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Mortal Kombat Secrets presents
The History of Mortal Kombat
Episode 07 Descend into the Underworld
After the release of Mortal Kombat 4, Ed Boon and his part of the Mortal Kombat team focused
on the development of a third person shooter, called The Grid. The game was released in
the arcades in the summer of 2000, with several tournaments taking place shortly after the release.
The Grid is a televised game show, where contestants
are fighting to the death, controlling celebrity avatars in holographic arenas. The players
have power-ups, Special Moves, and even weapons at their disposal.
The game caries strong references to both, Mortal Kombat and Smash TV. Sub-Zero, Noob Saibot
and Scorpion are guest avatars and can be unlocked to join a cast of more than 15 characters.
Powered by the second generation of the Zeus
hardware, this title features not only advanced graphics and higher resolution, but also supports
multiplayer matches for up to six machines and a saving feature.
The Grid is Midway's last arcade game and marks the end of an entire era for the company.
In spite of the developer's desire, it has not been ported to any home system and is
currently only remembered by its hard-core fans.
With Ed Boon and his part of the Mortal Kombat team developing The Grid, it was up to John Tobias
and the people behind Mythologies to create the next game of the Mortal Kombat franchise.
In 1997 one soldier achieved a worldwide fame
by being the main character of a game that offered a never before seen game play tactics,
intriguing story, and fast paced action.
One year later, two Special Forces agents took
on a similar path, hoping to repeat his success.
Work on Mortal Kombat: Special Forces started
shortly after the release of Mythologies, with planned release date in 1999. This deadline
was never met, as the game was cursed with one of the most problematic but also one of
the most interesting developments a title of the series has ever seen. It turned from
an ambitious project into one of the worst games of the franchise.
The team led by John Tobias initially envisioned Mortal Kombat: Special Forces as a third person
action adventure that would also support cooperative game play. Sonya and Jax were going to be
controlled simultaneously on a split screen. Unfortunately, limitations in the technology
prevented the presence of both characters on the screen with the desired level of detail.
As a result, the idea was dropped in favor of the ability to choose and play as one of them.
Development for the title was made on top
of a complex game play and story ideas, which involved serious branching that was going
to depend not only on the selected character, but also on the decisions made by the player.
According to Tobias, a person could go through the whole game several times without seeing
everything it has to offer.
In addition to the branching story, the game
was going to benefit from an advanced motion capture techniques to achieve smooth and realistic
animation, while the characters walk, fight, climb ladders or swim, making their way through
the levels. Similar to Tomb Raider, the game was going to offer different puzzles, which
the player would need to solve in order to progress further.
The initial story takes place before the events of the original Mortal Kombat and was supposed
to explain the rivalry between the two agents and Kano, leader of the Black Dragon.
The first missions were going to offer a pure military feeling and be set in the real world
with supernatural elements being introduced slowly as the player progresses into the game,
learns of Outworld and meets characters, such as Raiden and Shang Tsung. A pre-disfigurement
Kabal was going to appear as a member of Kano's clan. In addition, the player was going to
learn and witness the way Kano lost one of his eyes. The developers were facing a big
challenge with Jax's bionic arms. According to Tobias, the arms were already a trademark
for the character and they were struggling with how and whether to keep them in the game,
as they were not part of the story until Mortal Kombat 3. The plan was either to completely
remove them or to introduce them as an initial prototype. The story was going to be told
with 3D scenes rendered in real time to make all versions of the game look exactly alike.
Mortal Kombat: Special Forces was first shown to the public at E3 in 1999. Seven different
levels were planned for the game, which was at the time supposed to be released at the
end of the same year for Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64.
Several months after the show, John Tobias and a few other members of the team left Midway
to pursue other career opportunities. Among the stated reasons was a desire from the group
to take ownership of the products that they are creating. Fans were devastated when the
news was officially announced and many stated that Mortal Kombat will never be the same
without one of its original creators.
Upon leaving Midway, Tobias thought that Special Forces
was going to be canceled, as they were facing engine problems with the already struggling title.
Their departure caused a significant delay in the development and additional team
members were brought to finish the game. In May 2000, the title appeared at E3 for
the second time, but significantly crippled. Sonya was removed as playable character and
the branching plotline was replaced in favor of a strictly linear story.
The Nintendo 64 version was also scrapped.
The game was released in the summer of 2000
for the reduced price of $20. Sonya is completely taken out from this final version, together
with most of the planned story. Characters like Raiden and Shang Tsung do not appear at all,
however the 3D models of several of the planned characters including Kabal,
are used in the game, but the characters themselves are neither mentioned by name, nor play any
part in the story. Jax's arms and Kano's cybernetic eye also remain unexplained.
Starting with Special Forces, Kano's descent was officially changed from the original American-Japanese
to Australian because of Trevor Goddard's well received interpretation of the character in
the original movie. In this and in all future games Kano's design closely resembles the
look of the actor. 4 characters were added to the ranks of the
Black Dragon to assist Kano in his scheme. No Face. This highly disfigured clan member
possesses extensive knowledge of incendiary and explosive devices.
Tasia. A skillful fighter and an expert swordswoman.
Jarek. The only one of the four, who has appeared in a previous installment of the franchise.
Tremor. This ninja fighter was originally
planned for Mortal Kombat Trilogy as a playable member of the Lin Kuei, but did not make the
final cut. In Special Forces, the loyalty of the earthquake ninja lies with Kano.
A new female agent, named Gemini is introduced to assist Major Briggs in his mission. She
is his base operative, and delivers important information from the Headquarters of the Special
Forces agency. A sixth member of the Black Dragon can be
seen escaping from the prison at the beginning of the game. It is rumored that this might
have been Kabal, who was removed from the final version.
Mortal Kombat: Special Forces received mostly negative reviews by both the critics and the
fans. The game failed in every possible way, except in one. It did an impressive job at
disappointing even the hard-core fans of the franchise. To add salt to the open wound Midway
removed John Tobias from the final credits. This act was met with disapproval from many
of the fans, who can only wonder, how the game would have turned out, had it been finished
by the people who started it.
In the summer of 2000, Threshold Entertainment
launched Mortal Kombat: Federation of Martial Arts, an interactive web series released exclusively
on the official website of the franchise.
By joining the federation players received
pretend money, called Atman, which they could use to create a port folio of fighters and
bet on fights. Each Friday, a new fight scene between 2 characters was released.
Different Prizes were given to those, who had the most money. The series continued for several months,
after which it was canceled without an official reason.
The Story was included mostly in the form of news reports, which were published on the
website. Later episodes did however introduce some story elements. Several actors from the
movies and the TV series returned to reprise their roles. For other characters, either
new actors or archive footage was used. During the short run of the series, it was
reported that there are plans to bring Federation of Martial Arts to the small screen.
The idea never reached an actual development and no TV episodes were ever produced.
Mortal Kombat: Federation of Martial Arts had a very small budget, which led to the
creation of terrible fight scenes, bad acting, and lame special effects. In spite of these
flaws, the project attracted the attention of the fans and remained in history as Threshold's
last attempt to create an adaptation of the Mortal Kombat franchise.
In 2001, Nintendo launched its next generation hand-held system, the 32bit Game Boy Advance.
A few months later, on December 1st, Midway released Mortal Kombat Advance,
a port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 developed by Virtucraft, a UK based game studio.
The game contains all characters from the 16bit ports of the original version.
Noob Saibot and Rain can be selected from the start and the two boss characters can be unlocked.
However, most of the finishing moves were removed from the game.
The graphics look bad when compared to other Mortal Kombat games released later on the
same system. The characters are poorly animated, with many missing frames, which destroys the
fluid feeling present in the other versions. The arenas are static and heavily compressed,
which makes them look like a shallow copy of the originals. Many special effects are
also missing and the violence and blood appear to be toned down. However all this did not
affect the rating of the game.
The sound quality is good, but the missing and
the misplaced tracks make this port sound odd and different from the other versions.
The worst part of the game is its gameplay. The unresponsive controls, the inadequate
artificial intelligence, and the poorly implemented moves make this port almost unplayable.
Gamers were excited when the game was initially announced, only to be disappointed when the
final product was released. Mortal Kombat Advance was poorly received by both, the press
and the fans. Whether it was due to a short deadline, developers' incompetence or both,
the fact remains: Mortal Kombat Advance had the potential to become the best hand-held
version of Mortal Kombat, but instead it became the last part of this lowest point for the franchise
and is considered the worst game of the series.
For several years, Mortal Kombat has struggled to keep its head above water. Rushed and unpolished
projects were released for the sole purpose of capitalizing on its popularity, and forced
many fans to leave the franchise in the past. Neither the latest games nor the TV series
could withstand the push of the rising competition. The remaining loyal fans had no other choice
but to wait patiently, asking themselves, what will succeed in picking up the franchise
from the reached bottom...
...an Alliance.