STORY:
Thousands
of years ago, during a war with the corrupt Elder God known as Shinnok,
Raiden was responsible for the death of an entire civilization. To avoid
a repeat of this event, as well as to protect all realms from Shinnok's
threat, Raiden waged a brutal campaign and, at a heavy price, exiled his
rival to a dark place known as the Netherealm.
MK Gold adds a top row of
classic characters.
REVIEW:
The successor to
Mortal Kombat 4, MK Gold was one of the launch titles for the Sega Dreamcast
on September 9th, 1999. The sequel adds 5 classic characters to the lineup,
which include: Cyrax, Mileena, Kitana, Kung Lao & Baraka. Each of the new
characters also show off their own new weapons, which they can pull out at any
time to attack their opponent's with. However, they function practically the
same as the weapons of the returning characters. Gold also adds a new weapon select option, and
features some new stages not seen
in the original installment. A Dreamcast
exclusive, MK Gold came out nearly 2 years after MK4's original arcade
release, and maintained everything the arcade version of MK4 had to offer.
Them nails
tho... and MK's trademark blood
droplets still bring the luls.
Unlike the previous console iterations of MK4,
Mortal Kombat Gold on Dreamcast features character model consisting of
3,000 polygons, the exact same as the arcade version of MK4. Some original levels were also reworked to take advantage
of the 3D processing power of the Dreamcast. While MK Gold had a noticeably
"sharp" appearance, the blocky character models, pixilated effects,
and bland textures & backgrounds failed to impress... especially since the
Sega Dreamcast was capable of much better visuals. Soul
Calibur, another launch title on the Dreamcast, was the prime example, and simply blew
MK Gold out
of the water visually (not to mention, gameplay-wise).
However, as a Mortal Kombat game, Gold has all the essentials....
brutal fatalities, laughable voice acting, awkward animations, and tons of
nostalgia value.
It's Mortal Kombat after all. Though MK4 was impressive
when it hit arcades, the graphics style, animation style and gameplay engine didn't exactly age
well... even on the powerful Dreamcast. The gameplay is still very 2D and feels
very "last-gen". All in
all, MK Gold is really just MK4 with a new paint job and some new
characters... and in 1999, it would be considered a "mediocre"
fighting game at best.
MK Gold was the definitive version of MK4. Now with 5 classic
characters returning to the mix,
the game felt more complete. However, the overall visuals and gameplay were
rather stale for 1999... especially when compared to that other fighting game
launch title on the Dreamcast... Soul Calibur. ~TFG
Webmaster
It's Mortal Kombat after all. Though MK4 was impressive
when it hit arcades, the graphics style, animation style and gameplay engine didn't exactly age
well... even on the powerful Dreamcast. The gameplay is still very 2D and feels
very "last-gen". All in
all, MK Gold is really just MK4 with a new paint job and some new
characters... and in 1999, it would be considered a "mediocre"
fighting game at best.
