Midway is in desperate need of a best-selling blockbuster, as any industry analyst will tell you that the 50-year-old company is circling the drain. While Midway is likely banking on the upcoming Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universeto fill that role, an increasing amount of violence within the title has apparently pushed the game to M-rated territory -- which typically doesn't help sales during the holiday season. Therefore, we can't say we're surprised at Midway's decision to tone down the "toasty" brawler in order to keep the T-rating they've been shooting for.
In a recent interview with Kotaku, Ed Boon explained that the developer had been working with the ESRB to squeeze as much brutality into the game while still remaining teen-friendly. However, one known casualty of some recent content cutbacks is the Joker's wicked "prank gun" fatality (posted after the break), the fatal part of which will now take place off-screen. It's unclear what else has been changed to appease the ESRB, though it's safe to assume that the final product won't contain any unceremoniously removed spinal cords, or, lamentably, disappearing pencils.
If there was, it's only because the best-selling games (GTA, Halo series) are M-rated and sell so much that it'd throw the numbers off. But for the typical game that isn't going to several million units no matter what, an M-rating is more likely to hurt sales.
"If there was, it's only because the best-selling games (GTA, Halo series) are M-rated and sell so much that it'd throw the numbers off. But for the typical game that isn't going to several million units no matter what, an M-rating is more likely to hurt sales."
If that's true, according to the post, Midway expects this title to be at that caliber, so then why would they tone it down?
This game has fail written all over it. It was nothing but Fail from the start. The concept was stupid and the series is dead and gone where it belongs. The last good MK game was #2 and that hasn't changed. Once they added the run button and robotic combos it ruined the gameplay. If I want those robotic combo I will go and play Tekken.
No way johnny, there hasnt been a good MK game since the awesome MK4 on N64, i played that to death, loved it. I do own MK: Armageddon, which isn't crap, but not really good either.
This game was always going to be trash, gimmick fatalities wouldn't have saved it. Mortal Kombat was garbage in 1994 and this latest iteration will not change the level of failure this series has managed to get itself into. Really, the games last generation were some of the most stiffest fighting games I've ever played. Why did anybody have hope for this 'new' version?
Trash or not, Mortal Kombat is a well established name has always been a decent money maker. Sitting on it and not making use of the IP would be a poor decision. They'll probably make a decent return on this. I mean they have to, this game looks like garbage, and i can't see them dropping too much cash on this.
Acclaim was one of the shittiest companies ever, with a bunch of terrible ports (PC especially) and awful games. The industry is better without them around. Fuck em.
As I understood it, TWEWY was primarily developed by Jupiter, with Squaresoft only handling a few bug fixes, the bulk of financing, and publishing. This was the case for Space Invaders Extreme. They had little creative input into the project.
It'd be like saying Ubisoft deserve distinct credit for NMH.
Except for Sega being better than some of those companies you've listed. I dunno, they've had lots of really original concepts in the past but lately they've been going nowhere but downhill.
I'm wondering why they bothered at all with trying to censor it.
Wouldn't that Mortal Kombat censorship issue fifteen some odd years ago have cemented the series into the selection of items that overprotective parents would never consider purchasing under any circumstances?
Then again, I continually hear angry complaints from comic fans about the game in general, so maybe kids were the only audience they thought they'd have a shot at. :P
Good job on censoring the entire point of one of the goriest franchises in the history of video games, Midway!That is not going to hurt the sales of this already potentially horrible game!
I wonder if putting out a "director's cut" version at the M-level rating would increase sales (enough to justify the cost of packaging two different games, anyway)? Sure it would be a gimmick, but the whole flippin' thing is a gimmick anyway. I can't see this move doing anything to help this game.
It's comical to see how many people are supposedly bailing on this game because of a few cosmetic changes. Yes, it's a Mortal Kombat game. But if the gameplay is decent - and by most previews it actually seems to be - it's pretty pathetic how many of you are wishy-washy over totally insignificant things. If the game plays well, I'm in. If it sucks, I'll skip it and wait for a proper MK game. But I'm not so fucking picky I'll ignore it just because some of the blood was removed.
It isn't that comical considering how the main draw of the first mk game was of the violences, the controversies, and not the gameplay. Without fatalities and blood, I doubt mk would be what it is now. Violence sell and if a game is known to have something and was later removed 20 years later, it would anger a lot of ppl. It is normal
Censorin mk is like if Capcom removes megaman's classic death explosion and replaceing it with an offscreen death(screen goes blank)
OR having all the death scenes in a leatherface film done off screen.
I'd still like to give it a try. I think they did away with the ridiculous combo memorization like the previous MKs, Tekkens, etc. I never understood where the fun was in those games.
