Culture

Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360, (4/5).
Some fool somewhere said that videogames couldn't possibly get any more violent. That's exactly what they said at the beginning of the twentieth century and look where we ended up. Despite the series being as old as I am, Mortal Kombat hasn't yet exhausted its creative saw-tooth, and includes brutal manoeuvres that reveal the underlying bones and organs and show in detail how anatomy is deformed when, for example, two spikes rupture your opponent’s eye sockets. You can watch violent films, you can play alone, but fictional violence only becomes truly satisfying when it's happening to friends that you cherish and admire.

 
Past series iterations are accused of getting a little too much mileage out of that cheap phenomenon of violence, and falling behind their fighting game brethren mechanically, so I'm pleased to say that the 2011 version is fluid, balanced and strategic. Getting back to basics, you never stray from a 2D plane and form a large, but not overwhelming, variety of combos with simple button and direction presses. I’d never gotten into a fighting game before, but Mortal Kombat has converted me with a depth that belies its aesthetics, in a context that's simple enough not to detract from the raw style that the series is known for.
 

Mortal Kombat has problems, but they are the kind of hair tussling, boys-will-be-boys problems that pervade the industry and either completely bug me or leave me utterly apathetic depending on the minutes past the hour. The female character designs are, you know, incredibly offensive and the irrelevant narrative stumbles into the so-bad-it's-good realm with laughable writing and voice-acting. But we all know that the story is a charade, don't we? It's an excuse to beat someone half a dozen times with their own leg.