Mortal Kombat: Special Forces

All of this just works.
― Todd Howard

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Mortal Kombat: Special Forces

File:Mortal Kombat Special Forces NA.png File:Mortal Kombat Special Forces.jpg

Midway, Have you not learned that making an action-adventure game with Mortal Kombat always results in a bad idea?

Protagonist(s):	Major Jackson "Jax" Briggs
Genre(s):	Action-adventure Beat 'em up
Platform(s):	PlayStation
Release:	NA: June 30, 2000 EU: September 29, 2000
Developer(s):	Midway Games
Publisher(s):	Midway Games
Country:	United States
Series:	Mortal Kombat
Predecessor:	Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero (chronologically) Mortal Kombat Gold (officially)
Successor:	Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (by release date)

Mortal Kombat: Special Forces is a 2000 action-adventure video game developed and published by Midway Games for the PlayStation. It is a spin-off set prior to the events of the tournament in the original Mortal Kombat.

The game was also going to be released for the Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast, but those ports were cancelled.^[1]

Plot

Special Forces is chronologically the first game in the Mortal Kombat storyline, as its events take place even before Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero. Kano frees his gang, the Black Dragon from a maximum security prison. Major Jax, seeking revenge for the slaughter of his Special Forces comrades at the hands of the Black Dragon, undertakes a mission to stop them from retrieving an artifact of great power, the Eye of Chitian.

Why It's Not Special

Although many Mortal Kombat games have good graphics, Special Forces is somehow absent from that category. Unlike many games from the series, the graphics in this game are ugly, especially for a game released for the PlayStation as late as 2000. The models and textures are no better; the models are blocky, and the textures are muddy. Even Mythologies: Sub-Zero came out 3 years before this game, and had better graphics than this game.
The boss fights can be exploited easily. You just have to press the "X" button 4 times, short pause and then just repeat all over again without even letting the boss hurt you at all. Not only that, pressing the "X" button 4 times in the boss fight, you will just do mindless spamming, and this will just prove you are unfairly fighting with the boss.
The music, while not bad, is repetitive, unlike in other games.
The plot does not fit in with the rest of the games, as Sonya Blade is the one who has the rivalry with Kano and Jarek, and Jax doesn't actually get his metal bionic arms until Mortal Kombat 3.
Stupid combo names. For example, one of the combos is named "Git some suka". And on top of that, in the word "suka", the letter "c" is missing, which looks like the developers made a typo.
The game barely feels like Mortal Kombat. The game lacks fatalities, which made the Mortal Kombat series great. Instead, one the boss is defeated, you just receive a transmission from Gem.
Dull and uninspired voice acting, Jax and Kano's voice acting is no better than Gem's.
The game has terrible camera angles.
It had a troubled development cycle. It was originally going to feature Sonya as a playable character, have more levels, tell us how Kano got his Bionic eye and Shang Tsung and Kabal were also meant to appear. There was also going to be released for the Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast as stated above, but due to many problems including the departure of John Tobias, the game ended in the state that everyone knows today.

Redeeming Qualities

As mentioned before, the music is great, just like the rest of the series, though it's repetitive in this game.
The intro is possibly the best of the entire game.

Reception

Of all the Mortal Kombat games, Special Forces is considered by many to be the worst, to the point of being called a total disgrace and travesty to the Mortal Kombat series, even more so than Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat Advance.

It has an average review score of 28/100 on Metacritic. Its sales were so low that Midway placed the series on hold in preparation for Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. Ed Boon himself stated: "The game had a pretty bumpy development ride, and the game didn't turn out very good at all."

In 2011, GamesRadar+ ranked it as the second most absurd Mortal Kombat offshoot, behind only Mortal Kombat: Live Tour. In 2013, they also ranked it as the 41st worst game ever made.

WatchMojo ranked this game #5 on their "Top 10 Worst PS1 Games" video.

Ed Boon, the creator of Mortal Kombat, hates the game to the point he wants to forget its existence.