Mortal Kombat X is fantastic. This is next-gen done right. Ed Boon and his team at NetherRealm Studios have got this game programming thing in the bag. The franchise is already legendary. This game continues the legacy and proves that Mortal Kombat is here to stay. We've come a long way from 1992, with the release of the first MK in arcades. This game, to me, feels like the first true next-gen game so far. In a sea full of re-releases, HD remakes, Free to Plays, and indie garbage, it's time to let the big boy come out and play. This game is fully featured, easily playable, and runs so smoothly, all while looking gorgeous.After doing the 10-minute Training Mode, most everyone is going to hop right into Story Mode. It's about 4 hours long, and man is it amazing. It plays out in chapters, each chapter you take on the role of a different character and get to see the world in their eyes. It's also a great way to learn how the characters in this game play. Not every character in the game has their own chapter in Story Mode, but you do get to learn who everyone is. There are even characters you fight that you cannot play as, such as Rain, Baraka, and Sindel. This was a nice touch. On top of the non-playable fighters, there are also dozens of cameos from all the 60+ characters in the MK universe. It's great to see everyone make an appearance. They are never forgotten. The voice acting is superb. It really feels like you are watching a movie during the cutscenes. I never wanted to skip away once, I was never bored. The entire Story was so epic and was never confusing. It's easy to follow and really takes you on a roller coaster ride, with many plot twists along the way.This game is set 20 years after Mortal Kombat 9, the previous game in the series. It's crazy because our favorite characters have kids now. Johnny Cage and Sonya have Cassie Cage, Jax has Jacqui Briggs, and even Blind Kenshi has a son named Takeda. Kung Jin is the younger cousin of Kung Lao. These 4 kids make up the main heroes in the Story. They are a team, assembled by Johnny Cage, and it's up to them to beat the bad guys. That's the story in a nutshell. Raiden is there to help them along the way, and I really enjoyed his character. He is the Thunder God, and he has so much knowledge. It is very easy to listen to him, not only because he was voiced so well, but because he knows what he's talking about.Shinnok is the main villain again, as Shao Kahn was killed in the last game. Once you beat Story Mode, you have the Towers to fight in. You've got the 10-opponent Klassic Tower, an Endless tower, a Survivor tower, a Test Your Luck tower, and a Test Your Might tower. There is also a neat feature called the Living Towers, which is a randomly generated tower that is downloaded from online. It changes each hour, and has different rules, like land mines being placed all over the ground. Just a way to change up the gameplay. I personally prefer the 10-opponent Klassic Tower, as that's the style of Mortal Kombat that I grew up with.In Klassic Tower, you always fight Goro as the 9th opponent, and then Shinnok as the final boss. If you remember, this is the exact same set-up as in Mortal Kombat 4. You earn Koins by winning matches. The Krypt makes a marvelous return, and of course this is where your hard-earned Koins will be spent. It is absolutely huge, and it will take a long time to unlock everything. There's all kinds of secrets hidden inside of it. You go through it in a first person view, and you choose which tombs you want to purchase. You unlock things like concept art, fan art, music, alternate costumes, and Fatalities. It's worth noting that all of the alternate costumes can be unlocked by beating Klassic Ladder with each character. You also unlock their respective endings. These are hand-drawn and narrated, and usually last no more than 30 seconds to a minute. Still, it's nice to get closure on all of the characters. Some of these endings are just plain crazy. The 2nd Fatalities can also be unlocked simply by inputting them in a match, so you can just read the commands online and unlock them this way.The gameplay is so smooth. Punches and kicks connect flawlessly. Uppercuts are just as satisfying as ever. Everyone has unique special moves that are easy to pull off. When you fill up your 3 bars, you hold L2 and R2 to perform an X-Ray attack. The game goes into slow-motion and you see the inside of your opponent as you crack open their bones and cause massive damage. These are the super-moves in this game. They return from Mortal Kombat 9. On top of all of this, the Fatalities make a wonderfully gruesome return. These things are as violent and brutal as ever. Slicing bodies in half, gouging eyeballs out, busting jaws open, eating faces, (I'm looking at you, Mileena), tearing arms and legs off, and drowning in acid, this game has it all. They are also quite easy to execute, unlike in earlier MK games where you may never even pull off one Fatality. Each of the 25 characters has 2 unique Fatalities. You also have a bevy of Brutalities for each character. These aren't as impressive, but they are performed by finishing a fight while doing a certain combo. For example, as Cassie Cage, you have a special move where you pull out a gun and shoot your opponent. If you perform this special move to deliver the last hit on your opponent on the 2nd round, before the announcer says “Finish Him!”, you end up blowing a hole in your opponent's face instead, and the match ends instantly. That's pretty awesome.The load times are nearly non-existent. They are not even 10 seconds long. Before you have time to take a sip out of your drink, the match will already be starting. Before each match, each character has unique lines of dialogue they say to each character they are up against. This calls for some pretty funny one-liners, and there are a lot of them. It also gives the character's their own personality, and really makes everyone that much more deep. Another feature I really appreciate is the pause screen. When you press start, a handy list of all of your character's special moves are displayed right there for you to see. This makes it easy to pick up and play with any character without having to figure out all of their moves on your own. You can also go into the move list to see Fatality combinations, Brutality combinations, and combos.The roster is awesome. It's varied, and has a mixture of new and old characters. Fan favorites Scorpion, Kano, Ermac, Liu Kang, and Kung Lao are back, along with some crazy cool newcomers like D'Vorah, Erron Black, and Kotal Kahn. Ferra/Torr, also new, are just crazy. This is one of those 2-person single characters, like Noob-Smoke was in MK Deception. D'Vorah quickly became one of my favorites. She uses the power of bugs and she's got some nasty scenes in Story Mode. Despite how gruesome she can be, her voice is just so darned cute. She's evil as all get-out, but that voice can put me in a trance any day. I would certainly like to see more of her in future games.You can also interact with each environment. In one stage, you can actually take a praying monk in the background, and slam him into your opponent! You then watch him suffer and roll over as he dies in his own puddle of blood. It's absolutely brutal, but I found myself laughing hard when I first saw this. It's just so unexpected! You can do the same thing with an old lady in the Outworld level. This reminds me of how you could eat innocent people in Primal Rage. Other than that, you can throw balls of fire from torches, throw big pots, pick up a wooden stake to smash against someone's head, or swing from vines like Tarzan as you kick your opponent in the chest. There's lots of ways to interact with each environment, and this adds a nice level of strategy to each match.You get 3 incentives for playing each match. I've already mentioned the Koins. You also gain Profile Experience Points and Faction Experience Points. You can rank up your Profile to unlock new Backgrounds, Borders, and Icons to use. These give you perks, such as an extra 50 Koins every time you interact with the stage, or 75 extra Koins every time you perform a Fatality. There are a LOT of these to unlock, and there's no telling how long that would take. The Faction Experience Points are used to level up the Faction that you choose at the start of the game. There are 5 to choose from. I went with the Lin Kuei. (Which is actually dominating all other Factions right now.)The Factions work like this: Your Faction Points that you win go into a huge pool of all of the other Faction Points that people online are getting, and then you see who gets the most points. It's basically bragging rights. It's worth noting you earn Faction Points in offline play. You also unlock special Faction kills. These are simple moves you input that has your opponent murdered. My favorite is Smoke's Revenge. Smoke makes a cameo appearance and beheads your opponent. It's so awesome to see him in this game.The game also has online play. There are thousands of people playing this, it's like the Arcade has been brought back. You'll never have problems getting into a match, but it can get pretty hardcore out there. I prefer to play offline, myself. Regardless, the feature is there and it has lots of options. A neat feature that was brought over from Injustice: Gods Among Us, (Another NetherRealm game), is the ability to link up to the mobile version of Mortal Kombat X on the iPad. You can play that game, (Which is free), and use it to unlock bonus content in this game. Exclusive content, like some crazy costumes for Jax, Johnny Cage, and Scorpion. Farmer Jax, Ninja Mime Johnny Cage, and the super cool Injustice Scorpion. This is a pretty neat feature, and provided you have an iPad, is certainly worth looking into. The app has also just been released on Android, and also provides all of the unlocks.The graphics in this game look amazing. They run at a full 1080p and 60FPS on PS4. Not that we really care about that, but I thought I should mention it because it seems to be such a discussed topic among games these days. Specifications aside, the characters and environments look absolutely amazing. The blood and gore looks so good. This game sounds amazing, too. The bone crunching and blood splattering sounds real. The music in the background is not too loud, and does a good job of keeping the fight interesting. It never got annoying, and you don't really notice it's there most of the time. It's more of a rock-ish type soundtrack. No vocals, only instrumentals. That's how a game should be.  Everything in this game is done with true style. It just feels right. I can't find anything bad to say about this game. I am truly blown-away, and I feel honored to have been a part of this game's launch. It will go down in history as one of the biggest and best launches of Mortal Kombat, ever.There are also DLC characters in the works. Jason Voorhees and Predator are the guest characters, and that's pretty amazing. I know I want to get these guys. Tanya from MK 4 makes a return as well. Although this time, she is a white girl. Tremor, an obscure character from the underrated Mortal Kombat Special Forces on PS1, is also coming as a DLC character. Regardless if you get the DLC or not, this is still a fully featured game worthy of it's price tag. It should not be overlooked, by any means.Ed Boon and his team at NetherRealm Studios have crafted a modern-day masterpiece. Mortal Kombat X is the ultimate fighting game of this generation. It will grow to be timeless. This is a game that brought my faith in this generation of games back. This goes to show that there are still true games out there; Real games being made. Not cash-ins, not Early Access, not Kickstarters. Actual games meant to be played and enjoyed by millions. Mortal Kombat X has sealed it's place in history, and everyone needs to own this epic game in their collection.