There are ways to prolong an idea's life. It takes a lot of hard thinking and sometimes means you need to evolve with the times. Mortal Kombat tripped and stumbled along the way, but it did have a very long, prestigious life up until the writing of this article. However, as for this book, it did not exactly have the game's creation strictly in the forefront of their thoughts. When we FINALLY get to Mortal Kombat's original creation, we have already been through a ton of chapters and pages going through how the original company was created from a pinball manufacturer. Williams' creation was interesting on some levels, but the point was that I'm here to read about Mortal Kombat's creation.
Once we get right to it, mapping out the human recordings and choosing the original actors, this book thrives. Learning about how Boon and Tobias went through the processes of creating martial arts for the game was fascinating. It really was much more of a gum and duct tape job, because they got all of that from their actors who just so happened to know different martial arts forms. For a good while, this book took on a great story of Mortal Kombat's original development and the hardships they went through.
Then we get to the game's release. It was fun to read about how the office they worked at began to form lines around the machine they had in the hallway. The original arcades that it was given a beta test made it burst with popularity from just word of mouth alone, and so once the mainstream release went into full effect, Mortal Kombat became a household name and kids were lining up the quarters across the screen's base. Even with all of the controversy, kids were finding ways to play it no matter what, even breaking their parents strict guidelines and getting grounded.
These elements were wonderful to read, but then the book goes off on yet another tangeant. This time, they just started talking about playing the characters and strategies that they used in order to get the best gameplay for tournaments. This is... excessively boring. Even with a deep and intimate knowledge of Mortal Kombat's combat, I do not care how other players play for great efficiency. Even if that weren't true, reading it in a book is not how I would want to learn. There are literally hundreds of thousands of videos that show off different styles of play. Many of them even give away the controls with which to play in the style.
The book really should have stuck to it strength and just gone with the game's creation and release. Tobias and Boon's struggles and triumphs were far better to read about than what this book seemed to focus on, which was almost nothing. The foreword was detailing the author, David L Craddock's journey into Mortal Kombat. A simple 1000 word essay would have been acceptable but this guy went into so much description, I finally began to skim because I, once again, did not get this book under the pretense that I would be wasting my time on some other guy's experiences with the game. The fact that Craddock is a dedicated fan was obvious from the first paragraph, we did not need an entire anecdote that was just as long, if not longer, than an actual chapter.
John Romero kept on subject and only went off on small anecdotes when they related to what was going on in his very long tale of his life. I'm interested in Romero for obvious reasons, but there's no way this author will ever have as much credibility as one of the actual creators of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake. He had chapters about his entire life, but he did not go too long with this and even had foreshadowing for what was to come later. Long Live Mortal Kombat just couldn't decide what facet of the Mortal Kombat fandom it wanted to cover. Trying to cover all of it made it feel more like a textbook created by a nerd rather than a loveletter to MK. If any of what I have detailed in this review sounds like something you'd be interested in, you are more than welcome to try this book out for yourself. This may have just been a book for a different fighting game fan or someone who wished to become an MK scholar of sorts. This book may be just what you're looking for. It's well written and obviously did its homework. It could either be exactly what you're looking for or it could take your soul. Choose Your Destiny.
