Update 2:30pm CT: The game is now available on the PlayStation Network for most North American users. Search for KOMBAT.
Later tonight the long awaited Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection finally hits the PlayStation Network in the United States. It will be followed by a global PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace launch tomorrow, August 31st. The bad news is that the PC version's release date has been updated to be later in September. So those of you waiting on Steam for it to become available tomorrow needs to wait just a little while longer.
Below is the debut trailer from the Kollection.
The Full Press Release Below:
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment today announces the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection is now available for download on PSN in North America. In honor of this new collection, which offers players a chance to go back to the beginning and check out the first three games in the legendary franchise, the team is releasing an all-new trailer featuring a glimpse into the downloadable title's classic Mortal Kombat gameplay. The Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection will be available tomorrow on Xbox Live and on PSN globally. The PC version will be coming out next month.
For $9.99 on PSN, and XBLA and PC for 800 Microsoft Points, the Mortal Kobmat Arcade Kollection offers fans the first three games in the series – the original Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 – and online play, leader boards, achievements and trophies, as well as the chance to play through the games in their original arcade state. Developed by Other Ocean in conjunction with NetherRealm Studios, this collection marks the first time all three games have been brought together in one package.
Also yesterday NetherRealm Studios's Creative Director Ed Boon wrote a guest article for the PlayStation blog detailing some additional history behind the series. Here's an except from the article:
About 20 years ago, Midway was at the cutting edge of arcade game development using a unique method of creating very realistic images. By digitizing live actors, shot in front of a green screen, a number of games were developed that had a photorealistic look not found in any other games. Games like Narc, Smash TV, NBA Jam and Terminator 2: Arcade all used this technology. This approach was applied to a number of game categories including sports, gun games, and shooters. One genre, however, had not yet been attempted – the fighting game. In 1991, a small team of four decided to try making a fighting game using digitized graphics. The goal was to make something bold, shocking, and as realistic looking as possible. The game would eventually become Mortal Kombat, the first in a series that have sold over 30 million games.
Also GameStop last night started to ship their exclusive Mortal Kombat Klassic Fight Stick by PDP for both Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The sticks also come with a free code to download the Arcade Kollection so don't buy the game online before the sticks are set to arrive tomorrow. Expect a full rundown and comparison between the Klassic Fightstick and the Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition Fightstick that was released with Mortal Kombat (2011).
To those looking to to relearn how to play these "Klassic" games be sure to check out our comprehensive move guides for those games available via these links: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
correct me if i'm wrong but, wasn't pit fighter the first fighting game to use digitized fighters? ed boon i am disappoint. hahaha i can't wait to get back to my roots. MORTAL KOMBAT!
Originally Posted by : Noob+Saibot They hate PC users.
Watch your language! I edited your post, the next time it happens you get an infraction.
It's not about hating PC users, why must everyone make this personal? Timing of releases shift often in development, it's still coming in September so no more than four weeks away if it arrives the last week of September.
Originally Posted by : Patrick McCarron Watch your language! I edited your post, the next time it happens you get an infraction.
It's not about hating PC users, why must everyone make this personal? Timing of releases shift often in development, it's still coming in September so no more than four weeks away if it arrives the last week of September.
I'm sorry. I'm not a bad guy or something but this situation with MK and PC really pisses me off. First they ignore PC as one of the platforms for MK9 and now they're delaying MKAK.
Originally Posted by : squirrelpion correct me if i'm wrong but, wasn't pit fighter the first fighting game to use digitized fighters? ed boon i am disappoint. hahaha i can't wait to get back to my roots. MORTAL KOMBAT!
You are correct sir! Pit Fighter was the first but MK keeps lying
Originally Posted by : Noob+Saibot I'm sorry. I'm not a bad guy or something but this situation with MK and PC really pisses me off. First they ignore PC as one of the platforms for MK9 and now they're delaying MKAK.
First off it was NEVER delayed. It was just finally revealed the official release date. Can't delay something that wasn't announced, if anything it's OUR fault for assuming it came out this week. September is a few days away so that means you have no more than a month before it comes out. It won't kill you and they DO NOT HATE YOU.
Because of your attitude and others with the "lets just pirate PC games" attitude is why MK9 isn't on PC yet. It's not being ignored, they considered it and likely continue to do so. It costs a lot to port and support a game on the PC so they have to weigh these risks before they do it. This older game collection was likely easier to port and less of a loss potential for piracy.
Getting up and spending your money on this and not being a pain in the ass about it about it will go a long way towards showing WB that there is a market for MK on the PC.
Originally Posted by : squirrelpion correct me if i'm wrong but, wasn't pit fighter the first fighting game to use digitized fighters? ed boon i am disappoint. hahaha i can't wait to get back to my roots. MORTAL KOMBAT!
Pit Fighter wasnt technically a fighting game and belonged more to the 'Beat em up' genre like games like Street Smart. So I guess Mortal Kombat is the first fighting game to use digitized actors but not the first ever game to use them.
Originally Posted by : Patrick McCarron First off it was NEVER delayed. It was just finally revealed the official release date. Can't delay something that wasn't announced, if anything it's OUR fault for assuming it came out this week. September is a few days away so that means you have no more than a month before it comes out. It won't kill you and they DO NOT HATE YOU.
Because of your attitude and others with the "lets just pirate PC games" attitude is why MK9 isn't on PC yet. It's not being ignored, they considered it and likely continue to do so. It costs a lot to port and support a game on the PC so they have to weigh these risks before they do it. This older game collection was likely easier to port and less of a loss potential for piracy.
Getting up and spending your money on this and not being a pain in the ass about it about it will go a long way towards showing WB that there is a market for MK on the PC.
By saying "**** it!" I was NOT showing my attitude to NRS, I was just angry. Even if they release it in October or November, I will NOT torrent it.
And I think they DO know how many people would buy MK9 on PC. Yes, BUY it because not many people will want to play only offline.
Should be out today in Canada also as WB release stated North America. Anyone know of availability for Klassic Aracde stick in Canada other than ordering from gamestop.com?
Originally Posted by : Flying Jinko Pit Fighter wasnt technically a fighting game and belonged more to the 'Beat em up' genre like games like Street Smart. So I guess Mortal Kombat is the first fighting game to use digitized actors but not the first ever game to use them.
A lot of NES games had digitized graphics of real people. I remember Batman had Micheal Keaton and Jacknicholson in their movie make-up. I guess MK was on of the first to use them and have them where they didn't look shitty.
Originally Posted by : Patrick McCarron First off it was NEVER delayed. It was just finally revealed the official release date. Can't delay something that wasn't announced, if anything it's OUR fault for assuming it came out this week. September is a few days away so that means you have no more than a month before it comes out. It won't kill you and they DO NOT HATE YOU.
Because of your attitude and others with the "lets just pirate PC games" attitude is why MK9 isn't on PC yet. It's not being ignored, they considered it and likely continue to do so. It costs a lot to port and support a game on the PC so they have to weigh these risks before they do it. This older game collection was likely easier to port and less of a loss potential for piracy.
Getting up and spending your money on this and not being a pain in the ass about it about it will go a long way towards showing WB that there is a market for MK on the PC.
What pirate? Okay, I'll pirate MKAK for the awesome CPU opponents.
I'm fine with a delay if it means a more polished product in the end. What would you have preferred.. to get a buggy kollection earlier or a polished kollection a little later?
BTW, Pit Fighter wasn't that great in hindsight however at the time there was nothing like it graphically speaking at my local arcade and I enjoyed it quite a bit. There weren't any other brawlersfighters that where anything like it and I enjoyed the gritty look of the game which with my then preteen early 90's eyes looked amazing. I didn't even care about the button mashing gameplay back then but that was before I got into more serious fighters and MK. Which people still bash for having crappy gameplay in their opinion. Today Pit Fighter has some nostalgia attached to it for me but yeah admittedly it's a pretty crappy game.
BTW, MK2 isn't that hard especially if you pick certain characters. I can beat it with Raiden for example even without doing cheap patterns like jumping back and having them jump at you.... especially since Raiden has a good round kick the CPU falls for a lot. Also Kintaro is easy to beat if you have good timing walking up to him and doing a quick jump kick the right way. I can beat him with ANY character doing that. UMK3 is the one with the cheapest AI in my opinion.... and the background cycling that happens when you send someone through the roof bugs me there.
Also pirating the kollection out of spite is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The only thing it shows them is lack of interest in buying the game and nothing else.
Originally Posted by : Eks A lot of NES games had digitized graphics of real people. I remember Batman had Micheal Keaton and Jacknicholson in their movie make-up. I guess MK was on of the first to use them and have them where they didn't look shitty.
Yeah a few NES and later games back then used digitized photos for simple things like small cut scene pics... but not for core gameplay and those weren't fighting games. A lot of devs seem to live in a little bubble world with their own products though so they see themselves as the first doing certain things when they really aren't. So no, digitized graphics weren't a new concept and they even say so it just wasn't really used for 1 on 1 fighting games at that point.
When I first saw MK at the arcade it was fresh and new and the high color graphics where beyond anything that could be done on the NES and even the SNES had a hard time matching it.... they either cut down the graphics to maintain solid gameplay like in MK2 or they had compromised gameplayframe rate like in MK1 for SNES.
Originally Posted by : Patrick McCarron First off it was NEVER delayed. It was just finally revealed the official release date. Can't delay something that wasn't announced, if anything it's OUR fault for assuming it came out this week. September is a few days away so that means you have no more than a month before it comes out. It won't kill you and they DO NOT HATE YOU.
Because of your attitude and others with the "lets just pirate PC games" attitude is why MK9 isn't on PC yet. It's not being ignored, they considered it and likely continue to do so. It costs a lot to port and support a game on the PC so they have to weigh these risks before they do it. This older game collection was likely easier to port and less of a loss potential for piracy.
Getting up and spending your money on this and not being a pain in the ass about it about it will go a long way towards showing WB that there is a market for MK on the PC.
Actually the PC version of the Arcade collection was given a summer 2011 release date way back in may the same as the consoles here is a link to the article:
http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1167834p1.html
Mentions PC in their so its disappointing that it has been delayed to who knows when in Sept, not like they havent had the same length of time to develop them.
I wouldnt condone piracy but im safe in saying that many have these games on a emulator so may not be to bothered, and others who have consoles may just plump for that option rather than wait so less sales.
So to be fair and have read many sites of the release date of this game Had been the same till at least near release day when new press releases came ready for the launch and to confirm date, which to me reading previous press release had all platforms as the 31st of Aug.
Then it was Tuesday for the US which is stupid it could and should of been global release for all countries which original it was. So then it was the 30th for the US and then 31st globally and then finally the addition that the PC would get it next month was added.
I wish they would give this treatment to NARC and Smash TV. I freaking love those games. I know they were done by Williams, but there was some Midway involvement there too. Does WB Studios own those ips now?
On the other hand it seems like they listened to people like me about putting filter modes into the game including one that simulates how the arcade monitor was curved and such. I was just looking at the screenshots on twitter... to be honest I've seen better pixel shader based post processing scanline implementations but I haven't seen MKAK's implementation full screen and in motion so I don't know how well it'll worklook in reality on a computer compared to for example SDLMAME64's. To be honest the screenshot below looks a little like the older type of scanline implementation that looked better on a CRT monitor and wasn't done as a post process pixel shader type deal.
Here's the screenshots I mentioned:
Arcade Cabinet+scanlines: http://mlkshk.com/p/6P49
This one looks like super-eaglesmart scaling: http://mlkshk.com/p/6P4A
Many old collections never bothered to include any advanced filter settings.
Originally Posted by : dangermouseuk78 Actually the PC version of the Arcade collection was given a summer 2011 release date way back in may the same as the consoles here is a link to the article:
http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1167834p1.html
Mentions PC in their so its disappointing that it has been delayed to who knows when in Sept, not like they havent had the same length of time to develop them.
got the PS3 version today, awesome, the ports genuinely feel arcade perfect, the speeds seem correct,the MK II is noticably better than the past port and the MK I seems to be flawless, WAY better than the bonus disc on MK-D, the only thing is Ult MK 3 seems to play a little quick,but I could be wrong on that since I spent very little time with Ult. MK 3 at the arcades. All in all I'd say this is a solid "arcade perfect" collection. Anyone with doubts about this collection rest easy, this is easily worth the $10, the best part is MK I online finally!!!
I'm not sure if you own a PS2,or regular XBOX, but Midway Arcade Treasures 2 has both of these Arcade ports and thy're really good "arcade perfect" ports, I still play NARC on my PS2 everynow and then, I would love to see these on PSN or XBLA as well.
Originally Posted by : jbell0129 to anyone who has it - how close is it to the arcade versions?
It looks good and MK1,MK2 remember me a lot the old arcade versions (i never play mk3 on arcade), you have some effects to make the screen look like the old non flat monitors , the only bad imo is that the textures with every screen filter you choose from options (smooth, colour...) is still low quality (not like your avatar for example or some mame version).
Reasons for that his avatar is being displayed actual size on your screen no resampling or anything. Whenever a tiny image like that is scaled up and you apply a filter to it it always changes usually getting more pixelated or blurry... whichever looks better to you is a matter of opinion. It also depends on what type they use. Also it highly depends on what type of screen you play it on the resolution of the screen.. how you hook it up and or how far away you sit from the screen. But yeah one reason why people want an HD Remake is because upscaling a small image never increases the detail although again it's mostly a matter of opinion what looks best when you do upscale it.
Also like I've said elsewhere MK was displayed basically at it's native resolution on the RGB CRT monitors they used on the arcade machine so that's why it looked at its best there.. better than on any TV at home. Those monitors had an RGB connection that piped the colors direct to the screen without going through any extra RF circuitry compared to TVs back then and of course the way the tube itself worked and the resolution worked best for a low res game like that. Although all old monitorsTVs used to apply some level of color bleedingblurryness to the screen. Sure it may have looked sharp to you back then but there wasn't any alternative and the way the color bleedingresolutionscanlines built into the tv worked it gave you the illusion of it being sharp even on the best screens. Many arcade screens developed color bleedingblurryness issues but people ignore them.
Originally Posted by : smoke.tetsu Reasons for that his avatar is being displayed actual size on your screen no resampling or anything. Whenever a tiny image like that is scaled up and you apply a filter to it it always changes usually getting more pixelated or blurry... whichever looks better to you is a matter of opinion. It also depends on what type they use. Also it highly depends on what type of screen you play it on the resolution of the screen.. how you hook it up and or how far away you sit from the screen. But yeah one reason why people want an HD Remake is because upscaling a small image never increases the detail although again it's mostly a matter of opinion what looks best when you do upscale it.
Also like I've said elsewhere MK was displayed basically at it's native resolution on the RGB CRT monitors they used on the arcade machine so that's why it looked at its best there.. better than on any TV at home. Those monitors had an RGB connection that piped the colors direct to the screen without going through any extra RF circuitry compared to TVs back then and of course the way the tube itself worked and the resolution worked best for a low res game like that. Although all old monitorsTVs used to apply some level of color bleedingblurryness to the screen. Sure it may have looked sharp to you back then but there wasn't any alternative and the way the color bleedingresolutionscanlines built into the tv worked it gave you the illusion of it being sharp even on the best screens. Many arcade screens developed color bleedingblurryness issues but people ignore them.
You are right but if you notice some of the players have good quality/colours with the new effects and some others have bad, for example if you choose at Mortal Kombat 2 Kung Lao or Liu Kang they look fine (for a non HD game) but all the ninjas or Cage have a grey/blue pixelated colour and the same goes for MK1/UMK3. Anyway i don't complain because i like to have them in the console and not at the pc as mame.
I gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed. All I expected was reasonably accurate emulation with no glaring faults, and I was immediately greeted by screwed up colors and inaccurate, glitchy sound. I gave these guys the benefit of the doubt here and plunked down the $10 without playing the trial version, but I wish I hadn't. I feel like I wasted $10. This isn't even on par with MAME.
I've checked the EU PSN Store late last night and couldn't find it.
Did they release it in Europe? Can anyone from this part of the Atlantic confirm it's on the store and available?
Thanks if you do.
I've sent an email to WB's customer service department, asking about the missing EU PS3 version of MKAK. I'd encourage others who are concerned (for lack of a better word) to do the same.
WB haven't bothered to explain the situation, and no MK fansite has even mentioned it (thanks for the support, fellas... :P ). It's way too quiet around here, so it looks like we have to investigate it ourselves.
If (and that's a real big if) I get an adequate reply from WB, I'll post it here.
I could not be more disappointed with this release. I played 30+ games last night, and while most of the connection bars showed as all green in the lobbys the online netcode was horrible. Every single game was laggy as hell. Save your $10 and go back to MAME.
Originally Posted by : badrock I could not be more disappointed with this release. I played 30+ games last night, and while most of the connection bars showed as all green in the lobbys the online netcode was horrible. Every single game was laggy as hell. Save your $10 and go back to MAME.
"Go back to MAME?"
From what I understand, playing a game on that would be illegal if you don't own the hardware it came from. Is that right?
I know MKAK has issues, but geeze... it's not THAT big an issue.
Later tonight the long awaited Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection finally hits the PlayStation Network in the United States. It will be followed by a global PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace launch tomorrow, August 31st. The bad news is that the PC version's release date has been updated to be later in September. So those of you waiting on Steam for it to become available tomorrow needs to wait just a little while longer. 
Also GameStop last night started to ship their exclusive 
