Current MobyGoal: Help us reach 250 documented ZX81 Games

Mortal Kombat (SEGA CD)

100 point score based on reviews from various critics.
5 point score based on user ratings.
Written by  :  Fake Spam (94)
Written on  :  Aug 12, 2007
Platform  :  SEGA CD
Rating  :  2.5 Stars2.5 Stars2.5 Stars2.5 Stars2.5 Stars

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful

write a review of this game
read more reviews by Fake Spam
read more reviews for this game


Shovelware at it's worst!

The Good

Firstly, pump up the volume on the stereo! You can also stick this disc into a music player and get the soundtrack and The Immortal's MK theme song remixes. Nice FMV character profiles, tight controls, all the moves and cheats are here. Also, lots of narration from the narrator, which was absent from the Genesis version.

The Bad

While I know the Sega CD isn't the ideal platform for FMV goodness, the commercial still didn't need to look as bad at it did. I mean, Sonic CD and Silpheed have excellent FMV, and NBA Jam's is decent, but that commercial is just mostly hues of brown. Nay, nay, nay. Then there's the horrible slowness to it all. Hey, Probe! Ever hear of disc streaming? Digital Pictures used that technique in all of the crappy FMV games so that no access time was present. Hell, Probe could've even stuck some of the data into the Genesis' RAM. What really gets me is the access time when a fatality is execute, or when Shang Tsung transforms. That's nuts! It's awful, and it takes away from the game. Of course, Probe did the development of this title in 64 colors instead of the high-res mode of 256 colors, and didn't use anything the Sega CD offered in the area of special effects. It's true I didn't expect the sound effects to be in dynamic QSound or anything, but at least Sculptured on the SNES kept the arcade's sounds in. Then there's the ending, which is not the actual ending. You see, the Sega CD is similar to a PC more so than we would've ever known. Probe did an excellent job of MK on the PC. It was arcade perfect except for the low-res VGA graphics, which is the high-res of the Sega CD! They also kept everything in from arcade machine. Acclaim and Probe were is such a hurry to cash in on MK at the time, though. As far as the friend factor goes, we laughed at this version, and I'm sorry I wasted around $60 bucks for it. Lastly, the characters are their Genesis size, when I know that large, colorful characters can be done on the Sega CD (Samurai Shodown, Eternal Champions, Fatal Fury Special).

The Bottom Line

If you a big budget, over a year late shovelware title for the Sega CD, by all means obtain this disc. Seriously, in this day and age, go get the version on the Midway collections, or get that little TV joystick version at a Target or something. This version is slow, slow, slow. And laughable.