🚀 go-pugleaf

Hello Everyone!

   I had the opportunity to play with the beta version of Mortal Kombat
for the IBM PC today, and I thought someone might be interested in yet
another opinion of the game.

   First, please keep in mind that I am using a 486/66 with a Diamond Stealth
24 VLB video card...  there's no doubt that results will vary.  The game was
unbearably slow when the turbo was down to 10.  Also, there was no sound -- no
sound driver was available with this beta (although the options were there to
choose among several different sound cards).

   I had been well primed by friends and the net -- everything I'd heard
suggested that it would be great.  But even fully prepared, I was amazed at
what I saw.

   To begin with, the graphics appeared to be identical to the arcade version
(with the exception of resolution).  The intro screen, high scores, selection
screen, and battle arenas were all perfect.  The torches flickered in the same
way, and everything moved at the same speed as the arcade version.  Every drop
of the blood and guts looked perfect, all the way to the bottom of the pit.  I
was stunned.

   I began the game using the keyboard (although I also tried the Gravis
GamePad, which I'll discuss later).  Although it may seem unreasonable at
first to use a keyboard to play MK (9 keys per player in all), it was actually
quite intuitive for player 2.  The arrows move in the four expected direct-
ions, and diagnols are performed by pressing two arrows simultaneously.  For
example, a diagnol jump to the left would be left and up pressed together.
The home, end, pgup, and pgdown keys are used for punches and kicks, and the
numeric keypad 5 key is used to block.  Thus the arrangement on my keyboard
looks like this:


   **  HP  HK    **  **  **  **

   **  LP  LK    HP  UP  HK  **
                             **
                 LF  BL  RT  **

       UP        LP  DN  LK  **
                             **
   LF  DN  RT    ******  **  **


(This represents the right side of a 101-key keyboard, ** represents other
keys not used for playing.)

   The keyboard was very easy to play on -- and special moves were
particularly easy.  For example, Sub-Zero's ice or Raiden's lightning
is simply DN, RT, LP -- three key taps, and I had no problem rolling them
very quickly.  I kept my left hand on the four arrow keys to the left,
and my right hand over the numeric keypad (for block, kicks, and punches).
When playing two player, I did have a problem with keys on my keyboard
conflicting with each other.  For example, my low punch would not register
as long as my opponent was blocking -- this differs from keyboard to keyboard,
so I hope the first release will come with a good configuration utility to
setup controls that work for individual keyboards.

   Game play was incredible.  With the exception of the keyboard, which
rapidly fell under subconscious control, I felt as though I were playing at
the arcade.  When I finally returned to my senses, I began experimenting with
different combinations and 'cheezes' to see if it had the same problems as the
SNES or Genesis versions.  Although the computer was relatively easy to beat,
it performed very very similarly to an arcade MK set to a low difficultly
level.  (It may be that the beta version is hardwired to an easy level.)  Play
against a human opponent seemed very familiar, and even the fatality combos
felt 'real'.  I tried Liu Kang's fancy fatalities and they all performed just
as they would in the arcade.  A friend said that he also tried Scorp's
throw/fry fatality combo, and it worked as expected, too.

   Goro seemed tougher than in the arcade to me...  It may be that I've
grown soft playing the SNES Goro who basically cheezes himself, but I had
some real difficulty with him.  The 'flip back and kick in the corner'
trick was quite successful on the other characters, but wasn't enough
against Goro.  He'd grab me often enough to do me in before I could kill him.

   I was curious how the Gravis GamePad would work with the game (since it has
only four buttons), and I was interested in getting one anyway, so I went out
to Walmart and bought one.  For those who don't know, the GamePad is a digital
controller similar to a SNES controller without the R, L, START, or SELECT
buttons.  If you have a game port that supports two joysticks (through one
connector), you can use all four buttons on the GamePad.  The four buttons are
arranged like this:

    .***.                     BLUE
   .*****.
   ***O***                RED     GREEN
   .*****.
    .***.                    YELLOW

(Thumb Control)

The buttons were defined as follows:
Blue:    Block
Green:   High Kick
Yellow:  Low Kick
Red:     High/Low Punch*

* Normally Low Punch, unless also pressing left or right on the direction
  pad, in which case it is High Punch.

   This seemed to be a very good solution, as almost all moves as executed on
the GamePad would work fine on the arcade version [which seems odd,
considering the missing button].  It did take me a little while to adjust some
of my habits.  For example, in the arcade, I execute Raiden's fatality as:
forward, back, back, back, high punch.  But using the GamePad, I had to
perform it as: forward, back, back, HOLD back, punch.  If I didn't hold the
last back, the game would interpret the punch as a low punch, and the fatality
would fail.  But notice that this same sequence works fine in the arcade as
well...

   The most distracting side effect of this was during throwing.  To throw in
the arcade, I press low punch while walking into the player using left/right.
But using the GamePad, a punch with left/right is interpreted as high punch,
so I kept elbowing my opponent instead of throwing him/her.  The solution is
to let go of the direction pad just before pressing punch -- but this is
counter-intuitive (and I don't think it works in the arcade game -- but I may
be wrong).

   I had absolutely no problem with other special moves and fatalities --
which is strange since I'm quite sure that I kept holding the direction pad
left/right when I pressed low punch for Sub-Zero's freeze and Raiden's bolt --
yet they worked fine.  Perhaps the game makes exceptions for the
high-punch/low-punch rule for some special moves.  Overall, I was very
impressed with GamePad performance, and found it much easier to use than
either the SNES or Genesis controls.  The controls were very quick to respond,
and moves appeared to buffer properly.

   There were several bugs in the game, but this should be expected since
it was a beta version.  Scorp's spear sometimes stabbed through to the
other side of the screen or extended behind Scorp as well as in front of
him.  Raiden's fatality crashed the game at one point, with a 'too many
processes' error (although it wasn't repeatable).  But perhaps the funniest
of all was when Liu Kang missed his target with his flying kick.  He would
sail over his opponent, and keep flying straight to the edge of the screen.
If the other player walked toward him, he'd keep flying until he hit
the wall, where he'd stick like a dart.  The only way to get him down was
to hit him with a missile weapon of some kind.

   In summary, I'd like to say that I am extremely impressed with this game,
and will buy it the instant it hits the stores.  I would highly encourage
anyone who enjoys MK (and has a computer of sufficient speed) to do the same
-- you will *not* be disappointed.  I am amazed at the quality of this arcade
translation, and I hope we'll see more like it!


---Xeno

P.S.  Please don't ask me for a copy of the beta -- although I think it's
      a great demonstration of the game, I don't support copying software
      against the wishes of its authors.  I just had the opportunity to play
      the game, and thought I'd share my thoughts.

P.P.S.  As for the GamePad, I think it's a great purchase too -- I've never
        enjoyed Commander Keen adventures, but with the GamePad, they're
        great!
-- 
Gary L Snethen
xe...@iastate.edu