Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection

[Donkbaca]

Drops today, 10 bucks for MK, MKII and UMK3.  Worth it?  How authentic is the gameplay?

[Nephasth]

I'll be downloading it tomorrow morning...

Gotta put this through heavier use.

[Nephasth]

Looks like it was released for PS3 today, tomorrow for Xbox 360.

[Malenko]

I had UMK3 from the previous release.


Pretty much arcade perfect. I can compare the 360 to the cab in the basement :p

[amendonz]

wasn't this supposed to be a HD redrawn release? guess they must have scrapped that.

[Nephasth]

I like how you can pull the moves list up. Pretty sweet! And controls are default standard layout on the stick like pictured above.

[SNAAKE]

kool

[Generic Eric]

Are there any leader boards, kompetitions built into it?

[Malenko]

Cheevies dont look too bad. Well, cept the 200 matches, unless its 200 cumulative across all 3 games both online and off.

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/game/mortal-kombat-arcade-kollection/achievements/


EDIT:
Guess I'll have to update this thread:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=93426.0

[Donkbaca]

Seems pretty accurate so far.  Didn't get to mess with it too much though...

[Malenko]

Seems pretty accurate so far.  Didn't get to mess with it too much though...

No, its not very accurate. The colors are really off (Mileena's palettedoes crazy stuff during her "man eater" fatality in MKII) , and the sound effects and music is worse. MK1 is prolly the most authentic but they messed with the AI or something in all the games. I can go downstairs and power my way through MKII on very hard on my MKII cab, in about 20 minutes, took me 45 on normal.

Quick MKII tips:
To beat Kintaro use Sub Zero, jump kick slide, jump back if you need to then repeat
To beat Shao Kahn: pick Baraka, do the Blade Fury (B,B,B+LP) he'll just keep walking into it

Its tough to explain but the other version I have of UMK3 on 360 seems to play better than the one included in this pack. Its still worth $10 for 3 games, especially if you like MK. Lastly, they locked Classic Sub Zero, Ermac, and Mileena with codes...and if you dont have 2 controllers you cant unlock them (hilarious).

[Howard_Casto]

Yeah this version is kinda crap ain't it?

I'm not obsessive about the details of the fighting mechanics like Malenko, but here are the things I noticed.

The gameplay is definately off.  Like Malenko said, it's kind of intangible what is wrong, but you can notice a difference.  That isn't to say that the changes are good or bad, the games just aren't arcade accurate.

The sound effects are off for each game with at least one sound being wrong for each character. 

The screen is being rendered improperly.  The 360 uses psuedo directx code and judging from what I'm seeing and my experience with the dragon king, they all using crappy linear up-sampling filters for the textures instead of a processor intensive point filter.  This makes everything look blurry and washed-out. 

Many of the moves, especailly the fatalities, seem easier to do.  This might have been intentional due to the 360's horrible controller. 

The three 3d arcade cabinets shown in the menu are the wrong aspect, with the bump-mapping and reflective maps improprely applied.  They also slapped mk1 textures on a mk II cabinet instead of properly making the mk1 cab.

The menu system is a bit akward.  On the main menu the cabs rotate around, and yet you can't rotate from mk1 to umk3 or vice-versa.  That seems like an oversight to me.  Also once you are in the game the start button doesn't bring up the menu, rather the back button does. 

They have obliterated every mention of Midway that they can, right down to the side art on the machines.  There might be a legal issue behind this, but it seems kind of silly. 

The filters are a joke.  The filters you would typically see on a console emulator are better than these.  The scanlines are particularly bad, with every 6th or 8th line being invisible.  Again this is due to improper directX scaling, I've made the same mistake on DK before.    Also notice that when you set the screen mode to "arcade" instead of getting that nice plastic bezel we all know and love you get the same old xbl bezels.

Some of the background layers don't line up properly.  I was playing umk3 and the bg in Khan's throne room was up about an inch too high. 


I'm saying skip this one.  It isn't bad by any means, but getting a genesis quality arcade port in this day and age is kind of inexcusable.  About the only good thing I can say about it is that the bezels they made for each game are great.  But expect them to be available over at Mr. Do's!  site within the month. 

[Malenko]

If you want a fake arcade monitor mode done right , look at Final Fight double impact.  When you pick "arcade monitor" they even mock the phosphor glow well.

Now Im not a huge fighting game mechanics guy, but the games are off. I have the luxury of going into my basement and firing up any one of the three games in the set and they are just different. Its not the controller because I have the MK Tourney stick (and Ive used it on my MAME cab to play MK) but the gameplay is just off. The female ninjas seem to have even more range on their throws in MKII for example.

Some of the AI loopholes are still there, like the ducking low punch on the male ninjas, but I cant seem to get the MK1 fatality glitches to work


Ive read the UMK3 version that came out on 360 years ago is more of an emulated rom and these are a reprogram.

As for the models (of the cabs) they look WAY off and chunky, I still laugh at the MK side art missing Johnny Cage (they first did that with the arcade drop fatality), the missing midway logos, and the fact, as Howard mentioned, that they didnt do the front of MK1 correctly.

[amendonz]

yeah, lots of bugs apparently, someone reported the cpu attacking before the game started lol

http://testyourmight.com/forum/content.php?1759-Statement-from-NetherRealm-Studios-concerning-the-Arcade-Kollection

http://testyourmight.com/forum/showthread.php?10772-Things-that-need-fixing-in-MKAK-Use-this-thread-ONLY

[Malenko]

yeah, lots of bugs apparently, someone reported the cpu attacking before the game started lol

http://testyourmight.com/forum/content.php?1759-Statement-from-NetherRealm-Studios-concerning-the-Arcade-Kollection

http://testyourmight.com/forum/showthread.php?10772-Things-that-need-fixing-in-MKAK-Use-this-thread-ONLY

they must not play the UMK3 arcade game much, I see a bunch of complaints about Scorpions "get over here!" sound byte getting clipped, but that ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- happens on the arcade version all the time. (UMK3 not MK3)

I hope they do patch it, I got it thinking they were finally gonna get the ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- right but MAME is the only way to play besides the actual PCBs

[Howard_Casto]

If you want a fake arcade monitor mode done right , look at Final Fight double impact.  When you pick "arcade monitor" they even mock the phosphor glow well.

Now Im not a huge fighting game mechanics guy, but the games are off. I have the luxury of going into my basement and firing up any one of the three games in the set and they are just different. Its not the controller because I have the MK Tourney stick (and Ive used it on my MAME cab to play MK) but the gameplay is just off. The female ninjas seem to have even more range on their throws in MKII for example.

Some of the AI loopholes are still there, like the ducking low punch on the male ninjas, but I cant seem to get the MK1 fatality glitches to work


Ive read the UMK3 version that came out on 360 years ago is more of an emulated rom and these are a reprogram.

As for the models (of the cabs) they look WAY off and chunky, I still laugh at the MK side art missing Johnny Cage (they first did that with the arcade drop fatality), the missing midway logos, and the fact, as Howard mentioned, that they didnt do the front of MK1 correctly.

I agree about FF DI.... that thing blew my mind when I first saw it.  This is what mame's hlsl effects should shoot towards.  

I don't see how using the tourney stick would make any difference.  I meant that they intentionally changed the timing to make up for the default xbox gamepad's crappy d-pad.  So it would still feel altered regardless of the stick you are using.

I can't believe I missed the MK1 part.  That's hilarious that they are still holding the grudge with the actor that portrayed cage.  I mean he endorsed Blood Storm over MK3.... isn't the fact that he will always be known as "the guy that endorsed Blood Storm over MK3" punishment enough?  

I mean at one point every single actor sued midway, including the guy who played Raiden, and yet they don't take him off the MKII cab, nor do they take Sindel and Khan off the MK3 cab.  

Maybe they did it because during development it was going to be a Van Dam vehicle with the cage character as the star, but by the time MKII came out it was clear that Liu Kang was their golden boy.  Kind of a Lucas-esque ret-conn.  


The guys that did this collection also did the DS version of UMK3.  They don't emulate the games, they re-create them to add more features... thus the bugs and inauthentic gameplay.  

I'm not even sure that they have access to the rom images anymore.  Midway is parted out badly.  WB has the rights to the old games, Star Ocean has leased the rights to future console ports of the games, the WB still retains arcade release rights to the games and I think happcontrols owns the rights to all midway replacement hardware.  

So maybe emulating a mk system board is illegal now??  I dunno.  

[Malenko]

I don't see how using the tourney stick would make any difference.  I meant that they intentionally changed the timing to make up for the default xbox gamepad's crappy d-pad.  So it would still feel altered regardless of the stick you are using.

I was just saying that the fact the xbox360's dpad sucks has no bearing on why the game feels off.

I can't believe I missed the MK1 part.  That's hilarious that they are still holding the grudge with the actor that portrayed cage.  I mean he endorsed Blood Storm over MK3.... isn't the fact that he will always be known as "the guy that endorsed Blood Storm over MK3" punishment enough?  

I mean at one point every single actor sued midway, including the guy who played Raiden, and yet they don't take him off the MKII cab, nor do they take Sindel and Khan off the MK3 cab.  

As far as I know the only actors that sued for royalties were Daniel Pesina (Johnny Cage, male ninjas) and he lost the first case. Then for some reason Dr. Philip Ahn (MKII Shang Tsung) , Elizabeth Malecki (MK1 Sonya), and Katalin Zamiar (MKII female ninjas) sued for the exact same thing and lost as well. The only one that kinda made sense was Elizabeth Malecki. She sued because they used her likeness in the MKII background (Kano didnt sue because he was Baraka, lol)  Carlos Pesina aka Raiden never sued but he did secretly work on Tattoo Assassins which is why they didnt put him in MK3 as a character. He still works at nether-realm as a lead artist and he did most of the motion capture work for the PS2/XBOX MKs too


Back on topic, I finally broke down and played UMK3 all the way through, my god does that game look terrible. pick a male ninja and look at the dithering and contrast issues on their pants alone. I fired up the 3 year old UMK3 I bought when Midway still existed and it looks fantastic, the new one looks like a turd

[eds1275]

I bought it, for shame. I was waiting for it to be released and when it did I didn't even play the demo. There are TONNES of changes, and the first ones I noticed were the MK cabs being not right and the sound issues. Also the UMK3 cab on the menu shows the graveyard background which is not to my knowledge in the game.