Stryker (Mortal Kombat)

In games

Curtis Stryker is a former Marine who participated in the Gulf War ^[1] . During the events of Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), he led the anti-riot unit when the Outer World portal opened in a major North American metropolis (referred to as New York in subsequent games). Stryker tried to maintain order among the population in the ongoing chaos, but soon all human souls were captured by Shao Kang , except for those that belonged to the chosen warriors. Perplexed as to why his soul turned out to be one of the few that were saved after the invasion, Stryker received a vision from Ryden , who instructed him to travel west to meet other chosen warriors there and learn to survive together. Then he went on to hostilities with the intention of avenging the lives of innocent residents whom he vowed to protect and serve. Along with other warriors, Stryker helped free the Earth Kingdom after the invasion of Shao Kahn ^[1] .

In the story mode of Mortal Kombat (2011), restarting the main series, Stryker led the SWAT team , which also included Kabal , and during the invasion from the Outer World, he joined the selected warriors of Ryden. Like most Earth defenders, Stryker was killed by Sindel , but Kuan Chi later resurrected him. Stryker, as a revenge fighting for Kwan Chi and Shinnok , briefly appears in Mortal Kombat X (2015).

Design and gameplay

The story of the character named "Curtis Stryker" began long before the release of the third part, since the developers initially planned to include it in the very first Mortal Kombat game . However, near the end of development, Midway management demanded to introduce a female character into the game, as a result of which Sonya Blade was created, who was given a plot prepared in advance for Stryker. Later, this unused character in the first part still appeared in Mortal Kombat II , but he was invented a new name - Jackson Briggs ( Jax ). The name "Curtis Striker" remained unclaimed until MK3 , where he was given to a completely new police character. Stryker was conceived as a special forces soldier character, but the developers did not want to make him look like an ordinary special forces soldier, so they decided to create a design more simple and elegant. It was also supposed to equip it with several types of weapons, but the implementation of the original idea was hindered by technical limitations ^[2] .

Its arsenal in the game is made up of explosives, firearms, stun guns and batons, used by Striker when performing special moves and finishing moves. Striker was considered a high-class fighter, especially after the developers gave him a gun in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 , the use of which was supposed to be one of the special moves in the original third part, but the weapon was removed during testing of the game ^[3] . John Tobias, co-author of the series and the designer who created Stryker, suggested that he would become one of the most popular characters in the game ^[2] . Many condemned his appearance as an "ordinary person" and special techniques, and recognized them as not appropriate for the fictional world of Mortal Kombat . Ed Boone claimed that this is why he is one of MK3 's “hidden secrets”. Striker was deliberately created a new image in Armageddon , so that for critics the character would look more attractive than in the original version ^{[1] [4]} . In 2012, Tobias admitted that he himself was not satisfied with the character and personally “hated” Stryker. He joked that if he could move back in time and remake any characters, he would take up Stryker and Kabbalah ^[5] .

In other adaptations

Stryker became one of the main characters in the 1996 animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Earth, where along with Liu Kang , Sub-Ziro , Jax, Sonya, Night Wolf and Kitana , he was also one of Ryden's chosen warriors. He is depicted as a rude pedant , despising the favorite of the Night Wolf, the domesticated she-wolf Kivu. His baton hides an electronic device in itself, through which he closes the interdimensional gaps caused by the invasion from other worlds. Stryker plays a large role in Fall from Grace (in the Russian interpretation of “The Battle with the Shokans”), the seventh episode of the animated series in which Sonya’s impulsiveness, which refused to obey orders during the battle, seriously injures him. Subsequently, he was forced to remain in headquarters with Sonya and Kiva, temporarily suspended, but thanks to coordinated actions, they managed to repulse the Shokanov attack on the base ^[6] . In the animated series of the character voiced by Ron Perlman , and in the final credits his name was not correctly indicated as "Striker".

Despite the fact that during the movie “ Mortal Kombat 2: Extermination ” in 1997, the character does not appear on the screen, however, in the dialogs, Stryker and Kabal are mentioned as “the two best earthly warriors” captured by the Rhine . Shao Kang immediately killed him after Rain confessed that he spared both. Stryker and Kabal were examined in more detail in the draft scenario, both of them arriving in custody in the Outer World and working under the supervision of Baraki in a cobalt mine, in which Kitana was also held captive. After Liu Kang entered the prison, killed Baraka and saved Kitana, Kabal and Stryker organize an uprising of prisoners against the guards. This line was not included in the subsequent scenario and novelization ^[7] .

In the 2011 Mortal Kombat: Legacy series, directed by director Kevin Tancharoen , Stryker, played in the first season by Tamo Penikett , appeared in the first two episodes as the leader of the SWAT assault group under Jax. They were forced to raid in order to save Sonya, which Kano grabbed and held hostage in the warehouse where the Black Dragon criminals carried out their operations. As a result, Stryker and his team enter into an armed clash with the bandits. Later, he visits the wounded Sonya in the hospital and reports that the hands of Jax, who had covered her from the explosion, were badly damaged. Eric Jacobas succeeded Penickett in the second season of 2013, with the most significant character occurring in the third episode, when Ryden selects the Earth warriors for the tournament. In the finale, Stryker bandages Johnny Cage's wounds before both are suddenly attacked by Liu Kang. During the fight, Striker uses a stun gun, the effect of which turned out to be ineffective; however, at the very moment when Liu Kang was about to kill both of them, Kun Lao intervened. In a 2013 Nerd Reactor interview, Jacobas described Stryker as “fish without water,” because he “uses a gun where everyone else has fireballs,” and added that his character “doesn't look like a donut-eating cop like in Mortal Kombat 3 " ^[8] .

In 2008, considered Stryker 9th among the 25 most bizarre fighting game characters, and called him a "laughing stock", comparing with actor Steven Seagal ^[9] . In 2010, of Game Informer was amused by the fact that Stryker arrived in Deception locked up in a prison cell, but a “stun gun-armed loser” should not even appear in Mortal Kombat ^[10] . He led the Topless Robot rating of 8 Mortal Kombat characters, stupid even by the standards of the series, with columnist Ryan Aston calling Stryker “extremely strange” because his appearance and weapons do not fit into the format of an alternative universe ^[11] . In 2011, Dustin Quillen of 1UP.com noted in his article “The Top Ten Times Mortal Kombat Went Wrong” that “Striker’s superpower is that he has a gun and a stupid name,” so he’s not in demand anywhere ^{[12 ]} .

Despite all the criticisms against him, in 2012, Striker took 18th place in the rating of the 50 best Mortal Kombat characters ^[13] . Complex called Stryker the 6th most underrated character in the Mortal Kombat series , provoking unjustified self-hatred for being an ordinary guy, “but that’s why we value him” ^[14] . Den of Geek among all the characters in the series in 2015 ranked Stryker, who “was an unintentional joke in Mortal Kombat 3 ”, but “gradually got better over time” ^[15] . “He got so cool,” Robert Naytor of Hardcore Gaming 101 admired Stryker’s renewed image in the 2011 reboot. The reviewer also suggested that “probably because of his beer belly and a stupidly inverted cap,” he turned out to be one of the most hated in the history of a series of characters ^[16] .

• Stryker on The Mortal Kombat Wiki