Mortal Kombat X - *shakes head*

The Getoverhere Spear. Double-ice backfire! Gotcha Grab. The acid spit. Klassic spelling initial c-words with a K. What a hell of a franchise! The latest MK game is a masterpiece. The original kreators have their hands deep in this, and only now do we know just how a graphically-realized peek at imaginative violence looks like, and it's gross. The newest systems have enough power to give the always-realistic kombatants the final anatomical details underneath the skin, which you'll see more often than you think. The...handful (potential pun intended) of fatalities that I've seen are enough for a horrified chuckle. Johnny Cage's default first fatality is one of those.

Then, there's the disgusting stuff, like how Liu Kang rips out his opponent's trachea, and then his LOWER JAW! This is over the top, but you also get to hear the gasping and blood bubbles, which adds a visceral layer to the shock. I'd equate the violence to Game of Thrones, and this might be the first time I've recommended vendors sticking to an M-rating.

As with the kurrent generation of fighters, you have an in-game profile that tracks your stats, and gains experience to show off your prowess. You also join one of 5 factions that come with their own fatalities.

The story mode is awesome. A few minutes of sharp-looking kutscenes that seamlessly blend with gameplay. For easily 10 years, developers have dropped fully-rendered kutscenes in exchange for more efficient ingame ones and no one ever told them that they looked shitty. A few games got away with this, like Uncharted and Last of Us...the majority of games lost their cinematic touch. Remember the FMVs from FFVII compared to the ingame graphics? Yeah. Well, the processing power is high enough that the gap in quality has rapidly shrunken, but Mortal Kombat has something to boast about. It is truly perfect. 90% of the seamless fight the CPU got the first hit because I was expecting loading time or the announcer to say, "FIGHT!"

Kharacter variations and costumes - how klever!

While this is the first game that has actually shocked me in its gruesomeness, the kreators have kicked ass in making MK a legitimate fighting game. The kombat has been tweaked over the last 3 generations, keeping the kharacters' multiple fighting stances, which I thought they would have done away with. I'm glad they stuck with it. The result is a fast-paced game with a deep, polished system, with fully-kustomizeable kontrols in case you don't like the default layout.

Mortal Kombat X, like the two games before it, is the absolute best that Netherrealm Studios has to offer and you should get it...just be ready to kuddle something fuzzy or find something beautiful between sessions.

Update: this game has one of the best presentations I've ever seen. Kharacter kostumes are introduced in kontext of the story, and most things are presented with enough justification that makes me wonder: how long was this game in production? Also, as a note, one of the female kharacters aims for overt sex appeal, and even that's used ironically. Mileena was kreated as a failed hybrid/klone who kept most of Princess Kitana's looks, which she likes to flaunt every once in a while. However, the rest of the femmes are hardkore, grim, humorous and tough as their male kounterparts. I'm trying to say that the writers weren't going to unnecessarily perpetuate female troupes. Good on them!