As a big fan of fighting games (check the avatar!), I’ve been paying attention to the news on Mortal Kombat X for a while now, but Nether Realm Studios has been very quiet about the game’s details. As as reasonable person and gamer that I am, I didn’t preorder the game or buy it launch day.

Now that MKX has been released, and the early reviews were good, real user opinion has not been well-received. We may have known about this a week ago, if this Reddit post on /r/MortalKombat is to be believed.



Some important takeaways from that post:

yesterday they released a update 1.8GB

The game became harder especially the tower boss and you get way less money for story mode and normal fights.

used to get 2.500 coins on a boss fight now he gets 200 on the same boss fight after the update

I’m just a little shocked to hear this. That linked post is seven days old at the time of this writing. Other people in the topic are asking how he even has access to the game, as it wasn’t due for a week. As I’m writing this, the game has been officially released in the last 24 hours.

Here’s a comment that struck me as alarming:

If I had to guess it was probably setup that way for reviewers. They have limited time to review games so they initially set the payouts higher so reviewers can open up as much content as quickly as possible. Then they nerf it at launch

I think /u/asears82 in the original topic has a great point. A massive decrease in time to unlock things makes sense if it was a review configuration for the game… but that leaves me with more questions.



Let me remind you that the poster here says the game got more difficult after the patch as well.

Did reviewers know they were playing an “easier” and “quicker (for unlocks)” version of the game?

Should reviewers disclose when they are playing a tweaked version of the game, if they’re aware of it?

Should developers/publishers be urged to tell reviewers about tweaked versions of the game?





Final Thoughts





I think these kind of “review configurations” are really dangerous and greatly affect the reviewer’s perception of the game. If the game is more enjoyable for a reviewer with a certain configuration (to earn a better review), why couldn’t they just design the game like that to begin with?

I believe this is an example of “artificial length,” where the game is padded out with difficulty rather than content. Fighting games are notoriously hard, but perhaps they are trying to be more welcoming to casual players. Fine! But when you only enable that leniency for reviewers? Bullshit.





#TLDR





Fuck this noise.