Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection Message Board

The Warner Bros. Humble Bundle, which runs until November 19, has added some new games and DLC today. Those who have yet to pay over the average or have already done so will find Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection, FEAR, Guardians of Middle-earth (including "Smaug's Treasure" add-on) and a special starter pack, which includes exclusive boosts, armor and quests, for Lord of the Rings Online available.

On top of the free games, there's also a weapon pack for free-to-play shooter Gotham City Impostors, plus some additional skins for Batman: Arkham Origins. That last one is a little odd considering the game isn't even included in this bundle.

The Warner Bros. Humble Bundle made its debut last week, offering up a collection of six games: Game of the Year versions of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City, along with FEAR 2 Project Origin, FEAR 3, Scribblenauts Unlimited and Lord of the Rings: War in the North. The Warner Bros. Humble Bundle will be live for the next five days.

Sony's had such a success with its PSN Spring Fever discount promotion the last few weeks that it's been extended an additional week. Joining the launch of Wheels of Destruction tomorrow are discounts across the board for all Mortal Kombat kontent.

The Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection -- which contains the original Mortal Kombat and sequels Mortal Kombat 2 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 -- is on sale for $6.99,; $4.99 for PS Plus subscribers. In addition to that, all DLC content for Netherrealm's Mortal Kombat reboot is also on sale, either as individual fighter downloads for $3.49 each ($2.44 if you're a PS Plus subscriber) or all together in one bundle for $10.49; $7.47 if you're a PS Plus subscriber.

Finally, you can download Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe at a reduced cost of $13.49, but you may want to read a few reviews before pulling the trigger on that one. Just saying!

The PC version of Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection may be the world's first quantum video game. As we all know, quantum superposition tells us that any physical system (like an electron) exists in all possible states until observed or measured by an outside force. Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection seems to follow the same set of rules -- the only problem is that the game's observable state is different depending on who's looking.

According to life-long Mortal Kombat shepherd Ed Boon, a PC version of MKAK never existed. This directly contradicts the fighter's original press release, which announced the title for "PlayStation(R)Network, Xbox LIVE(R) Arcade for the Xbox 360(R) video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows PC." Additionally, a statement made to DSOGaming claims that the port has not been canceled, though no release date has been given.

It's a lot like Schrödinger's cat. We have no idea whether the project is dead or alive. We have reached out to Warner Bros. for comment.

I've been a fan of Mortal Kombat from the very second my mom told me I couldn't play it (lol it's my job now). Spike pits, decapitations, and Shaolin monks transforming into cheetahs define my '90s fighting game experience. So ask me to pay $10 for some old school Mortal Kombat and I'm down for it, even if it's a reminder that these games are cheap, frustrating, and dated...

2 out of 5

Best fatality of the series.

Let's get the self-evident part out of the way: If you're not interested in playing the original three 2D Mortal Kombat games in (more or less) their original forms, you have no business with Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection. You may move along.

Now the part that isn't obvious. Even if you are such a person, you'd better have other like-minded individuals around you who want to play against you, in person, on the same console. That's the one way this compilation delivers. Arcade Kollection could have served as a great museum display for three of the most memorable fighting games of the '90s, but there are too few bonus features and too many things wrong with this package to make it recommendable to anyone but the most diehard MK fan.

Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 are all here in a no-frills format. In terms of the emulation, the graphics look fine, with a few basic visual filters available to soften the jagged, low-res look that comes along with games this old. All three games generally play like they're supposed to as well, though there's an annoying issue where you lose control of your character for a second when you unpause during a match. Also, I can't in any way recommend you play this game with the old Xbox 360 D-pad. On a Dual Shock 3 or the new 360 controller with the twisting D-pad, the gameplay is fine, though a stick is naturally your best option. It's nice that the game's controls map directly to that special-edition joystick that shipped with the new Mortal Kombat earlier this year.

Since the games look just like you remember them, it's a bit odd the audio in this package doesn't sound the same way. There are numerous cases of certain sound effects canceling out other ones, and a few samples here and there sound like they play back at a noticeably higher fidelity than others. A few sounds, like the clapping from the first game, sound completely different than I remember, almost as if new versions have been added in. The music in Goro's Lair consistently cut out for me every time I played that stage. Once, a splattering sound continued to loop after I had finished a match and even followed me all the way back to the main menu, forcing me to quit out. The list goes on.

Wait, no, this one is.

Absolutely the most disappointing thing about Kollection, though, is the online play, which is painfully laggy at best, and unplayable at worst. All three of the games feel like they're playing in slow motion when you're fighting someone online, and across the numerous matches I played on both 360 and PS3, not one came even close to replicating the feel of playing locally. Making online fighting games feel right is clearly a major challenge, since almost nobody pulls it off, but solid online play is practically the only reason you'd come to this package. Without that, and lacking anyone to fighting against locally, you're stuck playing against the games' hilariously awful AI characters. If that's your situation, you might as well not play at all. Adding insult to injury, the most valuable achievements and trophies here require you to finish the arcade modes of all three games, but at least on the Xbox, those achievements are currently glitchy and aren't guaranteed to actually pop up when you beat any of the games. That's just inexcusable.

The first Mortal Kombat--with its relatively limited, clunky fighting mechanics--exists mostly as a historical curiosity, but the two sequels are just as fast-paced and fun now as they were back in the day, so in the barest sense, it's nice that this collection gives you a chance to play them all in one place. But that's barely all it does. I love Mortal Kombat as much as anyone, and Mortal Kombat II in particular inspired a fervor in my adolescent self that few games have matched before or since. But given how loveably other classic arcade fighters have been treated recently, the problems and omissions make Arcade Kollection nothing but depressing. These games deserve better.

Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection hits PSN tomorrow and XBLA the day after, but you can revisit your youthful arcade years right this very second by watching the latest trailer showcasing NetherRealm's retro-fitted fighter(s). Infinite combos, sticky floors and unbeatable eighth-graders not shown.

Fight! Wait, hang on. Do that next week, when the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection lands on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. The game, which bundles the arcade versions of Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, will be released on August 31 for $10.

In honor of the collection's release, we have dubbed August 31 "Mortal Wednesday."

Warner Bros. today confirmed the release date for Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection, a download title that includes the original trilogy - Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3...

With Mortal Kombat's recent release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, there's renewed interest in the games that started it all...