Alright, so I immediately bought the game when it popped up on XBLA because it's good 'ol klassic MK. After being sorely disappointed with MK9, I thought to myself "Hey, maybe this game will actually have GOOD online play, and no fuck-ups on the emulation like previous versions *cough*UMK3's original XBLA release*cough*Deception's version of MK1*cough*."
After playing this, I felt lukewarm.
Once again, MK loses out to Street Fighter in terms of quality and presentation. While this collection isn't downright bad, there are still several glaring problems with the ports. All 3 of them have several control and sound issues from previous versions which were not fixed at all, or were improperly fixed. Let's go across each port and see for ourselves.
MK1
Gameplay: 7/10
Still the same old MK1. Casual and easy to pick up.
Sound: 7/10
While there are some minor sound issues (ex. no music on the match before Goro), the soundtrack is just as you remember it.
Controls: 4/10
OK here's where it all goes downhill. If anyone remembers the older ports of this game, you remember that the controls were silky smooth and that continued on in MK2. In this version Netherrealm fucked up the controls by making it so pressing down and Low Punch will do an uppercut at random when you know damn well that is NOT the input. Also, the controls are stiff as someone's penis after an erection for some reason. Not once in this game's porting history have the controls been this stiff. You can barely do specials, let alone fatalities.
MK2
Gameplay: 9/10
Still the same old MK2. More polished than MK1, and about 1.5x faster, which is good.
Sound: 5/10
By far the game with the worst sound issues. Right off the bat you'll notice there's some MAJOR clippings in the title screen themes. The loop points are messed up so that it's missing some parts, some parts of the soundtrack just sound totally off kilter, and sometimes the sound just mutes itself because it realizes how bad it is. If you want to hear the soundtrack properly, play another port. Also the music is much quieter in-game than in MK1 or UMK3.
Controls: 10/10
Absolutely arcade perfect.
UMK3
Gameplay: 8/10
Still the same old UMK3. Dial-a-combos and run button abound.
Sound: 8/10
Best sound quality out of the 3 ports.
Controls: 7/10
Overall they're a fine conversion, but still, that goddamn run button.
Now with those out of the way, it's time we get into the real reason people bought this: online play.
Online: 3/10
Yes, you read that right. Netherrealm STILL can't do netcode properly. EVERY. SINGLE. MATCH. LAGS. LIKE. FUCK. This gets even worse when playing MK1 because of the controls which now take twice as long to respond. Even UMK3's original release on XBLA and MK2 on PSN had better netcode than this.
OVERALL: 7/10
If you like MK, this is an OK collection. If you like fighting games with online play, stay the hell away from this. MK9 has slightly better netcode.