Mortal Kombat Special Forces - What Happened?

[Music] hello once again and welcome to another shamefully eye-opening episode of WAPA where we dissect some of the gaming industry's biggest embarrassments disasters and Bumble storms this week we'll be looking at everyone's favorite spine ripping fatality token micro transacting Western metal meets Asian mythology fusion Mortal Kombat but mat you scream at your computers in confusion Mortal Kombat has been a massive success in its 25 years of existence in fact 2015's MKX is the highest selling entry in the franchise so what the yes yes of course we're not talking about any mainline entries in the series but rather one of the few redheaded stepchildren that Edie Boone had sired along the way no no not the god-awful Mortal Kombat advance not the indecipherable MK trilogy for the [ __ ] game come and yeah no not even the infamous MK mythology's sub-zero no no those are all too good for what happened there's a mortal kombat title out there that has an entire fresco devoted to it that's smeared with crap and shame the likes of which a renaissance master couldn't have salvaged i'm talk about MK special forces now let's rewind a bit to the magical time period of 1997 having developed for Mortal Kombat games back to back The Mortal Kombat team within Midway led by Ed BZ and Johnny Tubbs we're looking to expand and do some different things with the franchise while Edie primarily worked on the arcade release of all Kombat 4 which fully released in the autumn of that year a companion game was released on consoles short wild a derp yes the affer mention MK mythology's sub-zero both of these games worked in tandem to try to get over their new villains who were replaced in Shao Kahn he's of course being Uncle Fester himself Quan Chi you yeah I guess return you to the net away [Applause] [Music] and silly space wizard shinnok mythology's was produced by John Tobias and he was the most senior member of the main MK team who has overseen the project whose intention was to branch out of the fighting franchise and into an action-adventure title just to prove to themselves that they could I guess did they succeed well that's up for debate but the answer is no MK 4 and then k for gold for consoles would arrive a year later or so but between that and the 2002 release of Deadly Alliance mortal kombat had a five-year gap except for Special Forces releasing exclusively on the PlayStation in 2000 now say what you want about mythologies and most people did but apparently it sold quite well sales numbers from that time period are of course sketchy but Midway at least saw fit to push forward with another action game at the very least take that as you will so Special Forces it's a 3d level based affair that kind of apes Metal Gear Solid is base throw major Dex and Jack sprigs beating up the black dragon and that's about everything you can say but is it really it yes if this were a normal show I could certainly just tell you how bad the game is review it or whatever but what an embarrassment and a controversy raised their stinky heads we will certainly sniff them out so let's do so shall we despite Special Forces only releasing on the PlayStation that wasn't the initial plan like at all it was originally set to also come out in ten to 64 with a Dreamcast port in the cards as well which makes way more sense mythology's release on the n64 and mk4 gold was being ported to the Dreamcast at the time this is the first red flag that [ __ ] went bad baek jong tobias did a few interviews of outlets like IGN when the game was early in development and said everything was progressing well the PSX and n64 versions would all be almost identical as the game would use in-game cutscenes rather than the hammy but hilarious porn parody esque FM B's would still stand as mythology's best feature they say the time supposed tobias also went on to detail at the game would play a bit like a mix of ocarina in time and - raider which is something you've heard every interview around that time but still was a good indication of what they were going for he also touted the ability to select two different characters jax and sonya blade which isn't something that actually happened early screens and footage showed this pre flagrantly but it was unclear how it would have worked either akin to re two scenarios or maybe just like any beat him up with no changes to the storyline regardless of the character picked will never know so there was going to be multiple playable characters mechanics similar to other big hits of the day and different skews then two years later it was all stripped out and a lone playstation 2 version was shuffle up the door for 1999 with no promotion so wow a lot of things apparently having worked on so much more comment from the entirety of the 90s and with dying the new millenium also came rumors of new consoles on the horizon sony had been you know talking about a follow up to the playstation 4 months and the dreamcast still had a potentially ok future at that point [Music] it's just a little airborne it's still good it's still good I know in an interview with game illogical John Tobias revealed that he got the job to produce special horses from his bosses at Midway had an awkward time the PlayStation in n64 were starting to show their age and he really wanted to work on new hardware to see his artwork and designs transition to 3d on more powerful machines instead during the critical years of 1999 and 2000 he would be stuck working on a last gen title just as other developers would be getting a leg up with all the new specs Chinese and possibilities not only that but Tobias also saw trouble forming within development of a special force is in general as this was the team's first fully 3d game as they want to leave the shackles a 2d Mortal Kombat behind them he was aware that despite strong sales mythology's had its head uppercutted off of uppercut a cutted off by critics and wanted to make something different and obviously better but it would take a lot more time and a lot more headaches the breaking point reached when even after several more months of development Tobias saw that window of opportunity slipping away if he was still toiling on this doomed project he wouldn't be on the ground floor develop games on next-gen and would be at a disadvantage trying to catch up so in April of 2000 John Tobias Dave and Josh all from Midway all quit Midway and ostensibly special forces as well usually when this happens games are canceled how even games that were almost complete and just need to be printed on two discs were cancelled but Jackson's son I mean Jack's his adventure was still up in the air it was not outright Ken when the announcement the team's exit broke and Midway was radio-silent over its fate for months more only revealing that the n64 version was indeed axed more things got ready for the ax though over the next few months with a consolidated skeleton crew developers now keeping the whole thing alive on life support basically the game's original seven levels were cut to five fan-favorite character cabal was taken out completely the camera system which was originally gonna be more behind the back third person like a Kenji Tomb Raider was changed to a simpler overhead perspective climbing and swimming sections were also just scrapped but just basic locomotion and jumping in their place with John Tobias at the helm in terms of storyline and such it was a good shot of Special Forces falling pretty squarely in the MK timeline but the release version of the game is nebulous at best and confusing at worst Jax has a super sleek sexy robot sex arms so this takes place post MK 3 but sony has never even mentioned in the game despite her being active at this time Kano is the main antagonist but cabal who was in the early version that Tobias worked on was not yet scarred so this may all be happening right before MK 3 or right after who cares Special Forces not surprisingly is a clunky dreary mess the ambition that John and the other members of his team was shooting for all but stripped out for an incredibly basic budget release it's almost as if it's an American entry in the simple 2000 series but hey it's intro is awesome so that's a good thing here is the intro [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] now that makes this disaster all worth it right if Midway had instead pegged this for early release on the PlayStation to give it at the time and budget needed it could have been something special yes there was no reason to rush a project like this considering it was a much more ambitious 3d action-adventure certainly bigger than any other MK game before it but midway around this time was great at big dumb hilarious mistakes losing millions and millions of dollars on dead-on-arrival projects like dr. Muto Haven called the king and the absolutely disastrous commercial flop stranglehold which contributed greatly to the company's demise in 2009 but what about John Tobias he and other MK team members who left form Studio gigante a massively unsuccessful developer that went on to closure unfortunately there's no silver lining here their first release tau Fang fists Lotus despite having some unique features for a fighting game failed to resonate on the market despite being a fairly visible Xbox exclusive in 2003 they released one more project rustle mania 21 for the Xbox in 2005 now while graphically impressive it was also critically panned doing it being clearly a rushed product as you can see in the footage documented here [Music] the studio closed a year later mortal kombat Special Forces fractured the MK team forever and it never reformed to include all of its original members ever again but fortunately as long as Warner Brothers keep squeezing us for every single sentient can and K will still be alive for years to come that's that's not great that's not the best way to do it but regardless that's the MK Special Forces saga in a nutshell if you know of any other disastrous game bungles let me know in the comments or drop a line at madman muscles at gmail.com what's up next for wha happen I don't know maybe a little video that might make you its [ __ ] see you next time and thanks for watching [Music]

Channel: Matt McMuscles

Views: 650,982

Keywords: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat Special Forces, Fighting Games, Bad Games, Ed Boon, John Tobias

Id: COPYPgSkCyY

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 28 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/omicron7e]

"Wha happun?". Is that a Fred Willard reference from A Mighty Wind?

[u/nate0113]

Nice to see Matt getting more recognition lately.

He's a very interesting and funny guy!

Hell, the whole Super Best Friends Play crew are like that!

I look forward to the day their channel hits 1 million subs!