Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (18)
Verdict: Kung-fu without the Konfucius
Platform: Xbox, PS2.
Rating: 2½/5
Harking back to the golden age of the arcade i’d happily pile in the silvers to play generic side scrolling beat-em-up number 5 - the joy not being the ropey animation and poor collision detection but the thrill of playing with a friend - co-operating in a street brawl or fantasy hack-em-up and surviving together against the odds by the skin of your pixel teeth.
If you died you either stood by, egging your friend on or inserted some more coins till the credits ding’d and you magically reincarnated. Even though we’d played dozens of poorly made identi-kit games before, we kept on pouring in the money - it was about shared experiences and free form multiplayer gaming. And the graphics were better than my home console’s.
Fast-forward to the future (the year is 2006, hover boards, moon colonies and Tri-D TV are prevalent) and i’m sat in the living room playing Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks in Ko-op mode and nothing has changed. Sure, i’m taller and have more money in my pocket (only because the game was free) but i’m still button mashing my way through endless droves of look-a-like baddies (there’s a definite need for a ‘Queer eye for the bad guy’ makeover show) whilst putting up with a dodgy camera, frustrating platforming, average graphics, bland level design and Mortal Kombat’s very own flavour of action movie kung-fu cheese (great on pizza by the way).
The difference is 15 or so years and things should have moved on since then. Fair enough it’s successfully incorporated moves from the 2D fighter into a 3D space and created a combo juggling system that allows both players to play tennis with the enemy but it’s essentially the same game i’ve played many times before. Except with over-long cut-scenes, a (bizarrely) shared health bar and too many letter k’s.
Play it with a friend whilst pretending you’re in an arcade surrounded by old machines and the stench of stale fags. Wait, that sounds like my mate's living room.