Review of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for XBLA by Protomario
26Sigh more blood and gore.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is a fighting game in the Mortal Kombat series, released in arcades in 1995. It is an update of Mortal Kombat 3 and was later updated again into Mortal Kombat Trilogy. According to a GameDaily interview with Ed Boon, this game is his favorite 2-D Mortal Kombat title.[1]
In 2006 an arcade perfect-version of UMK3 shipped with the premium versions of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the PlayStation 2. Midway has also released an online version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360. The game was released to the marketplace in North America accidentally on October 20, 2006; it was then taken off, before being released officially on October 21. In 2007 the Nintendo DS version called Ultimate Mortal Kombat was also released.
This game is rated M on the Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, Sega Saturn, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and SNES versions. On the last three versions, it is rated M for Realistic Violence and Realistic Blood and Gore; for the Nintendo DS and Xbox 360 the M rating is for Blood and Gore and Intense Violence. The game is not rated in the Arcade version, but it has the AAMA rating of Life-Like Violence-Strong.
Gameplay was identical to MK3 but introduced a few new elements. New MK3 characters were added in UMK3, including Kitana, Jade, Reptile and Scorpion on the prototype version; new Ultimate Kombat Code added in revision 1.0 to enable Mileena, Ermac and Sub-Zero. Two new gameplay modes were introduced: the 2-on-2 Kombat Mode which was similar to an Endurance match but with human players on both sides, and a new eight-player Tournament Mode.
Some characters were given new moves and some character moves were altered a bit, in most cases to balance the gameplay. Some characters were given extra combos and some combos were even damage reduced. Chain combos could be started by using a jump punch (vertical or angled) or a vertical jump kick, which created more comboing opportunities. Combos that knock opponents in the air would no longer send one's opponent to the level above in multi layered levels (only regular uppercuts would allow for this).
Additionally several miscellaneous features were added and changed to UMK3. The original red portal background used for the "Choose Your Destiny" screen is now replaced with Blue Portal and an extra Master difficulty is added as well. In the additional "Master" difficulty setting, Endurance Matches return, in which the player can face as many as three opponents in a given round. These were not seen since the first Mortal Kombat. Shao Kahn's Lost Treasures - selectable prizes, some are extra fights, others lead to various cutscenes or other things - are introduced after either the main game or the 8-player tournament are completed. The smallest alterations to the game include character announcements when Shang Tsung transforms and the "Toasty!" sound is now played during the game's end credits and when the players inserting a coin, when Dan Forden's image is shown.
Some elements from MK3 were missing in UMK3. The only biographies featured are for Kitana, Jade, Scorpion, and Reptile, the ninja characters who were not included in MK3, but were added to the lineup for this release, while all of the biographies and the full-body portraits of the MK3 characters are missing. The biographies that are featured use their Versus screen portrait, with text, on the portal/battleplan background. All of the character endings show each character's versus screen picture accompanied by text, instead of using original art as MK3 did. The storyline intro pictures and accompanying text are never shown. Finally, The Bank, the only stage missing from MK3, was removed completely from gameplay.
The CPU AI was improved in the game. However, two new flaws were introduced along with the revisions: while backflipping away from an opponent, if the player performs a jump kick, the CPU will always throw a projectile. This leaves the CPU vulnerable to attacks such as Sektor's teleport-uppercut, which can easily lead into a devastating combo. If the player walks back-and-forth within a certain range of the AI's chosen character, the CPU will mimic the player's walking movements for the whole round and never attack (this gameplay flaw remained and was not corrected for Mortal Kombat Trilogy). In addition, an earlier version of the AI was used in UMK3 -- version 1.1 of the AI was used instead of version 1.2, which caused issues with its less-developed code.
Reference-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Mortal_Kombat_3