Today's post is all about Mortal Kombat 4. I decided to play a match of one round between the two classic characters, Scorpion and Sub-Zero. The following is a blow-by-blow account of the match, and the realistic medical analysis of each attack.

Match begins

First Move: Scorpion teleports to the other side of the screen and lands a flying punch to Scorpion's chest.

Medical verdict: Sub-Zero may have sustained one or two cracked ribs from the fairly heavy punch, but the real worry here is Scorpion. The laws of physics state that it is impossible to predict how any atom will move. Therefore Scorpion's teleportation stunt would realistically have left him mutilated at an atomic level, and he would effectively disappear, as a cloud of atoms floating randomly in the air. Instantaneous death.

Move 2: Sub-Zero retaliates with a flying kick to the head.

Verdict: The sheer force of the kick would perhaps have been enough to crack Scorpion's skull. Depending on where the foot landed he will have broken his nose or jaw, and very likely lost teeth.

Move 3: A second and third teleport punch from Scorpion.

Verdict: As Move 1.

Move 4: Scorpion grabs Sub-Zero's arm and appears to either dislocate or break it. Sub-Zero unflinchingly snaps it back into place with a flick of the (cold) shoulder and continues as normal.

Verdict: While it is theoretically possible to replace a dislocated arm, it requires a greater force than Scorpion could muster with the shoulder flick. Unless Scorpion were to help, it is unlikely that Sub-Zero will be able to continue fighting due to unbearable pain.

Move 5: Sub-Zero grabs a boulder from the ground and hurls it directly into Scorpion's face at point-blank range.

Verdict: Sub-Zero's already broken arm would likely be torn from his torso with the sheer weight of that rock. Assuming he could perform the above feat, Scorpion would be knocked to the ground and his head crushed by half a ton of granite. A fourth death.

Move 6: Sub-Zero conjures a ball of ice and hurls it at Scorpion, who is instantly frozen solid. Sub-Zero approaches and delivers a vicious uppercut to the torso, smashing the ice and sending the now thawed Scorpion several feet into the air and gravity pulls the ninja back down to the ground, where he lands on his neck.

Verdict: The instant Scorpion thawed, the water in his body would thaw and expand. His skin and organs would be blown to pieces cell by cell, leaving a bloody mess on the floor. The angle of his landing would have ensured a broken neck and a smashed skull. Likely the back of his head would be completely torn away and his brain ripped from it's moorings and splattered over the floor.

Final move: Sub-Zero pulls out a large spiked ice club, sprints towards Scorpion and slams it into his chest. He repeats until Scorpion is standing groggily, waiting to be finished off.

Verdict: Standing would be quite impossible for Scorpion at this point. The several hits with the club would have smashed his ribs to pieces, crushed his lungs and quite likely broken his spine. Suffocation and death would ensue.

Finisher: Sub-Zero freezes Scorpion again and smashes him into several pieces, killing him instantaneously.

Verdict: As above.

Conclusion

Scorpion has officially died seven times in this match, while Sub-Zero has sustained cracked ribs and lost an arm. A winner is most definitely Sub-Zero.

ATTN: Return To Castle Wolfenstein kicks ass.

That is all.

Well, HL2 is available to buy now, and CS: S available to play. Personally I've never liked CS, partly because I'm not very good at it. I'm hampered by this PC, though; it jerks like a cheap hooker whenever there's a big gunfight. I'm getting a new laptop at the end of the month which is pretty powerful (3.2GHz, 1024MB RAM and a Radeon 9600) so I'll buy Half-Life 2 and CS:S, probably with the Source remake of HL1 as well, and see if I'm actually any good online. It'll be nice to be able to play something at high quality for once. The most powerful game this rig will play is the original Hitman, so you can imagine it's not going to run HL2 at all.

I don't know if any of you have seen the scans yet of the (UK) PC Gamer HL2 review; it got 96%. I'm told PC Zone gave it 97%. I'm looking forward to it, but what you have to remember is that a lot of magazines gave Metal Gear Solid 2 perfect scores, and that was nowhere near a perfect game.

Speaking of which, GameSpot gave THPS3 on PS2 a perfect ten. That's absolutely ridiculous.

Anyway I intend to buy HL2 with my birthday money, my birthday falling on November 22nd, a day before the official release of HL2.

Speaking of November releases, I have to wonder what Halo 2 will be like. It sounds OK, and I sort of liked the short bit I played of the original. However, I didn't think it was anything more than averagely good. Obviously it's going to be a long fight between fanboys. But I prefer not to let myself get drawn into those fights.

I never really liked the X-Box as a system. I'm not sure why, but there's something there which just doesn't add up. Perhaps it's something to do with the controller - I'm not bothered about the size, but it feels like an average PC pad. Plus all the buttons are in wacky places. I say controllers should be as simple as possible - I favour the PS2 pad in this respect. All the bells and whistles in a nice symmetrical and comfortable design.

Anyway, this Christmas is going to be a difficult time for me. Having a laptop which can run pretty much anything is going to make it difficult to know what to buy. Half-Life 2, natch, but there's also Sims 2, Doom 3 - I'm going to be stuck. I used my college network to download and burn a Doom 3 demo, so I'll install that on the laptop come October 29th.

Well, that's it for now. This is Infinik, signing off.

(P.S. Awfully ironic that the GameSpot spellchecker doesn't recognise 'gamespot' as a word. Even more ironically, it doesn't recognise 'fanboy'. Suggestions include: finis, NBS, nob's and Nanobots.)

(P.P.S. Or 'spellchecker'.)