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Midway Announces New Mortal Kombat, Romero-Helmed Gauntlet 62

Posted by simoniker from the clawing-back-from-the-edge dept.
Thanks to GameSpot for its first look at Midway's new PS2/Xbox title, Mortal Kombat: Deception, as "the recently announced sixth installment" in this long-running franchise officially debuts with a teaser trailer, heavily analyzed at Mortal Kombat Online. Elsewhere, Midway, who is trying to rebound from poor financial results, has announced a new addition to the Gauntlet series, and it's noted that "John Romero, the famous (and infamous) creator of Doom and Daikatana, will be developing the title", confirming earlier rumors to that effect.
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Midway Announces New Mortal Kombat, Romero-Helmed Gauntlet More

Midway Announces New Mortal Kombat, Romero-Helmed Gauntlet

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  • Shout it with me! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27, 2004 @06:18PM (#8412809)

    MOR-TAL KOM-BAT!

    ...cue cheesy techno music...

  • *yawn* (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tumbleweed ( 3706 ) * on Friday February 27, 2004 @06:26PM (#8412875)
    I'd rather have another MK movie than another MK game.

    Especially if Talisa Soto is in it. :)

    Why do we need all these _new_ fighting games? Everyone knows that fight games were perfected with the release of 'Karate Champ.' It's a scientific fact!

    "Full Point!"
    • WHY?! Why is there ANOTHER Mortal Kombat game coming out? Especially when they said the series was over before the last game?

      The only thing more underwhelming than a tandem Mortal Kombat + John Romero is working for our company presse release would be an Eidos announced sequel to Tomb Raider exclusively on the Phantom.

      • Re:*yawn* (Score:3, Funny)

        by bsharitt ( 580506 ) *
        WHY?! Why is there ANOTHER Mortal Kombat game coming out? Especially when they said the series was over before the last game?

        Every time I see a dead horse I just feel the need to kick it, I'm sure this is a similar situation.

  • Gauntlet (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PktLoss ( 647983 ) on Friday February 27, 2004 @06:33PM (#8412909) Homepage Journal
    I really enjoyed the Gauntlet series, played it a bunch in the arcade, and even picked it up for the X-Box.

    I do however beleive that it could do well with some fresh blood in a high up place. While the game can be challenging in the arcade with the slowly diminishing life, it got overly easy and repetitive on the home console. Rather like Diablo without the story line or the challenge.

    I know Doom wasn't really known for it's story line, but I think it is quite possible that he could pull the game in a new direction, or add some spin to the mix.

  • Another Gauntlet? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Friday February 27, 2004 @06:34PM (#8412918)
    Considering what made Gauntlet fun was the insanely basic hack-and-slash system, its gonna be hard to argue that this new Gauntlet will be anything more than another medicore attempt at cashing in on a name that just won't die. The last two Gauntlet games (Legends and Dark Legacy) were nothing more graphics improvements with an extra button, what will they put into the next Gauntlet? Real AI? A level building program? A jump button? (In Gauntlet Legends, some of the "cliffs" were so thin you'd think your character would be able to step over them)

  • Romero and Gauntlet (Score:4, Funny)

    by NiceGeek ( 126629 ) on Friday February 27, 2004 @06:37PM (#8412943)
    I forsee frogs....lots and lots of frogs.

  • Romero? (Score:5, Funny)

    by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Friday February 27, 2004 @06:41PM (#8412963)
    Red Warrior is about to make you his bitch.

  • That GamePro link forgets to note GDL for GameCube (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The best version of Gauntlet Dark Legacy was released for GameCube in a limited release. It sold out within months and was never re-released.

    GamePro should know better.
    • funny, I seem to remember buying that when it came out.. and selling it back because it was a glitchy, buggy mess. "bought stats" would disapear, inventory was useless (when you could get it to work: half the time, anything you bought disapeared before you could really utilize it.)

      • Re:That GamePro link forgets to note GDL for GameC (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I am the original poster.

        It's true, some copies of both the GameCube and the Xbox versions were found to be buggy. Some Xbox copies were even found that caused freezes, such as when using some attacks for specific unlocked characters. I would assume (hope) that current Xbox versions have fixed this code. I know for a fact, however, that not every copy of the GameCube version contains the GameCube-specific bugs. My current copy does not, but the first copy I owned did.

        Unfortunately, there is no way of
    • The best version of Gauntlet Dark Legacy was released for GameCube in a limited release. It sold out within months and was never re-released.

      Cool. I picked this up at Best Buy about 6 months ago for $15.
  • Have they made anything made anything thats is anything more than "playable" in the last 5 years? I mean they they cant even get classic arcade ports right.

  • Hmm (Score:3, Funny)

    by sinergy ( 88242 ) on Friday February 27, 2004 @06:52PM (#8413051) Homepage
    So we can expect Gauntlet to come out about ten years from now?

    • Re:Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27, 2004 @07:53PM (#8413475)
      Rumor has it that under Zucker (new CEO recruited away from Playboy Magazine), projects don't get late without managers starting to vanish. Now that accountability rests with the suits instead of the underlings (Neill was too much of a softie), you can expect change. :)

      Zucker said MWY will be profitable by Q4'04 and stay that way, no matter what the cost.

      • You've clearly never met David or Neil for that matter - I know both and they know me. I've worked for this organisation for almost 8 years and I've seen good times and bad times. I say David Zucker is a great CEO, a great motivator and has made a positive impression on just about everybody. As for managers vanishing, look at his own comments and you'll see he's made the most staff changes in marketing, not product development. Right now he has the company focused on making games people in the real world ac

  • I Can See It Now... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Umgawa71 ( 739459 ) on Friday February 27, 2004 @06:53PM (#8413055) Homepage
    Granted, there are a lot of worse people to give Gauntlet over to than John Romero, but -after the whole Ion Storm thing- giving him control of a game as a means of stemming Midway's veritable flood of red ink is simply a bad financial idea all around. Actually, he's probably matured since Daikatana, and hopefully has learned a little something about marketing. If not, at least we can all look forward to this print advertisement:

    "The Gauntlet Barbarian Is Going To Make You His Bitch!"

  • Why go public with that (Score:4, Funny)

    by augmension ( 757259 ) on Friday February 27, 2004 @07:03PM (#8413135)
    Why on earth would Midway want to make public any relationship with the PR trainwreck that is Romero? I'd soon rather say I had a toddler with rabies working on my project then that guy.

    • Re:Why go public with that (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 27, 2004 @07:50PM (#8413463)
      I hear Romero got a serious haircut (read: working for dirt), pending his proving himself with Gauntlet. There's no artist better than a hungry one, and that works for game designers too.

      Romero has good game sense, but no ability to manage a project. With someone putting the screws to him on deadline as was the case when he worked with Carmack, maybe he won't muddle around with trying to develop half-baked longshot ideas. He'll look at his ideas, take the gems, sweep the rest, and that's what you'll see. It's his second game that I'd worry about, if he makes the cut and gets credibility and leeway back.

      • Yes. But why tell the gamer related press about it? If anything it damages the game's credibility before it's even released.

        It'd be a better strategy to release the game, and if it does great, reveal the hamster wheel behind the curtain and point to said hamster.

  • Midway needs a new franchise (Score:4, Interesting)

    by miyako ( 632510 ) <miyako AT gmail DOT com> on Friday February 27, 2004 @07:35PM (#8413364) Homepage Journal
    I remember when Mortal Kombat first came out, I was 8 or 9 I think. I remember my friends and I ogling it at the arcades, and all of us going up to get it the day it came out on the consoles.
    I remember the playground arguments over which version was better, the genisis version for the inclusion of the bloodcode, or the SNES version with it's cleaner graphics.
    I remember staying home from school for a day to play Mortal Kombat II when it came out. I remember rea thinking "This is the best game ever!"
    I remember mortal kombat 3, and I remember mortal kombat trilogy.
    Sadly... I remember mortal kombat 4, and sadly I sort of remember that subzero game, what was it called?
    Mortal Kombat was really good for its time, it had nice graphics, and a simple but not too simple fighting system. The fatalities were chock full of gore, and the hidden features were always nifty.
    When mortal kombat 2 came out it was perfection, but when 3 came out, it was already on a very slippery slope.
    I remember thinking how MK3 was just a crappy ripoff of Killer Instinct, and Marvel Vs Capcom had much better machanics.
    And then that wretched entertainment abortion known as Mortal Kombat 4 came out.
    It was with this release that I and many of my friends lost all hope for midway and the MK series.
    The latest MK game wasn't bad, I played it a couple of times on my cousins XBOX, but everytime I see it, or anything mortal kombat, I remeber that awful taste left in my mouth from MK4, and I just move on.
    Midway has killed it's best franchises, not only killed them but then urinated on their corpses. If midway can make a good game still (and I'm sure they can), they will have to do it with another franchise, because no matter how good the next mortal kombat or gauntlet is, gamers will only remember the awful craptasticness of the previous installments and move on.

    • Re:Midway needs a new franchise (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If midway can make a good game still (and I'm sure they can), they will have to do it with another franchise, because no matter how good the next mortal kombat or gauntlet is, gamers will only remember the awful craptasticness of the previous installments
      Interesting factoid for you: For about 48% of PS2 buyers, and for almost 68% of Xbox buyers, this is their first game console.

      Half the market never saw MK4, unless it was in the arcade as a pre-teen!

    • Re:Midway needs a new franchise (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Acidic_Diarrhea ( 641390 ) on Friday February 27, 2004 @08:04PM (#8413556) Homepage Journal
      Funny, I judge games based on their individual merit. You seem to be proposing judging games based solely on past precedence. So that once a series has a single bad game, the series must be abandoned. I think this is a rather silly stance to take, especially with high turnaround rates at development houses and the fact that different games in the same series are often done by different development studios.

      If a new Mortal Kombat came out and every review you read of it said it was a great game, on caliber with Soul Caliber, etc., you still would say, "Well, MK4 was bad so I won't buy this"??

      Here's something to chew on. I didn't enjoy Quake I but Quake II is one of my favorite games of all time. If I had followed your logic, I never would have played Quake II.

      No, we should judge games not based on previous games in the series but rather on the actual game and how satisfying it is. That's why I would consider buying a Mortal Kombat game and that's also why when a Mario game is released, I don't automatically say, "I'll take it!"

      • Thing thing is that a franchise, by definition, carries a set of similarities between the games. Franchises often have a certain momentum with them, both in reality and in the minds and hearts of the players. When that momentum heads towards crappy games, it is difficult for the developers to turn the franchise around and create something fresh and new while still maintaining those elements that make it a member for the franchise, but what is often more difficult is for the players to reverse their attit

  • I see.. (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    .. so that's what my kids will be playing in 10 years ;-)
  • I wish I could get girls like Romero to notice me in study hall.
  • Now it makes some sense:
    - http://www.deadlypack.hpg.ig.com.br/_art_game/make _you_his_bitch.jpg

  • OMG! (Score:2, Funny)

    by saqq ( 685613 )
    "With a host of new features including multiple fatalities per character, multi-tiered interactive backgrounds and extensive new game modes, Mortal Kombat: Deception will set a precedent for all other fighting games to follow."

    Holy jumping mexican jew lizards! This is going to be sooooo much better than MK2!
    • hehe, that was funny, but the thing is MKDA wasn't a bad game, (no, I mean it, really go check the reviews) they actually did a lot of balancing in the characters, and used real martial arts with different styles (instead of the same moves for all characters) the "change of style in the fly" thingy was actually much more fun than expected. With a bit more of tweaking in the flux and quantity of moves this game could have been a major contender for SC2 and thats saying a LOT (specially for an american game,

  • Midway got it all wrong (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nobodyman ( 90587 ) on Saturday February 28, 2004 @12:39AM (#8414781) Homepage
    A simple mistake, they thought they were getting John Carmack. Seriously, though... you have to wonder about a company that pins their hopes of a financial turnaround on a guy who blew $30 million on a Quake1 total conversion that arrived 2 years late.

    And it doesn't seem like Romero is any less flakey, he just got married [rome.ro] to some 18 year old Romanian chick that he met on the internet. So, erm... I guess Stevie is available.

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