The culmination of a series featuring an exceptional cast of characters spanning from MK1 to Deception
Now for the review.
GAMEPLAY:
Mortal Kombat is a series that has been around for a long while so if you’ve played one you can pretty much expect what the game play is like. Over the top, and drenching in blood. With the release of Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance the people over at Midway did away with the old style of fighting and replaced it with actual fighting styles that branched into another fighting style and then into a weapon style. Which re-invents the game play but at the same time just make the game with more dial-a-combos which necessarily isn’t a problem. But now they've limited the styles down to two, which somewhat simplifies the whole system. But at the same time it’s easier to remember an 8-10 combos for two styles on your favorite character, than memorizing 12-15. Midway also managed to balance out the fighters to where some are more weapon heavy (ex Baraka) and some are more better at hand to hand combat (ex. Liu Kang). Which is a good thing and some what breaks up the monotony that ties all the characters together. With out the balance of their moves they would all be basically the same character with a different skin and different button combinations for their specials. But thankfully that isn’t the case.
The Konquest mode has been completely revamped. For those of you who have played Mortal Kombat Deadly alliance they can remember that that games Konquest mode was basically a bunch of screens that you would have to read through, matched with a learning tutorial so you could learn the moves of every character in the game. In Mortal Kombat Deception the Konquest mode changed and you were in control of the character Shujinko and you fallow his story from his childhood till he’s an old man, but the main interest still was a tutorial mode with side missions. Now in MKA the Konquest mode is something along the lines of Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks along with some of the fighting of the arcade mode. In Konquest you take control of Taven and discover bits of his past as a story surrounding Armageddon, blaze, Tavens brother Daegon, and what Taven has to do with it. But instead of making it a tutorial the fights are just like a fight in arcade mode, and instead of just running around doing side quests you get to fight people Shaolin monks’ style with the exception of air kombat. You can perform simple 3 button combos, throws, as well as special moves such as a ground pound, a time freeze, a fire ball, and the ability to disappear in a poof of smoke and appear away from danger. It’s a welcomed change, on top of that change it also pretty much throws unlockables at you. From when you start Konquest mode you begin collecting coins, and these character specific items that will unlock things in the game.
In place of Puzzle Kombat and Chess Kombat MKA has Motor Kombat. Which is like Mario Kart in that it takes well known characters, then super deforms then and makes them drive around a track. Except now it has that genuine MK twist. Instead of being bumped off the track by Luigi and just reappearing you'll be disintegrated in a cat of lava, or crushed by a rolling ball Indiana Jones style. It’s an ok change but personally I had more fun with puzzle fighter than this. The tracks are pretty bland and offer no sort of real difficulty with the exception of keeping from being killed and knocked back in place. Plus the controls of the car aren’t as tight as they should be, but I wasn’t expecting Grand Turismo quality anyways.
GRAPHICS:
MKA takes MK Deceptions graphics and adds some polish to them. The characters look really good from where the camera normally is in the game. But once it zooms up after a victory you start to notice irregularities in the character model as well as places that just don’t look to good. The backgrounds of the game are really good looking MKA went as far as to have some of the levels from Deception and add another layer of polish to them. Plus seeing some of the old levels like Goros Lair in 3d bring back some nostalgia for the 2d games.
In Konquest mode the graphics are toned down, possibly to save space on the disk or to make the rest of the game run smoother. I don’t know, but I will say the graphics are nice from far but far from nice. They are a little better than the character models from Deceptions Konquest but by very little. All characters seem to get block and cornered off whenever the camera zooms in.
SOUND:
The sounds are just about the same sounds as ever, you get the trade mark sounds of Liu Kang, Scorpions spear sound, the sound that happens when Sub Zeros ice ball lands. It’s the same sound we have heard for years and that’s not a bad thing. The voice acting in Konquest mode seems to be a shade better as characters that have only said a word or two in previous Mortal Kombats have whole dialogs in the game. All in all the sound is top notch. I just wish that in the intro movie it was a little bit better.
VALUE:
With a 40 buck price tag you can’t go wrong with it, it’s the last Mortal Kombat game that’s going to be on the current gen systems so why wouldn’t you pick it up. Its got enough content to keep you satisfied for a while, plus theirs online mode so you can beat the crap out of people all over and show off your skills...or lack there of.
TILT:
I am a huge fan of Mortal Kombat; instead of studying for tests when MK2 came out I was in my basement trying to figure out how to pull off Scorpions Fatality. But don’t let my love for MK make you think that my review is just fanboyism; I put everything aside and tried to play this game as someone who just picked up the game and started playing. It’s really easy to get into even if you don’t know any of the characters or their stories; MKA doesn’t dwell in past stories, rivalries, or anything of that sort. When they do have encounters like that they briefly explain it and move on. If anyone does not know any of the back-story of the characters by now there are a plethora of places that do like mkoutworld.net. It’s a great game if you are or are not a fan of Mortal Kombat.