Fighting Games Friday: It’s Where You Fall Down
Key content was missing from Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate when it released earlier in the month. No, I’m not talking about the continued lack of Ash Williams from the Evil Dead series, likely excluded due to a licensing deal falling through. Special voice quips for Raiden, Johnny Cage, and Sonya Blade were discovered by intrepid hackers a few months ago, featuring actors from the original Mortal Kombat movie. The Mortal Kombat games have hardly shied away from referencing the movie (and not its hilariously bad follow-up), shown through Kano’s character in subsequent games being inspired by the late Trevor Goddard’s interpretation and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa returning to lend his voice and likeness to Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat 11 itself.
The leaked content finally arrived this week, with all three characters receiving voice quips, outfits, and faces matching those from the original movie. With the new skins, the models for Raiden, Johnny, and Sonya are dead ringers for young Christopher Lambert, Linden Ashby, and Bridgette Wilson, respectively. Sure, it’s paid content (the pack costs $5.99), but worth it considering just how many unique intros the game has, with a roster that’s only continued to grow with two expansions and other assorted downable content.
The voices unsurprisingly sound different compared to their 90s counterparts, which anyone entirely too familiar with movie (i.e. me) will pinpoint. It has, in fairness, been 25 years since the film released, and some characters’ voices have aged more than others. Wilson sounds the same, but Lambert and Ashby’s voices have changed a lot since then. They’re as slightly jarring as hearing an old Sylvester Stallone voicing a young John Rambo in this game, but they’re not too distracting like the Terminator being voiced by an Arnold Schwarzenegger soundalike. A pity not everyone can be as relatively ageless as Tagawa.
The best feature here is how Sonya finally has a good actress now. Her performance far exceeds the dull surprise that’s Rhonda Rousey, which makes it a shame how the voice can’t be applied to other outfits.
What’s also a shame? That only three characters received this treatment. It would be impossible for Goddard to lend his likeness to Kano due to the actor passing in 2003, but the absence of options for Liu Kang and Kitana stick out. This is understandable in Kitana’s case, considering Talisa Soto retired from acting — though so has Wilson. But this felt like the kind of job Liu Kang actor Robin Shou would have been up for, and it’s a shame he’s not here. The inclusion of both options would have helped make this the biggest MK movie nostalgia love in that could possibly be made.
The movie skins are available now, but whether this will be the last pack of content released for MK11 remains to be seen. The name “Ultimate” being attached implied that it was the ultimate package, but this DLC opens the door for future content to be released, however minor. There’s still time for them to work something out with Bruce Campbell and New Line Cinema for Ash after all.
Meanwhile, a Saudi Arabian investment firm known under the innocuous and rudimentary name of Electronic Gaming Development Company has acquired a majority stake in SNK. It purchased a whopping 51 percent stake, more than the 33 percent previously reported. This seems innocuous at first, until realizing that everything in autocracies like Saudi Arabia runs through country leaders. Even better: EGDC is owned by the MiSK Foundation, one founded by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman himself. This is leading to many fans wondering if they should continue supporting the company, since doing so will involve directly funding a person responsible for having Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi killed and subsequently dismembered by a bone saw in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
Unfortunate as this is, it’s no surprise. Saudi Arabia has stepped up their investments in all sorts of ventures over the last several years, including in video games and other media. The King of Fighters franchise is popular in the country, to the point that Saudi Arabian designer Mashael Al-Barrak got her character, Najd, into The King of Fighters XIV after winning a contest. While KOF isn’t on par with Tekken’s popularity in the country, it still demands a big, dedicated audience. This kind of investment will not be the last.
The King of Fighters XV is still in the works at SNK, and word has it that more information about it, and perhaps a full reveal, will be provided early next year. It’s taking a little longer to release than expected, and the Covid-19 pandemic hasn’t helped.
I would end this post by saying there wasn’t much fighting game news this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but let’s be honest here: There hasn’t been much provided at a time in months. The pandemic has wrecked developer schedules, and there’s no telling when they’ll get back on track — or if they will.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
