The Mortal Kombat series is one of the premier gaming series' around today. The fourth time around the game had gone polygonal, giving the developers much more leeway when it came to adding new moves, holds, and characters. Also, weapons were added into the mix, with each character possessing a different sword, club, or staff to beat his enemies with.

The storyline of Mortal Kombat 4 picked up the loose ends left behind by both Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero. With Shao Kahn defeated, Shinnok picks up the slack as the main bad guy. However, he is also a selectable character, which left arcade players with no big boss to look forward to. To remedy that, the home version contained the first Mortal Kombat's four-armed bad boy, Goro. Goro looked terrific in 3D, moved very fluidly, and had all the great moves he had in the first Mortal Kombat, as well as a few additional ones. He isn't selectable from the start, but he'll be available via a code. Returning characters included Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Liu Kang, Johnny Cage, Sonya, and Raiden. Most of the old characters maintained their old moves, and added a new one here and there. The new characters fit very well into the Mortal Kombat universe, a welcome change from most fighting game sequels.

The graphics of the N64 version weren't as good as the arcade version. That was pretty much a given. But they still looked very good, made great use of light sourcing, and ran at a very high speed. There were a few moments where the frame rate dipped, but not enough to cause a problem with the gameplay. The sound was definitely the high-water mark for the N64. The music sounded very nice, and the game had all the speech from the arcade, including the intro and endings. This was quite a surprise, considering the large amount of speech in the game.

The gameplay was very close to the arcade, but the N64 controller gets in the way. The default setup simply wasn't very good, but with a few changes and some practice, you'll become proficient fairly quickly. Some of the fatalities in the game were much harder to do on the N64 pad, as they required you to hit multiple buttons at the same time. The combo system had been greatly simplified. Each character could start a combo the same way, and some of the more damaging moves in the previous games (the uppercut, for instance) had been weakened. The introduction of weapons seemed silly at first, but once you've played for a while and got used to using them, they really did add a new dimension to the game. Each character had two fatalities, and there were two stage fatalities. The fatalities looked nice, but too many of them were merely 3D updates to old fatalities, and the new fatalities in Mortal Kombat 4 simply aren't that great. It would have been nice to see some more innovation here. A few modes had been added to the game, including a practice mode, which showed all the character's moves and fatalities. There were also three types of endurance fights, a team battle mode, and a tournament mode. If you haven't liked any of the previous Mortal Kombat titles, then Mortal Kombat 4 probably won't win you over. But this is an excellent translation of a good arcade title, and fans of the arcade version won't be disappointed at all.
Mortal Kombat 4 Review - May 25, 1998 - by Jeff Gretsman on www.gamespot.com

To me, this game is STILL my favorite Mortal Kombat title, though I'd have to say that the 3rd Revision of the Arcade version was the best!

I get that you're new, but I would hope this goes without saying.

This review is taken word for word from another website.

Local Mods : Please close, plagiarized.

Please don't do this again

ender44 : also.. he plaragized so someone should revoke his rewards. Global Mods : Revoke this guy's reward please, Hey new guy if you don't know what plaragizim is, then listen up Plagarzim is the act of copy pasting or stealing others work.  If you are gonna write a review give you're own opinions and write it you're self