![]() ![]() Eight of the twelve fighters from the last game return – Jax, Kano, Sonya, Kung Lao, Liu Kang, Shang Tsung, Smoke (in new cyborg form), and Sub-Zero (in a new unmasked form) – and seven new fighters enter – cyborgs Sektor and Cyrax, riot cop Stryker, native american Nightwolf, Black Dragon warrior Kabal, a female Shokan (Goro’s race) named Sheeva, and finally Sindel (under Shao Kahn’s control) the queen of Outworld. To keep up with the whole plot would be ridiculous for this particular article – although I will be writing the series plot post tomorrow – but the basic premise is that Shao Kahn, antagonist of the last game and ruler of Outworld, has unleashed his minions on Earth and apparently started with the US. Mortal Kombat 3 definitely upped the ante. ![]() Couple this with the fact that it was on just about every console that existed at the time, still dominated arcades, and had more content than rival Street Fighter II could ever dream to do with its iterations and I see why it’s creator Ed Boon’s favorite. It’s all one giant 90s metaphor but that doesn’t change the fact that MK3 (and it’s update Ultimate MK3 or UMK3) stands as the moment I felt the series went into the mainstream fighter territory. ![]() Along with it came an overhaul of the controls, including combos and a “run” button to address rightful claims that defensive players ruled the previous title. These locations were now composed of pre-rendered 3D backgrounds and the character sprites were almost totally digitized as opposed to the digitized/hand drawn hybrid of the previous games. The game was completely Americanized, with all hints of Eastern influence including symbols, locales, and the soundtrack completely absent without a trace and instead replaced by urban stages, 90s hip-hop soundtracks, and cyborgs replaced the signature ninjas. In addition, Boon and his team were trying to turn Mortal Kombat into a viable fighting game with things no one had ever seen before and mechanics that could compete with the massive rush of fighters in arcades. For starters there was a mass exodus of on screen talent due to royalty disputes, so almost no one from the original two games returned for the third release. A lot happened both in the talent pool of Mortal Kombat players and in the game design overall between the release of Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat 3 (MK3). ![]()
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