360 gets a mild advantage in this area, but as this occurs during what are effectively cut-scenes, it makes very little difference considering that the performance drop is mostly masked by the game's use of slow-motion.Įlsewhere PlayStation 3 owners get the welcome addition of 3D support, which surprisingly results in better image quality than with the 2D mode on either version.
In short Mortal Kombat runs well on both systems, holding to the targeted 60FPS/16ms update where it matters. The reduced frame-rate manifests itself in the form of what looks like an extra slow-motion effect while the game is purposely slowing down the action to further highlight the bone-breaking attacks. Here we see lower frame-rates compared to the 360, but on the upside, there is no screen tearing at all. The game delivers the same locked 60FPS experience during normal play, only forgoing this level of smoothness during X-Rays and Fatalities. V-sync is disengaged when the frame-rate drops below 60FPS, and as a result there is some barely noticeable slowdown and some mild screen tearing.Īs with many titles running on the PlayStation 3, NetherRealm Studios has chosen to have v-sync permanently enabled. The only time we see a deviation from this is during the performance of both X-Ray moves and Fatalities - where control is removed from the player. As we've already mentioned, Mortal Kombat targets a v-synced, 60FPS update, and this is solidly maintained mostly throughout an entire match. More importantly, the gameplay remains completely unaffected at all times - and this is a sentiment echoed when looking at the game's performance across both systems.įirst up, let's take a look at the Xbox 360 game. However, despite the few graphical differences, it's fair to say that in motion both games look so alike you'd be hard pressed to notice most of them when playing. It almost looks as if projectile attacks aren't bespoke light sources, when they in fact are. In certain shots in the comparison gallery we can see that the intensity of the lighting given off by certain special moves is noticeably lower on the PS3.
There is also a difference in the way lighting is handled across both formats as well. Other projectile effects/specials feature a lighter upscale on the PS3, thus looking almost identical to the ones on the 360.
However, only some of these effects are actually filtered, leading to visible pixellation in some scenes.
On the other hand we see that texture filtering is better on the 360, sporting higher levels of anisotropic filtering (AF), whilst the alpha buffers - smoke, fire and so on - are rendered in quarter resolution on the PS3. Moving on, it's clear that both versions are visually very close with regards to the baseline art, save for a few mild texture and normal map differences on some stages, and perhaps the odd rendering bug - for example, the texture work on Reptile looks very odd on PS3. Here you can also see the different emphasis in lighting on projectile attacks too. It's a bit of a mystery bearing in mind how close the two versions are elsewhere.
Mortal Kombat operates at native 720p on both platforms - except in the case of Shao Kahn's Throne Room, where it appears that the game runs at 680p on PS3.