation of how a mainline series of games will turn out.

I'd expect another MK/DC to be T rated and toned way down, but not a mainline MK game, just as I'd expect the next Capcom crossover title to have Street Fighter characters with double jumps, air specials, and screen filling super moves, unlike a stand-alone Street Fighter.

I am pretty sure WB won't keep doing crossovers forever simply because MK will need it's own games to make crossover games even relatively interesting. Imagine I make a fighting series named... Nic-V Fight X and I make one truly incredible game. Or more games it doesn't matter. Anyway WB buys my game studio and start crossovering Nic-V Fight X with DCU. They can't keep doing that even if they run the series with advertisments with Batman and Superman simply because after a number of games people are gonna be like "I am not going to buy this game 'cause who are these Nic-V Fight X guys anyway?".
Or so I think and also I do believe WB knows that the MK fans want GORE and BLOOD

My source was the WB website. Clearly they're not so proud of their work, lolz. I couldn't find those titles on their site. If they've magically appeared on there since then, let me know.

Anyway, my point is that the MK team treated the franchise like it was their baby (well, except Boon, because he sold out), and I don't think that WB would give it the same attention. That's all. I hope I'm wrong, but I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't think there was any merit to it.

Well, to be fair, Fatal Fury, Art Of Fighting, Psycho Soldier, and Ikari Warriors had their crossovers...namely, the King Of Fighters series (although Neo Geo Battle Coliseum is more of a tradition "crossover" title as we know it) . KOF 12 was recently released in arcades, and is due soon for home release.

KOF is still going while those other games/franchises are pretty much done with. The last of those games was Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves (essentially Fatal Fury 4), and that was back in '99.

There are some exceptions to the rule, but I don't see it happening with MK and DC.

Boon is a sellout?

wat

It doesn't matter if it's featured or not on their website, they were still WB releases. MK/DC isn't featured, but it doesn't change the fact it came out. I'm not sure what relevance the website has when it comes down to the fact WB has released multiple M rated games.

Also, how is Boon a sell-out?

I hope Boon stays on board. I don't agree with many of the decisions he's made, but the intellectual property is his, end of story. If MK is taken out of Boon's hands, it will only be MK in the cosmetic sense. Star Wars: Heir of the Empire was better than Star Wars: The Phantom Menance (from what I'm told), but the latter is canon, the former is not. Quality doesn't change that.

Not to mention the ethics. Selling Boon's right to create more MK games may be legal, but it's not moral. If you don't like the direction I'm going with my art, be it painting, writing, or music, you don't have a right to take it away from me and call it your own simply because you think you can make it better.

Read my post. I stated that my source was their site. I didn't look anywhere else. It's a goof on my part, I was lazy.

Anyway, and I made this clear before the release of MKvDC, Boon went for the cash that WB and the DC label would have potentially brought in, probably knowing full well in advance that doing so would mean creating a game that didn't feel like MK (which I don't think anyone would disagree with me when I say that it doesn't), thus alienating hardcore fans, like myself. I viewed it as a big "fuck you" to all of us who have put our cash into these games since the beginning and have been dying for the resurrection of this laughingstock of a franchise, only to have MKvDC come out.

Look, Boon isn't stupid. Again, I think that's something that we can all agree with. He went with the money instead of the purism. My beef is that WB and DC had to have put in front of him a list of "OK, this is what we don't want happening to the DC guys" in the game. This in itself negates the MK feel. MK is supposed to be a completely over-the-top fighter that shocks and disgusts (in a good way) at every turn. When you put limitations on it, you kill it, and you get what we have in front of us now.

Remember when everyone was in an uproar when the Spine Rip didn't appear in MK2, MK3, UMK3, or MKT, because it was deemed too much? Similar situation here. Maybe people can look past the fact that Boon sold out because of the DC pseudo-coolness and the continued faults that these games have, but not me. I mean, seriously, I thought that the fatalities in MKDA were the lowest of the low, absolutely horrendous... then I saw the ones in MKvDC. I mean, Heroic Brutality? Fuck that. The point of MK is killing. If I were Boon and Co., I'd take zero credit (or blame, whichever you prefer) for this pile, and say that WB was solely responsible, because in effect, that's what happened.

Now, if you'll allow me to rant a bit on the game itself...

Take Flash for instance. In one of his finishers the opponent is lifted off the ground, Flash appears above them, and... punches them. Wow. Fanfuckingtastic, he punched the opponent, and they hit the ground.
Here's the problem:

A) That's not even so much as a special move, much less a finisher. I'd barely think of that a good idea for a throw, considering the Flash's powers.
B) Since we're being SO original here, might as well have had the finisher have the same effect as Kabal's Raging Flash in MKA, but more powerful: have the opponent wind up combusting from the speed, or simply vanishing; still no blood, but much more cool, and perfectly plausible.

So basically, I could debate this all day. I actually find it refreshing that a certain someone hasn't entered the fray yet and we still have intelligent discussion going on here, but I probably just jinxed myself. Oh well.

Just to be sure, you DO realize it'll still be the old MK team working on MK right? THey'll just be working for WB and not Midway.

Please. I wasn't born yesterday, and neither were you. I highly doubt that WB would allow Boon and Co. the same freedom that Midway gave them. It's pretty obvious that the MK team had little control over MKvDC apart from the engine, and if that's any indication, we'll get more of the same if WB picks up MK.

Really? Because I know not a soul on this planet called Capcom a sellout when they released the vs series, and there were 4 games and thats not including SNK or Tatsunoku. See thats the difference between MK fans/fanboys and everyone else. If something so trivial as a finishing move ruins a FIGHTING game, then theres something wrong with that logic.

You're a great player, but please, there are so many concepts and erroneous affirmations that not where beginning. I don't want to be rude, but...

#1 The DC deal was a bid to help keep the franchise (as well as Midway) afloat for the time being. Without it, there probably wouldn't have been another MK game at all. The only reason WB had a lot of control was because their intellectual properties were involved in the game. I can't picture them having such control in a stand-alone MK game.

#2 I don't see how the spine rip was deemed "too much" (especially since it was brought back in one of the later 3D MK games, albeit by Scorpion). MK2 had fatalities that involved internal organs exploding and falling everywhere. I found those to be MUCH more gory than the spine rip. Besides, the "cut in half" moves (like Scorpion's and cage's) showed an exposed spine.

#3 I don't see how Flash's finisher is any less lame than Liu Kang's MK/MK2 somersault-uppercut fatality

Alpha: Apples and oranges. Street Fighter wasn't struggling when the Capcom vs. SNK and Marvel vs. Capcom games were released. While they were still re-releasing the same game 10-15 times (as well as putting out the less-than-stellar Alpha series), it was continuing to sell well and doing pretty good in the arcades. Capcom wasn't losing fans when they made those decisions, and gained a ton more as a result. Now, SNK might be called the sellout in that exchange, because while KOF is a solid series, it's never gotten the same pub as SF, Tekken, and VF. That exposure really helped SNK out. Good point though.

Shinomune: Your post is kinda incoherent, but from what I gather, you think I'm jumping to conclusions. That's fair I guess, I mean it's just my opinion, so take it for what it's worth. Funny pic though, I like it.

Shingo:
1- That may be true, but we have Midway to blame for that one. Their sports series (Blitz, Hitz) were very successful until they tried to make them more realistic (anyone remember Hitz Pro?). I know hindsight is 20-20, but if they put those games out every year and keep them what they were supposed to be, the MK team doesn't have that problem, because Midway can allocate a little more funding for them. It's a reach, I know, but it's just an example. However, MKDA and MKD both reached the greatest hits levels of each of the consoles that they appeared on, so there shouldn't have been a shortage of revenue anyway. As for the control issue again, I know that WB's intellectual properties were in the game, but it's still an MK game first, DC second. From the looks of things either Boon and Co. didn't read or didn't care about whatever contract was put in front of them before agreeing, there was no compromise whatsoever, or they're just complete pushovers and did whatever it took for the cash. Quite frankly, I hope you're right; I hope that if/when WB picks up MK, it turns out to be at least almost completely driven by the MK team, and that it turns out to be a quality game. I just have my doubts.

2- Here's why it was deemed too much. It was the most popular fatality from MK1, hands down. Where was it in MK2? Nowhere. MK3? Nope. Wait! UMK3/MKT has Classic Sub! Surely it's there! Well, yes, it is there, just... not. Put in the combination, Sub walks over, and... screen fades to black as he grabs the opponent's head, and we can assume the rest. This was the only fatality to ever have that happen to it. Also, before anyone says it, I know that the Sub-Zeros in MK1 and the rest of them were different guys. We didn't know that because the bio they gave us for MK2 Sub was vague, only saying that he was thought to have been killed, not actually killed. Someone in some high place must have told the MK team that they couldn't use that fatality for whatever reason. Anyway, it reappeared on Sub-Zero in MK4, and then yes, for whatever reason, it went to Scorpion in MKD, which I can only consider epic fail. To me, a character holding up a severed head with the spine still attached and blood dripping down is more gory than Cage's Torso Rip. As for Scorpion's Spear Slice, it's just another example of an extremely cool fatality not getting used again for whatever reasons (Kung Lao's Vertical Slice, anyone?).

3- The only explanation I can give here is that because Liu Kang is a Shaolin Monk, he must know where to hit people to kill them, I don't know. I just think that the Flash running circles around someone so fast that they defy gravity, only to appear above them and give them a nice open chest punch that a frat boy would be proud of, is the lamest idea ever. At least they redeemed Liu Kang with the dragon morph as his other fatality in the older games, but still, Kang has had a lot of joke/stupid finishers (cartwheel/uppercut, arcade machine drop, body swap in MKD) over the years.

Anyway, that's it for now.

The Blitz/Hits series wasn't going to keep Midway afloat. They had few funds and resources, and Mortal Kombat was the go-to flagship franchise.

As for most popular fatality, I figured it was the TOASTY. It was one of the few finishers to (almost) consistently appear every time Scorpion was on stage. The main reason the screen blacked out in UMK3/Trilogy was the fact there would need to be added animations for each character to depict a spine rip (re-filming faces from each and every mo-capped actor), and seeing as how they were cost-cutting in that department, it wasn't going to happen. They were really pushing it with the Raiden/Baraka refilming (even the secret "classic" characters didn't have running animations).

You also say the spine rip is more gory than the torso rip, but that wasn't the comparison I made. I compared the spine rip to the internal organs exploding and laying on the ground (such as Kitana's/Tsung's fatalities) I only mentioned the torso rips due to the visible spine, not suggesting those were more gory.

The guts on the ground were much more gory, IMO, than the spine rip.

The spine rip was removed because the team got lazy with gore effects. Including that fatality would require spine rip animations and sprites for 15+ characters.

They didn't even bother to complete the full finishing move lists for the UMK3 characters until Trilogy came along.

OK, I see what you're saying now. I do disagree, however, with the cost-cutting aspect and instead agree with Ninja_Mime that they were lazy. It doesn't cost them anything significant from an actor standpoint to tell them "make a dead face" and mo-cap it once everything else is done, then animate the spine below it. These guys make video games for a living, so it couldn't have been that hard to do.

It does cost extra when you have to bring all the actors back in for reshoots. Notice that all the added UMK3 characters were only played by 2 people They did it as minimally as they could. I think it's a combination of cost/laziness, personally.

Could be.

Shit, there are people here who still care about Fatalities? Like that's the biggest thing wrong with MK these days?

Jeepers H. Crackers.

Mortal Kombat is not about death, but life.

Well yes, that's what the storyline says. What I meant was that it's the reason that people got into the games in the first place.

I found this on Hector's twitter page:

"@TStockley god of war 3 looks really violent. we are working to at the very least match that level of GORE."

I hope this puts this T-rated argument to a stop.