Mortal Kombat 3

By the time this third entry in the series came out, we had a movie, popular predecessors, a cartoon on the way, and countless other merchandising. MORTAL KOMBAT 3 I feel is a polarizing entry in that it’s not quite the leap from the second outing that MK 2 was to MK 1. We still have your usual finishing moves, babalities, friendships, etc but now with something else called an Animality...where you can turn into some sort of animal to finish off the losing opponent. Some popular characters from previous outings are absent, such as Scorpion and Johnny Cage, and we have a new combo system that can be utterly frustrating or frickin amazing depending on the type of fighting gameplay you prefer. Some interesting new characters do fill the gaps, with some double-level stages (where you knock your opponent through the roof to advance to a different stage). Also, the most innovative feature might be a Kode-Kombination at the beginning of each versus fight where if you enter in a correct sequence made up of symbols, effects such as hyper fighting, invisibility, kombo disables, and other things can occur. It’s a neat system that adds some variety to matches. While this is a solid entry for those still interesting in the original lore before the storyline got too kooky, your love of the combo system will influence whether you prefer this one or MK II.

GAMING SCORE: 7/10