Is back and better than ever! The 9th game in the series that is out for 360 and PS3 is honestly the best game in the series and the most fun I’ve had with a fighter since 2005’s Dead or Alive 4.

Whenever a Sonic the Hedgehog game is announced it looks good and people get excited for it. They remember having good times with the series as a kid and look forward to the new, shiny experience that a new game should bring. Then it comes out and it’s a complete disaster. Mortal Kombat is like that, but the game actually came out meeting every expectation.

It’s an extension of Mortal Kombat II (which was amazing when it came out) with juggle combos and moves. There are still dial-a-combos from 3, but toned down. The game speed is right between 2 and 3 with the same chunky, deliberate pacing that the series is known for.

The game story is a retelling of the original three games. Raiden is getting crushed by Shao Kahn when he sends a vision to his younger self in an attempt to keep his present, Shao Kahn taking over, from happening. We jump back in time to the original game and events unfold and change from there. Everyone from the first 3 games in it it along with most of the stages from those games (a few added to address the new events).

This game looks amazing. The artwork is really impressive, some amazing character models and animation really make the game come alive. The damage modeling is some bar raising stuff, I can’t think f another fighting game that has this much detail, characters look like they went through a war at the end of a match. The audio supplements this, the fighting is very visceral. Great sound effects match the visual impacts of every punch, kick and impalement. The backgrounds are a treat to see, a lot of the old stages look amazing now with some really great lighting effects (the Living Forest is a great example). The brutal Fatalities are back and they made Babalities really funny. The cast is huge and just about everyone is a ton of fun to play with added special moves that make everyone play uniquely. The new special meter had 3 sections that fill up. One lets you do an enhanced special move that makes your standard special more powerful. Two bars allow you to break a combo and three bars lets you do a X-Ray attack. These X-ray attacks are like Ultras from Street Fighter that do tremendous damage and can turn the tide of a fight. They’re brutal attacks that break bones (which you can see happen with the x-ray effect) but they’re pretty easy to avoid and block so you aren’t helpless when it’s triggered.

Mortal Kombat is a great achievement for NeatherRealm Studio. An amazing amount of thought and work went into this game. It keeps everything that people love about the series while adding the production and features you expect from a game released in 2011. Mortal Kombat is easy to pick up and play, but there’s a lot there to dig into. All sorts of modes, extras and secrets to unlock mean there is a ton of gameplay to go through. Few games present a fully fleshed out world like this game does.