Mortal Kombat II

The visual style and finishing moves stand out most in my mind. Like its predecessor, Mortal Kombat 2 uses digitized actors except everything has a more colorful, more fantastic, slightly animated, slightly photoshopped, appearance. Neither cartoony nor real. Somewhere inbetween. Combined with the games moody, atmospheric, lo-key music; the game's darker, more dynamic and visually interesting backgrounds; the more intense announcer whose voice takes on a menacing quality. And MK2 succeeded in attaining the appropriate tone for an other-wordly over the top fighting game with gore galore.

The trademark Fatalities return with a vengeance. Going bigger, more over the top, than the original Fatalities – delivering some of the best in the series. It hits a good mixture of dark, violent, slightly fantastic, some slightly humorous, and all outrageous -- Jax smashes someone's head, Kitana delivers a kiss that makes them inflate and explode, Kung Lao cuts them in half with his hat, Liu Kang morphs into a dragon, Sub-Zero throws an explosive ice-ball, Scorpion still has his trademark "Toasty" Fatality, and my personal favorite: Shang Tsung morphs into the four-armed monstrosity, Kintaro, and punches his victim in half.

In addition to not one but two fatalities per character, everyone receives two joke finishing moves -- friendships and babalities (the former, funny. the latter, pointless.) Friendships range as much as Fatalities in diversity, only in the goofy department. From Kitana baking a cake, to Reptile advertising a doll, to Liu Kang breakin' down with a disco-ball. Hey, if the Fatalities themselves weren't enough clue that this violent game has a sense of humor, here's the Friendships. Babalities? Turn your opponent into a baby. "Woopee."

The game play deepens significantly from its predecessor (which, granted, MK was pretty shallow as fighting games go.) Like Mortal Kombat 1, all of the characters share all the same basic punches, kicks, uppercuts, jump heights (etc) which again gives the character-specific special moves all the more emphasis and importance in differentiating the characters. Mortal Kombat 2 features special moves that flow more naturally, more fluidly, into high damage combos/juggles (watch a Kitana player for a crash course.)

An expanded character roster – dropping two characters from the previous game (Kano and Sonya), MK2 added five new characters to the lineup including Kung Lao, Kitana, Jax, Mileena, and Baraka, and finally making two previously unplayable characters playable (Reptile, and the shape-shifting Shang Tsung). Returning characters, naturally, receive a few upgrades. Lui Kang gets a little more color to his costume, and gains a low fireball, and a bicycle kick. Sub-Zero can now freeze the ground and make his opponents slip. Johnny Cage has a shadow uppercut to match his kick, just to name a few.

MK2 drops the endurance matches, the mini-games, replaces the underwhelming Goro with the bigger, badder, faster (not to mention far more interesting) Shokan Kintaro. Then further adds a taunting boss, Shao Kahn. Both bosses possess moves that start faster than any playable characters, and feature less recovery time. Oh yes, they also do far more damage than any individual move a playable character could unleash.

Once again, Mortal Kombat delivers bosses who play by a different set of rules. In MK2's defense, at least the Kintaro and Shao Kahn battles still entertain, which I can't say the same for a few future MK games (MK3, Deadly Alliance.) Overall, MK2 doubles everything the first game offers, and delivers a game infinitely superior to its predecessor. It looks better, it sounds better, it plays better.

Mortal Kombat II rocked.

This game improves on some of the problems of the original: the characters and fighting stages were kinda bland in those games, but here the original characters look more colourful (Liu Kang, Tsang Shung) and the new character look great (Baraka, Mileena). The backgrounds are now better and bizarre, unlike the bland ones in the original. A truly fun (though disturbing) game.

Mortal Kombat and its sequels are some of the greatest games ever created! It has a good story, incredible action, great music, awesome characters, very fun, really interesting looking stages, and more! Below is an In-depth review of the game called Mortal Kombat II!

Story: Many fighters around the world enter this deadly tournament. Since now the contest is in Shao Khan's hands it will become much more difficult for the Kombatants to win!

The Kombatants!

Liu Kang - This Chinese warrior is a fearless fighter who is bent on getting revenge!

Johnny Cage - An action movie star, Cage enters Mortal Kombat!

Lord Rayden - Is it true Lord Rayden is the God of thunder?

Shang Tsung - This old shapeshifting fighter is one of the greatest fighters ever in the history of the world! He has the power to take a living being's soul!

Scorpion - A poor soul, when he was a live his wife and child were murdered by Sub Zero and the Lin Kuei clan of ninjas. Scorpion with his trusty spear is seeking revenge on the cold one.

Sub Zero - The murderer of Scorpion's family is in the tournament. Now it will be a big showdown like never seen before!

Reptile - Not much is known about this fighter except he wears the same exact ninja uniforms as Scorpion and Sub Zero but only green and can mimic other fighters maneuvers! Though it is thought that he is the last of an ancient reptilian humanoid specie, he protects Shang Tsung from enemies.

Kung Lao - The last decedent of the heroic fighter Kung Lao is a former Shaolin monk and is also a member of White Lotus Society. He enters the tournament.

Jax - U.S. Special Forces Major Jackson Briggs enters the tournament with his huge bionic arms!

Katana - Katana is an assassin and has a twin sister but unlike Mileena she has a different agenda than serving the ruler of Outworld.

Mileena - Like Katana, she is also an assassin but unlike her twin sister she will do what she can for Shao Kahn!

Baraka - A nomadic mutant, he joins Shao Khan in the Outworld.

Kintaro - After Goro was defeated Kintaro, Shao Khan replaced the prince with this monster to lead his legions!

Shao Khan - A large and muscular being the supreme ruler of the Outworld, the Astrial Plane of Shokan, and all of the surrounding regions. The fighters have gathered and the tournament has begun! Will Khan rule supreme over Earth or can the earthlings defeat their opponents and Shao Khan?

Game Play: The game play is very good. The basic movies are easy to perform but the fatalities are very hard to do but with the help of cheats it can be much easier.

Graphics: The graphics are wonderful. Most of the game is digitalized!

Difficulty: The game can be very easy or it can be very hard depending on what you set the difficulty level.

Music: The music is great! Just awesome catchy tunes through out the game! In My opinion its some of the best music ever in a video game!

Sound: The sound is great. The real voices sound clear and the punching and kicking does as well.

Overall: I have always loved Mortal Kombat. If you like excellent fighting games then I strongly recommend you play Mortal Kombat II today!

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'Mortal Kombat 2' is one of my favorite video games. While the first MK game is very good, this sequel is far superior. I still play these games on my Sega Genesis, and it's good mental exercise (and therapy) for me; when there's a time that I feel like taking my frustrations out on someone, I just put this game on and beat my opponents senselessly (regardless of their gender). For this reason, anyone wishing to go up against me in a game like this should do so with caution. I may show you no mercy!

This game is so good! The fatalities are so gory, unlike the sequels to this game. A little more realistic than Trilogy for the fact that most of the fatalities have the person falling down. In Trilogy when the person who's killed stays standing which is weird and disturbing. Most of the sequels suffer from this. My favorite Kharacter in this game is Kintaro, he's so hard to beat, but when you do it's a relief. UNTIL, you get to Shao Khan who is a little harder, which says a lot. It's my favorite in the series(Besides Deception). This is the peak of the series, after this the games start to fall until the Playstation 2 games. 9/10