#1152 Mortal Kombat X (Steam) Horror DLC Characters (1/4): Jason Vorhees gameplay.

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Published on September 21, 2020 11:59:23 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iK8f14nv5zM

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Mortal Kombat X (2015)

Duration: 5:39

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Gameplay of the DLC character Jason Vorhees in the Steam/PC Port of Netherrealm Studio’s Mortal Kombat X.

Jason is the antagonist of the Friday the 13th film franchise. He’s been in a ridiculous number of films, including going into space one time, and even going up against Freddy at one point.

After Freddy was revealed in MK9, I remember people saying something along the lines of “well, Jason can’t be far behind then.” And then we ended up having to wait four years to see him in an MK game.

That said, it was a genius move of Netherrealm to announce him as the first guest character for the game. The only problem with that being…well, they really went a bit too all in with the guest characters in this game. I mean, one or two is fine, but four out of the main eight DLC characters are guest characters from horror films. A Jason or a Freddy is fine, but when you’re getting characters like Leatherface included over Rain or Baraka, it just seems a bit much. By that point, you might as well just make a slasher fighting game instead; you’d satisfy two demographics and potentially make even more money in the process.

I guess Netherrealm went with the horror guest characters for a bit of shock value, presumably because slasher villains tend to be quite gorey and brutal like the MK characters, but thematically-speaking it’s actually a bit weird. The first Mortal Kombat game is actually based on martial arts and actions films as opposed to Horror films, which is typified by the fact that it was originally going to be a Jean Claude Van Damme fighting game.

In fact, all the original characters were inspired by action films/stars in some way:
- Liu Kang is of course based on the legend himself, Bruce Lee.
- Johnny Cage is based on Jean Claude Van Damme, mostly notably his performances in Kickboxer and Bloodsport.
- Sonya Blade is based on Cynthia Rothrock, an 80s/90s action star who appeared in some of Godfrey Ho’s films like Honor and Glory, and Undefeatable.
- Raiden, Goro and Shang Tsung are all based off of characters from John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China.
- Scorpion and Sub-Zero are probably based on the brightly-coloured ninjas of Godfrey Ho films.
- Kano, I suspect anyway, is probably based off of Australian actor Stuart Smith, who played numerous villains in the films of Godfrey Ho/Joseph Lai.

MK2 and onward definitely looked more towards the brutal and horror-filmed side of things, but it’s weird that a series which started with martial arts inspirations has embraced its horror side the most, even though it stills retains tons of the tropes and clichés of your average martial arts film.

That said, I liked Jason’s inclusion here; his specials are great, and his combos have a lot of weight and power to them. He’s really quite good on the whole, and I had a good amount of fun with him.

I definitely like the idea of Jason more than I do the execution; he’s become iconic simply by virtue of how extensively long the Friday the 13th Franchise is. Hell, his most iconic form, with the hockey mask, didn’t even happen until the 3rd film, which is pretty weird when you think about it. Other franchises have only really begun with the second film (Mad Max and Rambo being good examples), but very well with the 3rd film, barring maybe Goldfinger for the James Bond series, and even then Dr. No and From Russia with Love are fantastic films in their own right, even if they’re a little less “classic Bond” than some of the other films.

Overall though, very happy with Jason’s inclusion, and a good choice for a guest character.

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