MK3 or UMK3?

Are there any appreciable difference between MK3 and UMK3?

UMK3 has more characters and levels. Also changed the AI fighting mechanics to supposedly better/harder capabilities. Also adds old MK mini games after you beat it once.

there was no scorpion in MK3, because midway had temporarily lost their minds.

UMK3 has Scorpion and Johnny Cage, MK3 does not.

Here is the list of Mortal Kombat games balanced enough to have high-level tournament play:

MK2, UMK3, MK9 and presumably MKX

Everything else is not, which includes MK3.

meh..... the more I think about these games the more I like them less then part 1 and 2. I'd go with UMK3 because Scorpion and Johnny Cage is in it. Hehe, I'm reminded there was a wonderful Port of UMK3 on DS in 2007 with online play.

I was mildly interested in MK3 but genuinely liked UMK3 a lot more when it came out, and was thus brought back into the live-action-fighter fold. I liked the return of some actual normal looking original classic characters and their movesets and some of the more visually interesting (and appropriate for what I imagine MK's aesthetic to be) stages and music.

The balancing might have been fucked though, that cheesy Smoke combo was my bread'n'butter at beating and subsequently pissing off almost anyone who dared challenge my 12 year old self at the local bowling alley. I'd place it below MK2 in terms of my favorites in the series overall, but yeah lot's of fun times had with it.

Trilogy.

We had an arcade in Montana called Little Big Man pizza in Montana where I lived as a kid and I probably sunk $500+ of my parents gambling money (it was also a hot spot for gambling in that city) into their UMK 3 cabinet. I won a few MK 2 tournaments as well at bowling alleys. As a kid I probably made at least a thousand dollars ($250 for beating 3 people in a "tournament" was pretty sweet as a 10 year old) playing Mortal Kombat. I was unstoppable. UMK 3 was definitely the "best" Mortal Kombat game. Dat run button .... and then a 7 hit combo that throws them across the screen is really one of the most satisfying things I remember from arcade gaming. UMK 3 sub zero although he looked like a gimp was the BEST character out of virtually every single MK game. I have MK 9 on my PS 3 and my PC (I haven't plugged in my PS 3 or Xbox 360 for over 8 months) and don't really like them anywhere near as much as old mortal kombats.

Anyways thats my story about mortal kombat hope you enjoyed it peace.

There are several differences besides the number of characters and the lack of animalities in UMK3. There are many gameplay tweaks. It's as different as say, Street Fighter III: New Generation and 3rd Strike. They may play similar but if you're a player that can affect substantially the game. UMK3 is the version most people play. The game is still fun but not so much if you're very high level and want to take it too seriously. Can be pretty broken at high level play unfortunately. MK9 is probably the first they really focused on making a competitive fighting system.

By the way, don't go for other versions of the game. One more buggy than the other... Especially the N64 version of trilogy.

Bam.

Fire up MKT and prepare to have your fucking mind destroyed. It's SO FAR into the realm of being wonderfully screwy and unbalanced it's actually more enjoyable than the more well-balanced UMK3.

i mean, MK1 version of Raiden and MK2 version of Jax don't have a run animation since the run hadn't been created yet, so when you "run" with them they just do the walking animation at Benny Hill speed.

Required playing for any MK fan.

@flstyle: I dunno man this seems pretty balanced to me.