Finish him

We’ve been made to wait a while to get our first glimpse of Mortal Kombat running on the PlayStation Vita – but thankfully the results don’t disappoint.

Running at a silky smooth 60 frames per second, the brawler looks largely identical to its PlayStation 3 counterpart, with big chunky character models filling out the PS Vita’s gorgeous OLED screen.

The full game boasts all of the content from the PlayStation 3 release, including the so-bad-it’s-good Story mode and the complete character roster. But the game’s more than just a simple port: there’s also room for all four of the PS3’s DLC characters, a bunch of additional costumes (including 15 PS Vita exclusive outfits based on Mortal Kombat 3), and a whole new Challenge Tower which utilises the PS Vita’s hardware in interesting new ways.

Some of these new challenges sound better than others. For example, one sees you “juggling a character using ground-based missile launchers” which are activated using the touch-screen. Fun. Another sees you “frantically wiping blood off the screen” in order to avoid being blinded in a deadly face-off against Baraka. Not so fun.

Still, it was the variety that made Mortal Kombat such a fun reboot on PS3. The original Challenge Tower was packed with creativity, and we’re eager to see what NetherRealm’s able to cook up using the PS Vita’s various unique interfaces.