Even after thirteen years UMK3 (Arcade) is still the best beat'm'up title i can think of. It would have been a near perfect game if not for some conceptual flaws and plain bugs/glitches. I've listed some of the most obvious below. The great intro from MK3 is missing completely - character portraits have been replaced by VS screen pictures, most of them are missing. Classic Sub-Zero, Human Smoke and Ermac are missing finishers - absolutely unacceptable. Some unimaginative fatalities; nudalities are still missing, which I consider a major drawback, considering the exceptionally hot female cast :-) Messed up animalities: Sheeva turns into a scorpion and Styker into a T.rex? Those are clearly reserved for Scorpion and Reptile. Cheap AI: the CPU counterattacks at leisure since it doesn't have to actually push the button combinations, in essence cheating. Smoke's and Reptile's invisibility is totally useless, you can't even see your own player while the CPU knows exactly where you are. Jade's Projectile Invincibility is totally ludicrous and so is her 34% combo. And she uses both in concert to pound you into the floor. In some instances the CPU's combo does more damage than yours - what's up with that? Some characters like the cybers or the female ninjas should have been combined into one, while others like Jax and Stryker should have been left out entirely. It's not against Michael O'Brian, but Stryker has to be the lamest fighter ever. Throwing grenades and firing a gun - my grandma can do that, too. Both Sub-Zeros should have been combined into one that's masked. Human Smoke has the same moves as Scorpion and even better combos. Still, just another palette-swap ninja, unnecessary. Motaro should have been replaced by Goro or Kintaro. A horsey simply doesn't belong in a fighting game; the characters have at least to be humanoid. You're supposed to fight with your fists, not hoofs and tails. And what faggot decided that Lia Montelongo should wear that god awful wig? She was totally hot in MK Mythologies. Here, she looks like a scarecrow, definitely a case of pearls before swine. Then there's some moron who came up with the idea for those Kombat Kodes that consist of stupid changes in game-play: Dark Fighting - what the f***? and idiotic messages like "Hold Flippers during casino run". Spending time and ROM space on such trivialities while fighters were left unfinished is nothing short of retarded. Overall, the game feels like a beta version, but it sure beats all the crap that came after it, including Mortal Kombat Trilogy.
Review of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
