New 2D Mortal Kombat Announced!

[Ack]

Beyond a little of the E3 press coverage, I haven't taken the time to look much up on the game. If Ermac is in, I'm sold!

[AppleQueso]

Robot Sub-Zero

Mind telling me your reasoning behind this one? I mean it'd be really cool and all but yeah.

[Gamerforlife]

My stance is that if you're blocking then you're not attacking. And if you don't attack you don't win. Ergo, blocking is useless.

That is a pretty limited viewpoint and a major tactical flaw - I guess you are aware of that and are just joking though.

I mean, you can certainly win in a match where you have blocked, and you can certainly win a match because you blocked something at the right time. Blocking ALL the time is useless, you certainly won't win that way (depending on the game mechanics you may be able to draw, though).

Ivo.

Yes, it's partially a joke. But I'm notorious for always being on the attack. Sure, I'll block when I see a fuck you move coming, but I can't play a turtling keep away game; it goes against my nature.

I generally mix up offense, keep away and only block when I have to. I try to adapt to a situation. I never attack completely recklessly, but I'll never turtle or play keep away all day either, unless either one of those tactics is proving effective. If a player is really stomping my face into the ground, I'll just do something crazy or ridiculous. Amazing how often doing the last thing an opponent would expect can turn a match around

[Kevman]

MK is considered clunky because it doesn't work well on arcade sticks. I'm sure with gamepads it works fine.

Think of it this way: for the people that use arcade sticks, do you ever take your hand off the stick? Answer is most likely no. Now, do you sometimes have your fingers on certain buttons and off the rest? Probably answered yes. So would you rather just push your stick to the left or right or block or fumble around to find the right button to block. Using back to block is just better on sticks which is why MK gets a bad rap, but shoulder buttons and gamepads fixed that in MK (on consoles at least).

Not true at all, every competitive MK player prefers a stick. It's just another control style, it doesn't have any inherent advantages or disadvantages just because blocking uses a button. Besides, back is used to stop throws in UMK3.

And honestly, fumbling around to find a button? I'd have to ask if you even PLAY video games if that's your problem.

I don't play video games, I just browse this forum for laughs. When I say fumbling around, I mean anything past pure reaction.

[SplashChick]

Robot Sub-Zero

Mind telling me your reasoning behind this one? I mean it'd be really cool and all but yeah.

Okay, but just remember, you asked for it, it's gonna be a read.

First off, we know there are 2 Sub Zeros. The first Sub Zero appeared in MK1, with the mission of assassinating Shang Tsung, but was killed by Scorpion in that tournament before he had the chance according to the current canon storyline. It's later revealed that Quan Chi brought him back from the neatherrealm as a spectre during the events of MKII, indoctrinating him into the Brotherhood of Darkness. He appears in the games as Noob Saibot in this form, having little or no free will. Sub Zero's brother took on the name Sub Zero and entered the second Mortal Kombat tournament to try and finish the job his brother started. He failed, but was not killed. This is who appears as Sub Zero in MK3

Just prior to the events of MK3, the Lin Kuei clan develops the technology to turn their warriors into soulless cyborg assassins. The clan selects 4 warriors for this process: Sektor, Cyrax, Smoke, and Sub Zero. Sektor is the first to have the procedure, and he volunteers out of loyalty to the clan. Cyrax is second, being forced to have the procedure against his will. Sub Zero and Smoke both refuse outright to participate and threaten to leave the clan, and are marked for death for their treachery(this is why Sub Zero has a scar on his face). Sub Zero and Smoke attempt to escape the clan to avoid being turned into cyborgs. Sub Zero manages to escape, but Smoke is caught and forced into the procedure. No longer part of the Lin Kuei, Sub Zero leaves his mask behind.

Fast forward to the events of MK9. Raiden is about to be killed by Shao Khan, and he knows he can't stop it. In a desperate, last ditch attempt at undoing what is going to unfold from his death and Shao Khan's victory, he sends a mental message to his past self in the hopes that he can change the events that are unfolding now. Raiden receives the message just prior to the events of MK1. He doesn't know what it means, he just knows that something very bad is going to happen. MK9 spans the events of MK1-3 in a sort of Back to the Future style rewriting of events. Now while we don't know a whole lot about what happens in this new timeline, we do know a couple key things:

Sub Zero still has his mask and has no scar on his face, meaning he never left the clan and was never marked for death for one reason or another.

Sektor still appears as a cyborg, meaning the cyborg project STILL happens.

Knowing this, I have 2 theories:

1) Sub Zero didn't leave the clan, he instead took control of it, becoming the leader and stopping the project himself. This would explain why he isn't marked for death and why he still has his mask. This could also mean that we would see a HUMAN Cyrax in this game, and a human Smoke.

2) Sub Zero was never killed in MK1 thanks to one changed event or another. The Sub Zero we see in the game now is actually the ORIGINAL Sub Zero, meaning his brother never became Sub Zero in the first place. Since he still has his mask and no scar, that means he was either complacent or not present for the events involving turning the warriors into cyborgs. This would most likely mean that Cyrax is still a cyborg. Since Sub Zero's brother never became Sub Zero, it would be a reasonable assumption to say that he's not as strong as he was in the old timeline, meaning that when he and Smoke stand against the clan, it's HIM that is captured while Smoke gets away instead. This would mean we will get a human Smoke and a Robot Sub Zero.

I find the second theory much more likely, considering a couple things we know outside of the game:

Ed Boon kinda hates Noob Saibot at this point. He was written into the game as a neat bonus appearance for hardcore fans to find, and wasn't really intended to be important. John Tobias is also no longer part of the team, and Ed might feel more inclined to get rid of him because of it. If the second theory were to be true, Noob Saibot would effectively be written out of the story because Sub Zero never died.

Ed Boon DIRECTLY hinted at a new cyborg in his interview about the game. He's well known for dropping subtle hints that only hardcore fans would catch, and he was obviously itching to tell everyone all about this game. There's only 4 characters from the Lin Kuei clan in the first 3 games: Sektor, Cyrax, Smoke, and Sub Zero, and Smoke's already been a robot.

the game spans Mortal Kombat 1, 2 and 3, retelling the story with an enlightened Raiden, and he's changing the course of things, so everything you've seen happen before – Liu Kang winning, the guys turning into cybernetic ninjas, are changed around, so you might see a character become cybernetic who wasn't before, and so you see a different version [of events].

I actually didn't know he said this when I thought up this theory, but after seeing it I'm pretty confident that it will happen.

tl;dr: Robot Sub Zero, bitches.

[Ack]

Hey Splashchick, I'd be very interested in hearing why you believe Ermac will be in the game. Do you think they'll appear because of the old Error Macro thing, and Ed Boon will put him in as a joke? Also, since Sektor is already a cyborg and the old version of Ermac appeared in a red Lin Kuei outfit, do you think they'd look the same, or will there be a ninja-esque appearance, like with the new Reptile?

[Gamerforlife]

Nice to see I'm not the only person who is into MK's story and characters. It's the one thing I think MK really does have over other fighting franchises

It's also why I watched that silly tv show MK Conquest

[SplashChick]

Hey Splashchick, I'd be very interested in hearing why you believe Ermac will be in the game. Do you think they'll appear because of the old Error Macro thing, and Ed Boon will put him in as a joke? Also, since Sektor is already a cyborg and the old version of Ermac appeared in a red Lin Kuei outfit, do you think they'd look the same, or will there be a ninja-esque appearance, like with the new Reptile?

Ermac didn't have a lot of story back in MK3, he wasn't a very big player, but he WAS immensely popular. He's by far the most popular character of the 3 unlockables in UMK3, and he's played by a large number of the game's fans. Midway has also taken a liking to him, as he appeared as a character in BOTH MK5 and MK6, something most characters didn't get, and developed a rather important and interesting storyline.

Ermac will probably have a restyled ninja look since the game takes place during MK3.

[MrPopo]

Hey Splashchick, I'd be very interested in hearing why you believe Ermac will be in the game. Do you think they'll appear because of the old Error Macro thing, and Ed Boon will put him in as a joke? Also, since Sektor is already a cyborg and the old version of Ermac appeared in a red Lin Kuei outfit, do you think they'd look the same, or will there be a ninja-esque appearance, like with the new Reptile?

I'd say you'd be safe igorning the fact that everyone is a pallet swap of each other in MK3 aside from Sub Zero and Scorpion, as Scorpion's backstory specifically calls out the fact that his uniform is like Sub Zero's. The others (Rain, Reptile, Ermac) are just laziness on Midway's part.

[Assman]

Well, lack of memory would be more accurate. They wanted to get as many characters as possible out of what they had to work with, but those characters have all had drastically updated costumes since then at the very least.