Excellent, although humorous addition to any fighting game fan's library.
User Rating: 8.6 | Mortal Kombat: Deception PS2
The gameplay in this Mortal Kombat depends on which of the various styles of play are tried out. The classic arcade and vs mode (along with internet play) are excellent. You will desire nothing more when it comes to a completely nostalgic return to traditional Mortal Kombat, multiple fatalities and even Hari Kiri's. The odd Chess Kombat mode is fun once you get to know it, but there are a few faults. Pieces are hard to distinguish from one another as they are chosen by the player out of the character selection screen, so you won't be playing a good game until you learn who goes where on the board. Pieces also do not move in classic Chess style. A few have been changed, and even the option to cast spells has been added to a "sorcerer" unit, which appears to have taken over the traditional horse. Once your "pieces" occupy the same space as another, you go into classic arcade fight mode. According to which bonuses you have (attack bonus, occupied green square bonuses...etc), the battle will be either in your favor or your enemies, so it is important to know when to attack. Your skill in Mortal Kombat alone won't be enough. Puzzle Kombat is by far my favorite mini-game included in a fighting style game in years. It rivals the classic Puzzle Fighter by Capcom. Though not completely as polished, it's still satisfying (and sometimes even more satisfying) with the humorous over the top blood effects, fatalities and "special moves". For example, Sub Zero can freeze the blocks on the enemy side of the screen so that he can't clear his up for some time. Now. This is where the game gets real strange. Included this time around is a suedo-rpg/adventure/fighting game style lump with bad voice acting, boring quests and terrible models with mediocre animation. It isn't completely bad though...at least you get to explore a 3d universe whereas the last game only allowed you to go through a series of tutorial reminescent "quests". The goal with this altogether new genre of game is to wander from one place to the next, learning from martial artists (essentially the moves of many of the fighters in the arcade mode) and questing for items to earn coin rewards to buy things from the Krypt (a huge collection of unlockable additions to the game). I won't give too much away here because apparently there's supposed to be a storyline involved that could get spoiled. Apparently Midway has a sense of humor; for otherwise they would not have gone as far as they did with the build of Mortal Kombat; Deception. 
