MK Shaolin Monks

[Anya 0]

It came out early. I just started playing.

[Rendclaw 0]

And??

[Anya 0]

It seems really cool. Like god of war meets MK.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I know you mean well, but that description actually made me want to play less...

 

Edit:

Because I misread it as "War Gods". I'll check it out.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

The MKII addition can be played right off the bat, can't it?

[Use Your Illusion 0]

IGN have given it 8/10

 

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/651/651620p1.html

[Scroby 0]

I'm not sure what to get, Ultimate Spiderman or Mortal Kombat Sholin monks. I've played the demo of Monks and I really liked it, but Spiderman looks really fun...I'M SO FUCKING CONFUSED!

[Anya 0]

I beat the game. In one night. Not counting secrets its only like 6 hours long.

 

As a fan of the story I am so disappointed right now. I went in hyped to finally find out what happened in MK II. Well it's horrible. Basically everything established in MK II is thrown away. The whole game is one big retcon and the ending makes absolutely no sense. There's a plot twist at the end that's proboably one of the dumbest continuity errors I've ever seen.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Well, that just saved me $75 AUS.

[Anya 0]

The gameplay is surprisingly fun though. It's basically a rip off of God of War with a bit of Metroid's world design. The game is sort of non-linear. The portal acts as a hub and you can go anywhere you want, but you need certain abilities to get far. It's like Metroid where you'll see a wall you can climb hours before you get that power up, then when you do get it you backtrack to reach a new area. Also most of the boss battles are good, with little cinematic gimmick things to play with like God of War's boss in the hades level. At one point you fight Scorpion and he'll jump up on this platform where you can't reach him and start throwing his spear. You have to catch his own spear and yank him off the platform back down to you. In a battle with Mileena & Jade you can knock them into little cages and then do a Test Your Might to release these spikes to damage them. Lots of levels require you to throw bad guys into fun stuff like chains and spikes.

 

 

There's some really cool moments that hardcore fans will love. We FINALLY see Kahn without his helmet, at last we know how Sub-Zero got his scar, and Kintaro's introduction is awesome.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

How did Sub-Zero get his scar? I'm fully prepared to cop any spoilers here.

[Anya 0]

Ok I'm going to spoil the game, so if anyone cares to find out on their own this is their warning.....

 

 

 

 

 

Sub attacks Kung Lao and Liu Kang thinking their bad. Kung throws his hat and hits Sub in the face.

 

 

 

And the ending.....

 

What's really screwed up about the story is that almost all the bad guys die. Baraka, Reptile, Jade, Kintaro, Shang Tsung and even Shao Kahn himself are killed. Yeah, Kahn dies. Not a lame "apparent" death where his body is never found either. He gets owned. He turns to stone, blows up and you even see his soul float off. That dude is gone. As messed up as this sounds...it appears they are ignoring MK3.

 

After Kahn dies and the heroes leave Quan Chi appears and takes Shinnok's amulet from Kahn's body. I guess this is supposed to set up MK4. Except this makes no sense. This is the continuity error I am talking about. Quan Chi ALREADY HAS THE AMULET. He has had it since MK Mythologies which took place before MK1. Even if he didn't what would Kahn be doing with it? Kahn had NOTHING to do with the amulet sub-plot. The thing wasn't even in outworld! Whoever came up with this plot twist clearly knows nothing about the MK4 story. This may be the biggest mistake or retcon they've made. Usually you can come up with some BS way to explain it. This one is just stupid.

[AndrewTS 0]

Yeah, Kahn dies. Not a lame "apparent" death where his body is never found either. He gets owned. He turns to stone, blows up and you even see his soul float off. That dude is gone. As messed up as this sounds...it appears they are ignoring MK3.

 

Well, that is how he "dies" in MK2, even if none of the regular endings are canon. But SM should have given the be-all, end-all canon results of MKII...

 

Of course, people die and come back in MK all the time.

 

Considering that they decided to use aspects of MK Annihilation in the games afterwards, I guess it's not shocking.

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

Is Cage a punk bitch in this one?

 

*doesn't expect a positive answer*

[Anya 0]

Well, that is how he "dies" in MK2, even if none of the regular endings are canon.  But SM should have given the be-all, end-all canon results of MKII...

 

 

 

Yeah, but I was hoping this would finally get cleared up. It's frustrating to know so little about MK II. In MK3 he just shows up alive and well with no explination. Now it's two games where this happens.

 

I liked how they stuck with his MK II death(it always bugged me how they ignore the big boss death scenes). They could have lead into MK3 though. Just show him reform afterwards when the heroes leave and then begin plans to raise Sindel.

 

 

Cage is an arrogant joke character in the game.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Anya, is it possible that this is Boon's attempt to further water down Tobias' influence on the MK storyline?

 

Sounds petty, but I am unfamiliar with the terms in which he left Midway. Was it pretty bitter?

[Anya 0]

No. As far as I know Tobias and Boon remained friends. Boon doesn't even write the story. In fact he doesn't seem to care much about it at all. The story has been handled by John Vogel since MK4, who has been with the MK team since the beginning. He just doesn't like some of the stuff Tobias did, most famously his hatred for Cage dying before MK3.

 

Tobias was incredibly vague back then, so it's up to Vogel to flesh things out and that often means changing things around. Like in MK II Sub-Zero was simply there to kill Shang Tsung as ordered by the Lin Kuei. Now that they've made Noob Saibot Sub's brother they've added that to the MK II story, Sub is in outworld looking for him.

 

 

Also these games are not designed with the story in mind. The story is often one of the last things they do. They decide what levels and characters will be in long before thinking of the story. So frequently Vogel has to come up with excuses to explain things that shouldn't be possible, like all the dead characters coming back to life. If Boon wants Kabal in Deception then he has no choice but to explain his return even though he was killed off in Deadly Alliance.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Whenever you notice something like that... a wizard did it.

[AndrewTS 0]

Yeah, sounds plausible. Boon will probably fire up an arcade machine for one of the original 3, geek out over a set of characters, and be dead set that they'll be included in the next game.

 

"Hey Vogel, Sheeva's going to be in the Deception sequel. Whip me up a retcon. Oh, and I think that Annihilation thing when Kahn and Raiden are brothers sounds cool, we're gonna use it for this one."

 

Naw, like they're going to acknowledge/explain what the heck happened with Shinnok in the games.

[Anya 0]

Trying to find all the secrets is really addicting. Im trying to do SMokes missions, which unlocks MK II.

[Scroby 0]

Hmmm so should I might go with Ultimate Spiderman instead and make Sholin Monks a rental? Oh and how is the co-op?

[SuperJerk 0]

I take it that instead of *thump*thump*thump*thump* MORTAL KOMBAT~! now its monk's chanting?

[Lil' Bitch 0]

Man, that's really disappointed to read that. If its one thing about fighting games I hate, its them always making changes to the storyline. If its not broken, don't fix it.

[AndrewTS 0]

Trying to find all the secrets is really addicting. Im trying to do SMokes missions, which unlocks MK II.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Can you fight Smoke in that MKII?

 

Nice job omitting one of the secrets in the MAT2 version, Midway.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Blasted X-Play. I now only associate this game with one thing:

 

"Hey, are you okay?"

[Anya 0]

It's the exact same MK II as MAT2. So no Smoke with sound glitches and messed up shadows.

 

They didn't even bother to change the pause menu or loading screens from MAT2. One of the designers was saying they had added an extra at the last minute, I bet it was this.

[AndrewTS 0]

So, completing Smoke's missions let you play MKII...but in it you can't even fight Smoke in his first appearance.

 

I liked the first TMNT game for the new series, but Battle Nexus was pretty bleh, IMO. Although I'm not surprised that so many review mags/sites don't "get" the revival attempts. Beat 'Em Ups have largely been so played out that it is hard to get excited about any new ones.

 

Dynamite Cop I really enjoy, and I played a bit of Spike Out, which is pretty cool--but I'm not going to really be able to enjoy it until I can get some friends together (I own the game, but no X-Box). My resignation about playing Urban Reign is rooted in the low-quality Tekken side games. Zitaragi and the gaming press had quite the good time knocking on Death by Degrees, so I haven't tried it. While they're hardly the most trustworthy sources, I had given them the benefit of the doubt on that. Is it really bad?

[Carnival 0]

It's a pretty fun game so far. I've only got past Jade/Kitana/Mileena cuz i can only play it at abowen33's house.

 

I mark for the movies, he does too but won't admit it.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

TMNT3 for the NDS looks awesome and will be out towards the end of the year.

 

Oh right, what about them Shaolin Monks and all

[Anya 0]

I played through all the fighting games in the series last night in a row. I stand by my ranking. 4 and 1 are so much better than DA and Deception.