Thus began the world's love-hate relationship with Mortal Kombat. A game that, let's face it, squeaked by on gimmicks. Yeah, blood. Woo-hoo. Thing is, since MK turned the gaming world on its ear over a decade ago due to all its blood and mayhem (sending thousands of parents and senators into apoplectic fits, and almost single-handedly bringing about the Game Rating System), numerous fighting games have come along that, pun intended, beat the living shit out of it. Tekken. The Dead Or Alive games. Fuck, Eternal Champions for the goddamned Sega Genesis was better (and had more hidden Fatality-ripoffs, and they were ten times easier to pull off). Sure, these games didn't have the gratuitous blood and gore, but they were fun to play, and you didn't always have to buy some glossy nine-dollar game magazine to figure out how to do a simple combo.

MK's control scheme sucked then. It sucked in every home incarnation I've ever played. And I am sad to report that on the Xbox it sucks worse than I could have possibly imagined. Don't get me wrong, I love the Xbox controller (not-so-affectionately dubbed "The Hamburger" by whiners with freakishly little mitts), it's the first controller I felt honestly fit my hands. But it's not designed for speed. The buttons can't be mashed quickly enough to pull off 90% of MK:DA's combos, which, like the first chapter, still involve the utterly stupid (don't argue, you know it's true) method of "tapping" buttons. Xbox buttons don't "tap". They mash, and even then sometimes you have to mash them so hard, quickness isn't really an option, much less a possibility most of the time. Add to the mix the left trigger, which is required to change fighting styles during the more impressive combos, and you've got a real vein-buster on your hands. For those of you without Xboxes: the left trigger goes "ker-chunk", and takes upwards of eighty years to pop in and out completely. Of course, the combos (and Fatalities) have to be tapped in at hummingbird speed, so forget it. I tried changing the control scheme so that the unused white button controlled the "style-change", and was actually able to complete some of the larger combos. But by then I was bored, so who cares. And I wouldn't be making such as issue out of the controls if there hadn't been so much hoo-ha over MK:DA's so-called "new" control system before it came out. I call bullshit on that.

About that style-change thing- each character (there are a little over 20, counting the "hidden" characters I gave up trying to access) has three fighting styles, one of which uses a weapon. This all does a great job of unbalancing everything. I found that when I used Shang Tsung I was very tough to beat. This is because Shang is one of a few guys who can impale you with his sword, leaving you a staggering shish-kabob for the rest of the round, your lifeforce slowly ebbing. Some of the weapons are cool, but I'll bet the impalement option ranks up there with Sub-Zero's freezing ability as the easiest way to guarantee a fist-fight with Player 2. Some characters have fight styles with powerful kicks and long-range attacks, some swat their arms around like a gnat is pestering them and barely connect with anything. Trust me. There are moves in this game you'll never use. Ever.

Which brings me to the fundamental problem with the game: almost nothing has changed. In fact, things evolved backwards. There's one measly Fatality for each character, when there were like a million of them in the last few games. The arenas are beautiful, but shallow. Wait until the umpteenth time someone backs you up against a wall and annihilates you. Would it have been that hard to incorporate multi-level rings, like in MK3?

Simple 3-D design just doesn't cut it anymore. Yes, everything looks gorgeous. Yes, the models are as real as the game has ever been. They've even added (YAAAWWWNN) bouncing breasts, as is the current trend, but like Aggressive Inline, the designers obviously need to be hauled to a strip club and shown what a real pair of tits actually looks and jiggles like. If I ever saw a woman with boobs moving like they do in some of these games, I'd run like hell. Obviously she's got implants made of Flubber.

The final gimmick is something called the Krypt, where you use "Koins" you've earned by playing to open "Koffins" (are you loving this "K" shit yet), of which there are a hundred or so. Some contain new characters, or costumes. Some contain (or should I say "Kontain"? Ho ho ho) insipid little in-jokes from the designers. Some are even empty. All of them cost Koins. I will spare you the agony of fumbling around the Krypt blindly by providing you with a link to an index of their "Kontents" (Jesus, it's addiciting). You'll thank me for saving you from busting a controller after dropping money on a picture of Ed Boon's giant (yet arguably magnificent) eyebrows.

Truth be told, if you've loved the Mortal Kombat series thus far, you'll find these flaws a lot less glaring. If this game had come out seven or so years ago, it would have been a bombshell. But I feel like we've come to expect more. It's a solid game, and a ton of work obviously went into it, but I can't help feeling it's, ironically, not as meaty as it should be.