Mortal Kombat makes its return to film this week. And while the first go-round was a fun trip, the less said about Annihilation, the better. You could say the same thing about Midway’s early attempts to branch out and develop the series in new ways with the likes of Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces. While Mythologies has its fans, there’s a good reason why after Special Forces, Midway didn’t approach the concept again until years later.

Developed exclusively for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, Mortal Kombat Mythologies was in development around the same time as Mortal Kombat 4, and ties into the latter’s story. Taking place before the first Mortal Kombat game, players assume the role of Sub-Zero, who has been hired by the sorcerer Quan Chi to steal a map from a Shaolin temple. What eventually follows sees Sub-Zero turn on and attempt to stop Quan Chi from delivering a sacred amulet to Shinnock, who would use the amulet’s power to invade Earthrealm.

Unlike MK4‘s move to 3D, Mythologies stuck with the series’ trademark digitized human characters, but also mixed in 3D environments and some 3D creatures. And like many of the games released during this time, it’s ironic that the digitized characters still hold up better in comparison to the game’s clunky 3D models when reviewers at the time were decrying 2D as being “dated”. That’s not to say that all of the 3D graphics are bad, as the game’s backgrounds still look very good in 3D.

As far as the game mechanics, the idea to pivot Mythologies towards an adventure-RPG hybrid was an interesting idea, but was woefully executed. You unlock moves for Sub-Zero by defeating enemies and gaining experience. That great idea is however offset by the platforming, which is a mess of trial-and-error combined with maze-like levels and one-hit death traps. Adding to it are several jumps that are literal leaps of faith that require you to die to figure out where and how far you’re supposed to jump.

The whole thing is wrapped up with an aggravating control scheme that tries to repurpose the same controls from the mainline games, but with the addition of a button devoted to turning. Tekken Force Mode, this is not. That aggravation is upped all the more with the respawning enemies that have a habit of spawning offscreen to suddenly run up to you and attack, making certain platforming elements all the more frustrating.

In spite of all of this, once you get a handle on the controls and are able to learn from your mistakes, the game can be a rewarding play. Again, the story is the big draw, as Midway did an excellent job of not only tying in Mortal Kombat 4 with Mythologies by having characters from that game show up here in meaningful ways, but also exploring the relationship between Sub-Zero and Scorpion.

As far as the versions go, the Nintendo 64 version lags behind the PlayStation version. Not only do the graphics take a hit, but PlayStation owners get fully-acted cutscenes. Granted, they exude cheese, but they’re certainly a step above what was to come.

So, Special Forces. Taking place before Mythologies, Special Forces sees Kano freeing members of his Black Dragon mercenary group from a maximum security prison. Jax, seeking revenge for Kano and the Black Dragon massacring the Special Forces team, must now stop the Black Dragon from retrieving an artifact known as the Eye of Chitian.

While Mortal Kombat Mythologies has its fans, it’s universally agreed that 2000’s Special Forces is a dud. Part of the issue is the fact that a number of Midway’s staff, including Mortal Kombat series co-creator John Tobias, had left the company in 1999 while the game was still in production. The departure of so many staff led Special Forces to be scaled back in scope, as well as having its production rushed. In fact, fellow Special Forces member Sonya Blade was to be included in the game as a playable character, but due to the rework, her role was cut entirely (though early screenshots of the game showed Sonya being included).

From the outset, Special Forces is a mess. The characters are blocky (even for the time) and lack detail in the textures. Not to mention that for some reason, Jax has his cybernetic arms with him, but those weren’t introduced until Mortal Kombat 3! Meanwhile, environments amount to corridors or squared-off areas that apart from a few objects such as lockers or crates, are devoid of anything interesting. Walls will break, and clipping polygons are a common occurrence.

Gameplay can be boiled down to wandering around for key cards, while mixing in punching/kicking a guy a few thousand times or shooting them. There’s no jumping or climbing of obstacles. You’re stuck on the ground. You do have combos at your disposal that you unlock via an experience system. However, you’ll end up only using a handful of the smaller ones, as you’ll be eventually be switching to your guns, since all the enemies will be doing the same. You won’t even be able to get in close to execute combos, as once again, your health will be sapped by enemy bullets before you do.

Speaking of which, the enemy AI is hilariously cheesy. Apart from the mentioned sniping, fighting unarmed opponents results in the AI blocking 80% of the time (remember that punching a guy a few thousand times quip?). And, if you find yourself in a 2-on-1 situation, one enemy will just stand there and wait for his turn while you whale on his buddy. It doesn’t make things better when traversing the corridors, as the camera is positioned such that you really can’t even see in front of you until you run into an enemy. By then, they’ll have been whittling down your health from offscreen.

But hey, it’s Mortal Kombat, right? The gore has to be good, right? Again, there’s not much Mortal Kombat about Special Forces. Enemies will explode in an unspectacular fashion when you finish them off with certain combos, but it amounts to body parts being littered on the ground before disappearing. Mythologies at least made an attempt at being creative with the gore, but not here. The most blood you’ll see is from again getting shot up from enemies as you try to get in close, if for some reason you didn’t have any gun on hand.

And as mentioned, one of Mythologies‘ main strengths was its attempts to develop its characters and position them within the series. Not with Special Forces. There’s nothing really that develops the relationship between Kano and Jax, or even Sonya and Jax, for that matter (if she was still in the game). It just amounts to Jax swearing revenge on Kano, with that artifact plotline shoehorned in. The rest of the story amounts to radio calls with Jax and Special Forces member Gemini, much of which requires you to have alcohol on hand for the voice acting.

While one could argue that Mythologies was a flawed but okay title that did succeed in part at giving more backstory to a character like Sub-Zero, Special Forces is a very good reason why the series took a break before returning in 2002’s Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. That entry ended up putting the series back on track, which is what many are hoping that Simon McQuoid’s entry will do for a new film series after Annihilation tanked. And Midway did eventually learn its lessons by the time they tried again with branching Mortal Kombat out of the fighting genre with Shaolin Monks. But that was after their last attempts nearly gave the entire series a fatality of its own.