Zero Punctuation: Mortal Kombat
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
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At the risk of sounding like a ignorant American, why do you hate Dr. Who? Is it just because he has been reincarnated 14 bajillion times or do you think the writing is bad? Or maybe it's just a British thing, I really enjoy the whole series. (Yes I'm aware bajillion isn't an actual number but 14 is and that's the best you're going to get out of me.)
I think that's a little harsh, but goddamn were those matches awesome.Kurt Horsting said:
Hmm... both of those guys are pro Dead or Alive players. Interesting how they've picked this game up.
I wasn't expecting this at all Yahtzee, I was looking forward to what your review of it was going to be. Twas a funny video. Especially the jabs at the original games.
I've been enjoying the hell out of this game, best fighter I've ever played.
Also, lighten up, you should be looking at this game the same way you look at games like Painkiller/Duke Nukem. A revival of a sillier time from the 90's. I laughed at the fatalities and strangely enough the most disturbing part of the game was The Krypt.
But yeah, ofcourse he got it, everybody has been getting it here.
I've been enjoying the hell out of this game, best fighter I've ever played.
Also, lighten up, you should be looking at this game the same way you look at games like Painkiller/Duke Nukem. A revival of a sillier time from the 90's. I laughed at the fatalities and strangely enough the most disturbing part of the game was The Krypt.
But yeah, ofcourse he got it, everybody has been getting it here.
Technically is a retcon from back then. Since he was originally American/Japanese I believe. After the movie they changed him to Australian in the games since they liked the portrayal. I agree with them.The Youth Counselor said:
One point here that really sparked my interest was when it was mentioned that the story cannot continue until you've beaten your current opponent. When the player loses a fight, why not give the option for the player to continue the story while playing as the guy who killed him?
My idea for how to implement this; take a tip from Highlander. When your guy gets killed, your opponent gets his memories. Realizing that your quest was a valid one, he vows to follow your mission through to the end. Okay, the idea needs work, but it would take a lot of frustration out of a game.
My idea for how to implement this; take a tip from Highlander. When your guy gets killed, your opponent gets his memories. Realizing that your quest was a valid one, he vows to follow your mission through to the end. Okay, the idea needs work, but it would take a lot of frustration out of a game.
Hmmm I think Al would do some research and tell Sam Beckett that Marty can't stand to be called chicken. Beckett would totally use that to his advantage and destroy McFly.
Mortal Kombat isn't one of my favorite fighting franchises, but it's decent. I haven't bought the current one because simply put I hate the way fighting games are being sold today and figured I'd give it a few months and see how much extra DLC they wind up releasing. The annouced DLC policy of Capcom is why I haven't purchused "Marvel Vs. Capcom 3" despite having been drooling over it for a year beforehand.
At any rate, needless to say I can't comment on the game itself, but I do take exception to Yahtzee pretty much speaking in favor of video game censorship and saying this game makes a good case for it, making the overall issue hard to defend. Censorship is one of those things that is male in se, or "evil in of itself", a legal term. There is no way to justify censorship, ever.
To be entirely honest just going by what I've seen of the game, it probably actually deserves a lower rating, the reason being that the violence (and people have been posting it all over the place) is too unrealistic to be believable. I mean we have guys punching heads off and using super powers. It's sort of like the arguement Yahtzee made about the violence in "Dead Space 2" being TOO over the top, given that limbs basically come off with no sense of resistance at all. Even if there is blood and X-rays of skeletons being damaged, the whole effect is just so over the top that I consider it a variation of what they call "cartoon violence". That doesn't mean I'd give it an "E" or "G" rating, but I would definatly say it doesn't count as mature.
As far as why someone won't censor spine breaking super moves, but they will censor showing sex organs like the penis, the big issue basically comes down to common sense, something most of the world doesn't seem to have much of. Generally speaking even if you pump up on 'roids and spend 20 years secluded in some monestery practicing kung-fu, your probably not going to be able to knock someone's head off with a straight punch, any more than your going to be able to throw fireballs. Even before the UFC got so fixated on being a sport and didn't worry about things like weight classes, you didn't see violence on this level because it's pretty much impossible. On the other hand, having sex IS possible, and if you start throwing around uncovered sex organs and people jumping up and down to do the nasty everywhere, that's more likely to be a problem. No sane person is going to get it in their mind to go see if they can practice throwing fireballs or ripping spinal cords out with a single easy motion since (or even sociopaths) there is this little thing called reality in the way, on the other hand your sane person might very well want to go out and have sex, and showing wangs hanging out definatly seems to encourage that behavior or that unrestrained sexuality is okay. Right now teenagers who don't have adult mentalities banging each other and causing pregnancies is a problem, heck it's a problem at the adult level with college students who generally aren't ready to support a family, the last thing we need is more encouragement.
Now to be fair, I'm all for sexual expression, but I believe it needs to come with proper education, I'm one of those people who supports practicing safe sex and educating people in it. I support things like condom and birth control distribution in schools, and the right of teenagers to see sexual counseling and medical services without the parents being informed. One of the problems is that if some kid comes down with the clap or an STD or whatever, there are issues with them wanting to seek medical help, which leads to the problem getting worse (and the start of epidemics) all because they don't want mom and dad or the religious authority of their choice to know that they are taking something like penecilin , never mind why.
See the thing is that you might have Johnny Cage or Duke Nukem whip out their package and shake around... and that would probaly be deeply attractive to women (and before anyone denies this, male strippers make a fortune, and guys in video games represent a very similar physical ideal), but at the same time it's hard to really have that kind of moment when it's not actually supposed to be a male stripper routine as opposed to general eye candy, and say include a message about safe sex without ruining the entire thing.
As a result I tend to rate violence much lower, and being more suitable for the young, than depictions of sexuality. Truthfully for most fantasy and action-adventure stories you generally don't need to go beyond the skimpy costumes and a bit of suggestiveness level.
Of course I'm also one of those people who believes that message of violence are very important nowadays. Right now I think one of the biggest problems the first world, and the US in paticular, has to deal with is the secondary issue of the "civil rights movement" and the baby boomers in general. That is to say the promotion of non-violence, along with tolerance. All this "take my hand, share the land" stuff. In a perfect world this would be the right mesage, but it's not a perfect world. There are limited resources, a population explosion (which incidently comes back to issues about sex), and extreme cultural conflicts with a lot of rising powers believing it's their destiny to pretty much kill and enslave us all and take over the world. Teaching our kids that violence is wrong, is really a bad idea, rather they should be being taught that violence is perfectly acceptable when used for the right reasons. In a real conflict there is no "right and wrong" or something being too cruel or intense, there is only winning and losing, it's all about why you enter into that conflict not what you do once your there. Down the road the last thing you need is some "dances with hippies" kid knee deep in rice paddies, fighting against the Chinese for the preservation of his own country, concerned over the morality of violence.
In most cases, video games are pretty good at setting the stage for the conflicts, if very simplistic. Mortal Kombat, despite some bad writing, does make a very clear division between the good guys and the bad guys. I think it's actually positive that the game shies away from inserting this morality into the combat as well, with both sides doing whatever it takes now that the lines are drawn, with the good guys being just as brutal in pursuit of their goals as the bad guys are in pursuit of theirs.
Ideally of course you should probably find a way of including the equivilent of an ethics class into video games, but that's hardly possible, so we have to make due. I think one of the actual problems leading up to this is that kids study ethics too late in their development. Ethics in an academic sense does not mean teaching someone right from wrong, but an analysis of that concept and verious takes on it, so you can understand where various people are coming from, as well as helping people realize that right and wrong are contextual and in many cases you have to do things that don't have a clear moral solution, along with the realization that over time all of us will do things that are wrong. Kids need to be introduced to classic issues like, what desician do you make if it comes down to saving say one person as opposed to ten if you have to make that choice... easy right, but now what if that one person is your kid and the other ten people are people you don't know, or worse yet a bunch of junkies? Not so easy as you have to weigh the value of family against what is morally right. What's more once you arrive at the basic truth that you will sacrifice one to save ten, how do you approach issues like torture? If your willing to kill one guy to save ten, you really can't argue a moral opposition to torturing one person (who will survive) towards the same goal. Of course this is just ONE way of viewing ethics, you also have the whole issue of ethical consistincy, and the idea that some codes of ethics work perfectly if everyone in society follows them, but when people cease to follow them problems are introduced. This is at the root of conflicts with various "closed cultures" who are enemies of outsiders simply because their system relies on consistincy to function, and once you start dealing with alternative points of view things cease to work. This is the fundemental reason driving conflicts against groups like Islamics, their system works as long as everyone follows the Islamic system, but it doesn't hold up so well with exceptions. Hence why you wind up with a situation where they want to kill and/or convert everyone else, it's not just about religion, but also maintaining the very building blocks that hold their society together.
At any rate I'm rambling, the point is that it's not deeply complicated, but understanding things like that and where various people are coming from (I only mentioned a couple of schools of thought and logic chains, there are literally thousands) provides a context to use of force, as well as when to realistically use it given that just about everyone is right from their own point of view.
That said, in short, I think violence as it stands now in video games is fine overall even if it could be better. I think sex is a bigger cup of tea, and while there are no perfect solutions that I am happy with, I can understand why it's censored more than violence. I also tend to think people who reverse those priorities are fairly backwards. As I pointed out I also think that the existance of gore, spinal breakage, and death does not make something inherantly mature. Indeed I think realistic depictions of violence in a "this can happen, and here is how you'd do it for real" are a bigger deal than over the top gore fests. Something like Mortal Kombat actually shows how messed up the rating systems are.
I'll also say that making games like "Mortal Kombat" and "Splatterhouse" rated for "Mature" or "Adult" audiences is counter productive. These games are so over the top and unbelievable that most parents are going to have no problem with their kids playing them. Heck a 35 year old Gen Xer who has kids, probably has fond memories of playing games like that in the Arcade, looks at them, and figures they are fine for Junior... and they are probably right, as most of those adults are well adjusted. As a result when a game comes along that provides realistic violence, with instructions of a sort on how to perform it, and perhaps a warped message of alternative morality intended to disturb people, a lot of parents are going to miss it since they see "intense violence" and they think "oh it's another Mortal Kombat, stupid censorship Nazis....". It's the differance between say "Splatterhouse" and "Manhunt" or certain crime games and ultra-realistic shooters. More does not mean worse, and I'll say "Manhunt" deserved an "M" rating but most of this other cartoony stuff doesn't. You can sneak up behind someone and kill them with a plastic bag over the head if your buff enough and do it like in that game. You can't turn into a supernatural killing machine and pulp people against walls or burst their heads like balloons. In "Manhunt" the protaganist is a sociopathic sleazebag despite who he's fighting, for all comments about survival, it's doubtful if "James Earl Cash" really deserves to live. In "Splatterhouse" the context is differant, evil mask aside our protaganist is trying to do the right thing, as opposed to being a total sleazebucket.
At any rate, needless to say I can't comment on the game itself, but I do take exception to Yahtzee pretty much speaking in favor of video game censorship and saying this game makes a good case for it, making the overall issue hard to defend. Censorship is one of those things that is male in se, or "evil in of itself", a legal term. There is no way to justify censorship, ever.
To be entirely honest just going by what I've seen of the game, it probably actually deserves a lower rating, the reason being that the violence (and people have been posting it all over the place) is too unrealistic to be believable. I mean we have guys punching heads off and using super powers. It's sort of like the arguement Yahtzee made about the violence in "Dead Space 2" being TOO over the top, given that limbs basically come off with no sense of resistance at all. Even if there is blood and X-rays of skeletons being damaged, the whole effect is just so over the top that I consider it a variation of what they call "cartoon violence". That doesn't mean I'd give it an "E" or "G" rating, but I would definatly say it doesn't count as mature.
As far as why someone won't censor spine breaking super moves, but they will censor showing sex organs like the penis, the big issue basically comes down to common sense, something most of the world doesn't seem to have much of. Generally speaking even if you pump up on 'roids and spend 20 years secluded in some monestery practicing kung-fu, your probably not going to be able to knock someone's head off with a straight punch, any more than your going to be able to throw fireballs. Even before the UFC got so fixated on being a sport and didn't worry about things like weight classes, you didn't see violence on this level because it's pretty much impossible. On the other hand, having sex IS possible, and if you start throwing around uncovered sex organs and people jumping up and down to do the nasty everywhere, that's more likely to be a problem. No sane person is going to get it in their mind to go see if they can practice throwing fireballs or ripping spinal cords out with a single easy motion since (or even sociopaths) there is this little thing called reality in the way, on the other hand your sane person might very well want to go out and have sex, and showing wangs hanging out definatly seems to encourage that behavior or that unrestrained sexuality is okay. Right now teenagers who don't have adult mentalities banging each other and causing pregnancies is a problem, heck it's a problem at the adult level with college students who generally aren't ready to support a family, the last thing we need is more encouragement.
Now to be fair, I'm all for sexual expression, but I believe it needs to come with proper education, I'm one of those people who supports practicing safe sex and educating people in it. I support things like condom and birth control distribution in schools, and the right of teenagers to see sexual counseling and medical services without the parents being informed. One of the problems is that if some kid comes down with the clap or an STD or whatever, there are issues with them wanting to seek medical help, which leads to the problem getting worse (and the start of epidemics) all because they don't want mom and dad or the religious authority of their choice to know that they are taking something like penecilin , never mind why.
See the thing is that you might have Johnny Cage or Duke Nukem whip out their package and shake around... and that would probaly be deeply attractive to women (and before anyone denies this, male strippers make a fortune, and guys in video games represent a very similar physical ideal), but at the same time it's hard to really have that kind of moment when it's not actually supposed to be a male stripper routine as opposed to general eye candy, and say include a message about safe sex without ruining the entire thing.
As a result I tend to rate violence much lower, and being more suitable for the young, than depictions of sexuality. Truthfully for most fantasy and action-adventure stories you generally don't need to go beyond the skimpy costumes and a bit of suggestiveness level.
Of course I'm also one of those people who believes that message of violence are very important nowadays. Right now I think one of the biggest problems the first world, and the US in paticular, has to deal with is the secondary issue of the "civil rights movement" and the baby boomers in general. That is to say the promotion of non-violence, along with tolerance. All this "take my hand, share the land" stuff. In a perfect world this would be the right mesage, but it's not a perfect world. There are limited resources, a population explosion (which incidently comes back to issues about sex), and extreme cultural conflicts with a lot of rising powers believing it's their destiny to pretty much kill and enslave us all and take over the world. Teaching our kids that violence is wrong, is really a bad idea, rather they should be being taught that violence is perfectly acceptable when used for the right reasons. In a real conflict there is no "right and wrong" or something being too cruel or intense, there is only winning and losing, it's all about why you enter into that conflict not what you do once your there. Down the road the last thing you need is some "dances with hippies" kid knee deep in rice paddies, fighting against the Chinese for the preservation of his own country, concerned over the morality of violence.
In most cases, video games are pretty good at setting the stage for the conflicts, if very simplistic. Mortal Kombat, despite some bad writing, does make a very clear division between the good guys and the bad guys. I think it's actually positive that the game shies away from inserting this morality into the combat as well, with both sides doing whatever it takes now that the lines are drawn, with the good guys being just as brutal in pursuit of their goals as the bad guys are in pursuit of theirs.
Ideally of course you should probably find a way of including the equivilent of an ethics class into video games, but that's hardly possible, so we have to make due. I think one of the actual problems leading up to this is that kids study ethics too late in their development. Ethics in an academic sense does not mean teaching someone right from wrong, but an analysis of that concept and verious takes on it, so you can understand where various people are coming from, as well as helping people realize that right and wrong are contextual and in many cases you have to do things that don't have a clear moral solution, along with the realization that over time all of us will do things that are wrong. Kids need to be introduced to classic issues like, what desician do you make if it comes down to saving say one person as opposed to ten if you have to make that choice... easy right, but now what if that one person is your kid and the other ten people are people you don't know, or worse yet a bunch of junkies? Not so easy as you have to weigh the value of family against what is morally right. What's more once you arrive at the basic truth that you will sacrifice one to save ten, how do you approach issues like torture? If your willing to kill one guy to save ten, you really can't argue a moral opposition to torturing one person (who will survive) towards the same goal. Of course this is just ONE way of viewing ethics, you also have the whole issue of ethical consistincy, and the idea that some codes of ethics work perfectly if everyone in society follows them, but when people cease to follow them problems are introduced. This is at the root of conflicts with various "closed cultures" who are enemies of outsiders simply because their system relies on consistincy to function, and once you start dealing with alternative points of view things cease to work. This is the fundemental reason driving conflicts against groups like Islamics, their system works as long as everyone follows the Islamic system, but it doesn't hold up so well with exceptions. Hence why you wind up with a situation where they want to kill and/or convert everyone else, it's not just about religion, but also maintaining the very building blocks that hold their society together.
At any rate I'm rambling, the point is that it's not deeply complicated, but understanding things like that and where various people are coming from (I only mentioned a couple of schools of thought and logic chains, there are literally thousands) provides a context to use of force, as well as when to realistically use it given that just about everyone is right from their own point of view.
That said, in short, I think violence as it stands now in video games is fine overall even if it could be better. I think sex is a bigger cup of tea, and while there are no perfect solutions that I am happy with, I can understand why it's censored more than violence. I also tend to think people who reverse those priorities are fairly backwards. As I pointed out I also think that the existance of gore, spinal breakage, and death does not make something inherantly mature. Indeed I think realistic depictions of violence in a "this can happen, and here is how you'd do it for real" are a bigger deal than over the top gore fests. Something like Mortal Kombat actually shows how messed up the rating systems are.
I'll also say that making games like "Mortal Kombat" and "Splatterhouse" rated for "Mature" or "Adult" audiences is counter productive. These games are so over the top and unbelievable that most parents are going to have no problem with their kids playing them. Heck a 35 year old Gen Xer who has kids, probably has fond memories of playing games like that in the Arcade, looks at them, and figures they are fine for Junior... and they are probably right, as most of those adults are well adjusted. As a result when a game comes along that provides realistic violence, with instructions of a sort on how to perform it, and perhaps a warped message of alternative morality intended to disturb people, a lot of parents are going to miss it since they see "intense violence" and they think "oh it's another Mortal Kombat, stupid censorship Nazis....". It's the differance between say "Splatterhouse" and "Manhunt" or certain crime games and ultra-realistic shooters. More does not mean worse, and I'll say "Manhunt" deserved an "M" rating but most of this other cartoony stuff doesn't. You can sneak up behind someone and kill them with a plastic bag over the head if your buff enough and do it like in that game. You can't turn into a supernatural killing machine and pulp people against walls or burst their heads like balloons. In "Manhunt" the protaganist is a sociopathic sleazebag despite who he's fighting, for all comments about survival, it's doubtful if "James Earl Cash" really deserves to live. In "Splatterhouse" the context is differant, evil mask aside our protaganist is trying to do the right thing, as opposed to being a total sleazebucket.
What's the difference between the X-Ray moves that you have to watch over and over and Supers and Ultras in Street Fighter that you have to watch over and over? Normally, Yahtzee makes really smart criticisms, but here, he was clearly out of his element and made lots of really dumb points.
I have to say I didn't really follow the fighting game genre much after my SNES days, my main problem is that if you look at Killer Instinct and Street Fighter II, you pretty much had to learn about 4 moves and you knew everything, everything else came down to timing and strategy, and knowing what move suits what situation. There might be a dozen characters with all different moves, but it mostly came down to Down, Forward, Punch - Down, Away Kick - and charging either Back or Down followed by Forward or Up with Punch or kick.
At no point did I have to learn that D,D,F, Y was one fireball and D,D,B, X was the other one, and then every character with a projectile has a different move set.
With the older games, without knowing the game or characters, if you knew SF basics, you could quickly do a fireball motion and if nothing happened, you knew that character had back/forward charge special moves.
A 'random fatality' input would be nice for those who can't remember 50 different strings of inputs and don't want to play with a moves list on their lap. something like D,D,Y on all characters would give you a finisher, but you need to do the real move if you want to choose one, that'd be a nice fix.
At no point did I have to learn that D,D,F, Y was one fireball and D,D,B, X was the other one, and then every character with a projectile has a different move set.
With the older games, without knowing the game or characters, if you knew SF basics, you could quickly do a fireball motion and if nothing happened, you knew that character had back/forward charge special moves.
A 'random fatality' input would be nice for those who can't remember 50 different strings of inputs and don't want to play with a moves list on their lap. something like D,D,Y on all characters would give you a finisher, but you need to do the real move if you want to choose one, that'd be a nice fix.
To everyone asking "what is wrong with new Doctor Who":
There are things called "plot holes", maybe you've heard of them. If you haven't, look it up, and then notice that all of Chris Eccleston and David Tennants run is built entirely out of senseless plot hole jackfuckery. Thank god Moffat is starting to put things a little back in order.
There are things called "plot holes", maybe you've heard of them. If you haven't, look it up, and then notice that all of Chris Eccleston and David Tennants run is built entirely out of senseless plot hole jackfuckery. Thank god Moffat is starting to put things a little back in order.
I agree wholeheartedly that Mortal Kombat in particular needs to fade off into the sunset. Street Fighter had kind of a successful reboot with the SF4 installation, but I was even surprised that was received as well as it was.
Mortal Kombat is essentially built on gimmicks and the thing about gimmicks is they only really work once. The gore bit has been done, no matter how graphic they make it. Making a joke of it is only marginally better. Gore aside it's not one of those fighters I'd categorize as high-minded. Sure people can spend a long time getting good at it, but there are better options out there.
As long as we're doing remakes how about another Primal Rage.
Mortal Kombat is essentially built on gimmicks and the thing about gimmicks is they only really work once. The gore bit has been done, no matter how graphic they make it. Making a joke of it is only marginally better. Gore aside it's not one of those fighters I'd categorize as high-minded. Sure people can spend a long time getting good at it, but there are better options out there.
As long as we're doing remakes how about another Primal Rage.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2011/05/npd-mortal-kombat-helps-video-game-industry-fight-to-bullish-month/1
"Mortal Kombat struggles for relevance", huh?
Yahtzee's opinion on fighting games should be taken with Everest amounts of salt. He never talks about the gameplay as much as he should, which always weakens his arguments. Not that he doesn't have some good points, but he doesn't care to expand beyond mentioning them before he goes back to the story plotholes or another forced set-up for another tortured joke.
I find it strange that Yahtzee has celebrated games of mindless action and violence in the past, but to suddenly say Mortal Kombat's gore is "boring". However, he also said it gave him a feeling of great uncomfortableness because of how intimately gruesome the x-ray moves are. That doesn't make any sense. That's the very opposite of boring.
If Yahtzee wants to be taken seriously as a reviewer all the time (which I think he is sometimes but only when he gives a shit), he needs to focus on describing the gameplay as much as possible, especially about a fighting game. We get it, the story is many boatloads of ridiculous, now talk about what matters. If you thought the actual mechanics of the game sucked, point out which ones and what about them felt unnatural or inane.
Don't get me wrong, I still think Yahtzee made some good points but he's too busy being pretentious most of the review.
"Mortal Kombat struggles for relevance", huh?
Yahtzee's opinion on fighting games should be taken with Everest amounts of salt. He never talks about the gameplay as much as he should, which always weakens his arguments. Not that he doesn't have some good points, but he doesn't care to expand beyond mentioning them before he goes back to the story plotholes or another forced set-up for another tortured joke.
I find it strange that Yahtzee has celebrated games of mindless action and violence in the past, but to suddenly say Mortal Kombat's gore is "boring". However, he also said it gave him a feeling of great uncomfortableness because of how intimately gruesome the x-ray moves are. That doesn't make any sense. That's the very opposite of boring.
If Yahtzee wants to be taken seriously as a reviewer all the time (which I think he is sometimes but only when he gives a shit), he needs to focus on describing the gameplay as much as possible, especially about a fighting game. We get it, the story is many boatloads of ridiculous, now talk about what matters. If you thought the actual mechanics of the game sucked, point out which ones and what about them felt unnatural or inane.
Don't get me wrong, I still think Yahtzee made some good points but he's too busy being pretentious most of the review.
i like new who and it would depend surely on who backula leaped into. what if he went back as marty mcfly...
