I don't think they really have bad marketing to be honest. I think when Ed said he wanted things to be secretly guarded this time around he was being serious. So they're releasing as little info as possible in order to build up that old feeling of waiting for the arcades to come out, but in all honesty I understand why people are upset.

We're used to in this day in age getting information very quickly about our games, which is good and bad. It's good because we can see the progression and it's bad because we stand the chance of getting burned out before the game even launches. I'm not going to defend the lack of videos and screen shots of already confirmed characters though, I don't really understand that myself.

Anyway, in March they're having PAX EAST which probably means we're going to have a brand new HEAPING pile of gameplay of new characters that will most probably be included in the build. So that's what I'm waiting on right now. That and Liu Kang. ._.

I'm loving Mileena this game, awesome to see a glimpse of the flesh pits as well as Mileena's relationship with Shao Kahn, loved the art work for sure. I liked the fatality to be honest, reusing ideas isn't a bad thing, it's not like every single fatality is the same as previous games and plus I've never really seen that fatality by Kira. We haven't seen enough to say she doesn't have good combos, and maybe she's not a combo heavy character, Kung Lao has lengthy combo strings, maybe that's not her speciality. Oh and omg I love Mileena's theme and I'm so pleased their making an official CD for the game, this will probably be the first CD for a video I purchase, good show NRS team:)

@ T-Rex:

At this point in the chronology,yes,it fucking should be......you wouldn't demand that Sonya's vignette would show us that she's the head of OIA,because at this point in the story,the OIA is not even in the fucking works.

No, it shouldn't be.

I'm not talking about an event in a storyline (your OIA example or showing Mileena tricking everyone that she is Kitana). I'm talking about Mileena's personality and psychology which hasn't always been that of a "psycho-child/adult monster".

And then by the time the game was released,there was absolutely nothing to discover. Aside from Dark Kahn,there weren't even any unlockables. Fuck that,I want to be surprised. It took my over a year to unlock everything in MKDA. That's one of the reasons it's my favorite game in the series.

For some reason people always (like?) to confuse one thing with the other. I'm obviously not talking about giving out every single thing of the game, but rather about the attention/promotion they gave the characters. I won't bother with this one because it's pointless to argue about the already made damage. Their marketing and promotion is pathetic and laughable. Many agree for good reasons.

Scorpion has what? Eight canon games worth of character development? Ashrah has one.

Exactly.

She still easily kicks his ass in the potential/development department. And she's only had 2 games. How sad is that?

I'd kinda agree. It wouldn't have hurt to mention that Mileena was created to be Kitana's clone. It's kind of an important detail.

It's a very significant detail. Not just "kind of".

However,the vignette does mention that she hates Kitana and considers her her rival (probably a rival for daddy's attention). That's sufficient. I have zero doubts that the story mode will greatly elaborate on that. Y'all need to stop freaking out.

You are right, we should stop freaking out because I'm also positive (more like hopeful, actually) that they'll do justice to the characters. So far it's been a so-so ride, sadly, but, I'll stay positive.

PS: that tiny mention about Kahn was not sufficient at all.

You can't expect NRS to shove ten or so years of actual in-universe time's worth of character development into one game. And you certainly can't expect them to shove it all into a one-minute teaser.

No, but, to expect the obvious and the significant is only logical and reasonable.

Awesomeness! I think they should do this for every character :] Sounds a bit much but im sure they can get someone on the job xD

Um, anyone else noticed how they kinda just bypassed Johnny Cage's bio and combo video before they started showing Mileena stuff? Only video shown for Cage was the what would you do series.

Haha i watched this video again and I couldn't help but notice a bit of gibberish coming from Mileena after her 2nd teleport kick.

If that's not nostalgia for you, I don't know what is..

Johnny's not on the website. The wallpapers and videos are only done for the 5 characters on the website. The "What would you do with" series can be any character though because they don't go on the site.

That was a little giggle. She enjoys doing the kicks so.

By the way, about the "her head chew finisher as a reference to her MK2 one" thing...I really don't think it's good enough. All she does is nibble a little and throw the head on the ground.

Look at this immensely badass picture again.

The body is on the floor, she's got an arm ripped off in her hand, gore is just pouring out of her mouth, and the victim's whole ribcage is exposed. That is not a nibble. She is literally eating a whole meal there.

THAT should be a fatality of its own, no doubt. It is easily more gruesome and more awesome than either of her current finishers, and it is exactly what an upgrade of her MK2 classic should actually look like.

She should be chowing down until bones are exposed since the original ended with nothing but bones left. I want that shit as DLC.

Wouldn't that be too cinematic though? I mean I'd love to see that as a fatality as well because it would be nothing short of bad-ass but it'd take way to long. It'd be like a cutscene.

Have any of you played Crackdown? It is definitely one of my favorite Xbox 360 games for being a fun, dark and diverse game. I see Mortal Kombat going to the same direction now which is fantastic.

B have you noticed the similarity between Crackdown's storytelling, narrator and muzak? I don't know is it just me but I saw a rather high affiliation between the Mileena Vignette and a typical Crackdown cut-scene which isn't a bad thing.

Not necessarily, if she mauls the body really fast. Like remember Reptile's MK4 face chew? They could do something like that, except Mileena knocks the victim over then goes to town on their torso, then it pulls away and their bloody ribcage is exposed and she's got meat hanging out of her mouth.

That'd do it.

I'll be honest, I find some of the best fatalities are the simple ones. Sub-Zero's MK1 head rip is better than the current remake because he doesn't struggle to do it. It's a single, smooth motion done with brazen swiftness.

I think that has more dramatic effect than the theatrics of him yanking a few times to his victim's grunts before finally getting the head off.

Following that, I think Mileena's simple non-bloody MKII fatality, to a completely silent victim, is more dramatic than the would be gore fest of her sloppily tearing somebody apart.

A good example is Raiden's MK vs. DCU fatality where he grabs the person and in a flash they're reduced to a skeleton. I actually find that better than his earlier fatalities where the guy just explodes into chunks. Better imagery. And it's actually one of my favorite fatalities in the entire series. Going against popular opinion, I think MK vs. DCU was fantastic for finishing moves since the limitations bred a lot of creativity.

Scorpion's toasty fatality was the best in MK1 when it ended with just a charred, kneeling skeleton rather than the crazy after effects of subsequent games.

A swift punchline (in this case a dramatic rather than comedic one) is more effective than a delayed, overly rehearsed procedure.

I couldn't disagree more.

To me, a very quick finisher with no struggle to execute it says "This game has limited resources, we're on a time limit here, let's just get the scene over with." whereas the multiple tugs on the spine rip in MK4 and this game, and similar things like camera angles, people trying to crawl away from their killers, etc. say "Now we can show you what it would really be like to do this...y'know, if you had super powers."

Except it becomes predictable and essentially routine. I think it loses a lot of it's flavor. Yes, it does show off the technical advancements of the hardware. But after a while you realize the most memorable fatalities in the series are always some of the shortest. It didn't take long for Scorpion to fry somebody or for Sub-Zero to pull off a head. It didn't take long for Kung Lao to do the downward swipe. But it was like this big "BAM!" moment to the audience. You lose that when it drags.

I think there is a place for some of the more theatrical ones, sure. But I don't want them to lose sight of the value of quick "POW!" ones, either. Especially ones that end with nothing but a skeleton remaining. Bloodless as they may be, there's something really dramatic about a bare skeleton being the only remains. Especially in Scorpion's when it falls to it's knees. It's very Jungian.

Just because they can do more doesn't always mean they should with every single finisher.

Nah man, the most memorable for me are all the MK4 versions. I just plain don't like the older versions, except for Liu's dragon and Kung Lao's vertical slice. (the latter of which wasn't even in any of the newer games save MKSM, of course...)

When Scorpion does his toasty, I want the victim to run around and scream on fire because that makes me actually feel like the guy is being killed, which is the whole point of the Fatality. "Wow, that guy must be in agony. He did not die a quick death, he's actually burning."

It shouldn't be about "look at this fancy stuff we can do with our engine" either, I don't care about technology. I just don't want blink and you'll miss it, that doesn't feel like you're actually killing someone, it just feels like a more elaborate win pose, like I wasted my time. I want the bones and bodies to react believably to the pain being inflicted. I want to buy into the conceit of the world and be drawn into the scene I'm watching, have a sense that what the characters are doing to each other actually hurts or requires effort.

That would be more like a brutality, I think that the difference between fatalities and brutalities should be the speed and how it's done, fatalities should be quick, like cutting the head off or ripping the heart out, that's it. A fatality should not continue after the victim's death, after all it's just a fatal attack.
A brutality as the name implies should be brutal, like Mileena eating his opponent alive, Nightwolf brutally dismembering his opponent's body with his axe, Sub-Zero impaling multiple times his opponent, etc.

I think if they have them, the Brutalities in this game will be X-Ray moves that end in death. Not much point in using a seperate name if it's just a Fatality, it's gotta use a unique gimmick. In Trilogy, it was "it's a very long dial-a-combo and then they explode", in this one I expect it'll be the internal-view camera effect.

I know there would be no sense in changing the way the fatalities are in contrast to the brutalities now, but I think it could have been better that way. I just hope they aren't ''going back to the roots'' with the brutalities.

Why do you fail to realize that a character's personality changes after shit happens to them?

When Mileena first showed up in MK2,there was nothing to her personality except for the initial pitch of "psychotic clone". From that point on,shit actually started to happen to her,and she started to change.

She watched her sister betray their father.

She confronted her sister for the first time and got an excuse to finally unleash all of the hate and jealousy she ever felt towards her. That's quite a breaking point for a character,no?

She got fucking killed,sent to the Netherrealm and met a fallen Elder God (which probably blew her fucking mind) who brought her back as his slave. Last I checked,dying generally tends to change your outlook on life.

Finally,she got a chance to pretend to be her sister,to lead her army into battle and to usurp her throne. She finally got a chance to satisfy her ambition and become what she felt she was always denied.

Are you going to deny that throughout all of these events her personality changed?

So why the fuck do you insist that she should act like she has already experienced all these things?


I dunno,the closer we get to the release date,the more I'm starting to think that they actually know what they're doing. Just this past week we got like five fucking updates,most of them pretty damn huge. There's more to come,no doubt.


Bullshit.

You're letting your personal annoyance with Scorpion as the poster boy of MK (which you really need to get the fuck over,because let's face it,he's not going anywhere) obscure the fact that he objectively has one of the most complex stories in all of MK,second only to Sub-Zero.

@T-Rex Umm keep ur head on there.. No need to get rude to queve u sado - Are u gonna get horny now u proved something, cuz u look pretty much like asshole to me :]

I agree with this.

I think the Fatalities are much better when they seem like they are torturing them, and it's a real struggle between the two, with the killer getting the ultimate payoff of course. When it's too quick without any sort of struggle or realistic elements to it(the opponent just stands there or his limbs just easily come off without any sort of effort etc.), it's just not the same satisfaction. The MK4 spine rip compared to the MK1 spine rip for example. That one just feels more brutal due to the tugging and ripping along with sound effects etc. Another good example is Kung Lao's Buzzsaw, how the opponent tries to get away, then kicks and screams the whole time. Excellent.

If it's too easy and they just do it like it's nothing, and took no effort to rip their head off etc. It just makes me wonder why they couldn't just do that mid-match. If they are THAT powerful to the point where it's as if they can just grab the head and pull it off as if it were a basketball on the ground, then why did it take a whole battle to happen? Wouldn't a simple punch or throw in game result in their limbs coming off etc.? It should take some effort. They've beaten their opponent to the point where they are weak and can't really defend theirselves, now they can get in close and use their strength long enough to get that head off or whatever it may be.

I too believe that if they have Brutalities, it'll be an X-Ray oriented Fatality. In which case, that's be just awesome IMO.

No, I'm not.

He's just as overrated as that "most complex stories" comment you just wrote.

I don't hate Scorpion, but, I had always been indifferent about him until he became a "cool one" of mine thanks to his awesome MKvsDC look. I like Scorpion and I like Sub-Zero better.

Finally: No need throw "fuck" at me so much as if that's going to make your points any more clear or valid to me.

I'm not being rude to you, honey, so, chillax a bit, will you?

Queve...

You own :D

You are sweet. (I'm loving the sig, btw).

Anyway, I have nothing against T-rex who I think is a cool member who makes interesting posts. But, I'm not being rude to anyone, so, I expect the same treatment.