Fan-made Mortal Kombat+ fixes bugs and adds new features to the original arcade trilogy

[Shawn Knight]

Facepalm: The team behind Mortal Kombat missed a golden opportunity to celebrate the franchise's 30th anniversary earlier this month. A leak from August suggested a ho-hum anniversary bundle was in the works but on October 8, all we got was a 90-second anniversary video posted to YouTube.

Fortunately, the gaming community has taken matters into its own hands.

Mortal Kombat+ is a project that involves taking the first three games in the series – Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 – and disassembling their code to fix known issues that Midway never bothered to correct.

Each game has its own set of issues but all are receiving improved factory user settings, better CPU AI, updated audio and new characters. MK1 and MKII are also getting combo meters, 2v2 mode plus a tag-team mode and will have all levels unlocked.

MK1+ is currently in development with a beta release expected sometime by the end of 2022. A beta (version 2.8.50) is already available for MKII+ and Ultimate MK3+ (version 2.0.0) for those interested in giving it a shot. Files are available to download for MAME and Fightcade over on the project's website.

Ed Boon, one of the franchise's original creators, was recently interviewed by PlayStation Blog ahead of the 30th anniversary. In it, he said one of the secrets to Mortal Kombat's sustained success has been that each game brings something new to the table. Things outside of the games, like movies, animation and merchandising, have also helped to keep the series in the public eye.

Boon also touched on Acclaim's famed Mortal Monday, the $10 million advertising campaign that coincided with Mortal Kombat's release on the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Game Boy and Game Gear.

As for what is next, Boon said they haven't made the last MK game yet but could not reveal any more. A sequel to the Mortal Kombat movie reboot is also in the works, and Boon confirmed the project was progressing nicely.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/96278-fan-made-mortal-kombat-fixes-bugs-adds-new.html

 

[R00sT3R]

Never understood the appeal of these games, TBH.

I find the digitised style of character models utterly charmless compared to traditional 2D animated sprites.

Its only USP as far as I can tell was the gore factor.

 

[hahahanoobs]

Those games were perfect just the way they were to me back then.

 

[Rdmetz]

Never understood the appeal of these games, TBH.

I find the digitised style of character models utterly charmless compared to traditional 2D animated sprites.

Its only USP as far as I can tell was the gore factor.

Not sure how old you are but I'm guessing you weren't playing these games in the arcade in like 92-95.... These game "seemed" miles ahead of anything else like it in both graphics and brutality... If you were a young teen / early adult it was mind blowing!

And today? Well while obviously looking more dated than traditional 2d art for those of us around back then nostalgia still makes them very charming.

Basically... You had to be there.

 

[psycros]

Not sure how old you are but I'm guessing you weren't playing these games in the arcade in like 92-95.... These game "seemed" miles ahead of anything else like it in both graphics and brutality... If you were a young teen / early adult it was mind blowing!

And today? Well while obviously looking more dated than traditional 2d art for those of us around back then nostalgia still makes them very charming.

Basically... You had to be there.

I could never handle the control scheme. Who can mash that many different buttons that fast?

 

[Avro Arrow]

I loved MK and (especially) MKII but the rest of them.... meh.

I actually really like the first MK movie. They basically looked at the dumpster fire that was "Street Fighter" and said "Oh Capcom, we'll have a better cast with a better story and effects but we'll make it with less than half of your budget!".

Then they went and did it with almost ZERO blood in the movie despite having real martial artists involved in its production.

 

[kimo1]

I could never handle the control scheme. Who can mash that many different buttons that fast?

It's silly indeed, you need to be young or take drugs which increase your focusing ability, but in the end you'll end up with dementia and carpal tunnel syndrome. MK's "dial your attack code within a second" is seriously anti-fun.

 

[Puiu]

MK4 was my first MK I played as a child and it was a ton of fun