{"id":1516,"date":"2012-10-26T11:45:32","date_gmt":"2012-10-26T11:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=1516"},"modified":"2012-10-26T11:45:32","modified_gmt":"2012-10-26T11:45:32","slug":"my-top-100-60-mortal-kombat-shaolin-monks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=1516","title":{"rendered":"My Top 100: #60 &#8211; Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1525\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/ShaolinMonks.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1525\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1525\" title=\"ShaolinMonks\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/ShaolinMonks.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"913\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/ShaolinMonks.jpg 640w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/ShaolinMonks-210x300.jpg 210w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1525\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2005 &#8211; Midway (Xbox, PlayStation 2)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I make\u00a0no\u00a0effort to hide the fact\u00a0that I love the <em>Mortal Kombat <\/em>universe.\u00a0 I find absolutely everything about it riveting, but\u00a0I consider\u00a0it a bit of a guilty pleasure.<\/p>\n<p>To begin with, the characters&#8217;\u00a0storylines all seem plucked from thin air.\u00a0 &#8220;Blank was a member of Blank, before Blank murdered\u00a0someone close to them\\defected to the other side; now they fight for justice\\revenge\\no reason but for personal gratification.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In any game that\u00a0delves deeper into\u00a0these intertwined storylines, the writing and voice acting are pretty damn horrible.\u00a0 The first one to do this was <em>Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero<\/em>, which\u00a0went all out with live action cutscenes, silly costumes and hilarious acting.\u00a0 2004&#8217;s <em>Deception <\/em>continued the tradition\u00a0de fromage with<em>\u00a0<\/em>a Conquest adventure mode to help\u00a0explain Shujinko&#8217;s storyline, complete with groan-inducing dialogue and voice acting.\u00a0\u00a0Though it was a pretty simplistic take on the <em>MK<\/em> universe, it obviously won over\u00a0many of us fans.<\/p>\n<p>The house of\u00a0Boon\u00a0had dollar signs in their eyes, and took a\u00a0<em>God of War<\/em> approach for their next game&#8230;\u00a0 and it worked.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Zzz_c79XTPs\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I had a general idea of what\u00a0<em>God of War<\/em>\u00a0was;\u00a0lots of weapons, lots of acrobatic moves that were simple to pull off, lots of violence.\u00a0 It definitely looked like a step in the right direction for video games, taking on darker and more adult themes for us longtime gamers.\u00a0 Still, I never actually bothered trying the game until\u00a0after <em>Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks <\/em>came out.<\/p>\n<p>This game is sure to bring back memories to anyone who has ever played an <em>MK<\/em> game.\u00a0\u00a0The intro\u00a0brings us back to\u00a0the end of the first tournament, just as Liu Kang is about to put the smackdown on Shang Tsung.\u00a0 Before he bites the bullet, he opens a portal through which\u00a0he and all the game&#8217;s &#8220;evil&#8221; characters jump through.\u00a0 Like R&#8217;as al Ghul setting Arkham Asylum&#8217;s freaks loose to wreak havoc on Gotham in <em>Batman Begins<\/em>, this opens the door for a boatload of random encounters throughout the game.<\/p>\n<p>Liu Kang and Kung Lao are the playable characters from the get-go, with Scorpion and Sub Zero acting as the unlockables.\u00a0 Aside from plain old kicking and punching, using\u00a0their signature special\u00a0attacks can add a\u00a0bit of strategy to each battle.\u00a0\u00a03D re-recreations of familiar <em>Mortal Kombat II<\/em> locales such as the Portal, Dead Pool and Armory, help take you on a trip down memory lane.\u00a0 You can even interact with some of the environments, since there always happen to be conveniently placed spike beds to throw your opponent into; or, in the Living Forest&#8217;s case, hungry trees that need to be fed!<\/p>\n<p>In the end, <em>Shaolin Monks <\/em>is a solid game that most people might overlook, but any fans of the <em>Mortal Kombat<\/em> franchise would do well to try out.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1524\" style=\"width: 364px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Obama.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1524\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1524\" title=\"Obama\" src=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Obama.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"354\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Obama.jpg 354w, http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/Obama-212x300.jpg 212w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 354px) 100vw, 354px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1524\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This should say &#8220;Romney&#8221;, but I guess this is from the G-Dub years.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; I make\u00a0no\u00a0effort to hide the fact\u00a0that I love the Mortal Kombat universe.\u00a0 I find absolutely everything about it riveting, but\u00a0I consider\u00a0it a bit of a guilty pleasure. To begin with, the characters&#8217;\u00a0storylines all seem plucked from thin&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=1516\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,32,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mortal-kombat","category-top-100","category-xbox"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1516"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1526,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions\/1526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}