Mortal
Kombat.
Those two words revolutionized the fighting genre. Those two words
inspired Congressional committees, the forerunner to the ESRB, and
the issue of censorship on the SNES version. Yes. I practically
watched and played the Mortal Kombat series since its
inception. I was one of the millions of people who would flock to
arcades to play the original. I remember the issues with the SNES’
edited fatalities and the Genesis’ "Blood Kode." The
second installment gave the Kombat fans more characters, more
fatalities, and more secrets. Many will agree the series started to
slip with the various versions of the third game (3, Gold and
Trilogy). Many fans moved away from the series by the 4th
installment. The jump to 3D could not even begin to compete with the
other fighting games of the time and the series had a very stale
feeling to it. Many assumed the series would simply die off after
that installment. Thankfully, Midway brought Ed Boon, co-creator of
the series, back as the Team Leader for a new Mortal Kombat
game. This automatically sparked interest in the series. Up until
now, I always considered Mortal Kombat II the high point of
the series. Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance takes that crown
away and sets the stage for a new competitor in the world of 3D
fighting games.
Mortal
Kombat: Deadly Alliance throws in a major plot device in the opening cinema. While many fans
of the Mortal Kombat series can argue that the plot is
relative (since it seemingly changes game to game), Mortal
Kombat: Deadly Alliance throws in a major twist. Liu Kang is
dead and Shao Kahn is severely weakened. Yes, you read right. The
two major characters from the series are gone. While Liu Kang was my
favorite character throughout the series, I am sort of glad he’s
gone. The character had minimal change in the previous games, and it
was at the point where you could pick him in any given game and
annihilate people. Taking out Liu Kang may have deprived the game of
a true Bruce Lee imitator, but it improved balance and allows the
designers to elevate other characters. I will be honest and say that
I was completely angry at first, but this anger died after I played
the game extensively. I do not really shed any tears towards the
fall of Shao Kahn. He was a terrible character. Hopefully, he stays
dead or becomes a playable character in the next installment (that
may be cool).
One
of the ways this game pushes the background story is through the
Konquest mode. One may think the Konquest mode would be similar to
the Quest Mode from Soul Caliber. That is incorrect. Konquest
mode is more of a training mode than anything. I strongly encourage
players to go through it with every character simply because of the
new style of gameplay used in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.
This mode will allow players to learn the combo systems and most of
the basic moves for each character. Between goals, you get a
background story about your character. This helps to further
establish the plot in the game. My, how far we’ve come where even
our fighting games require plots.
There
are twenty characters in this game. Roughly half of these are
returning characters from past games. However, when you first turn
on the game, you only have access to roughly half of the available
characters. You must earn "Koins" to unlock the other
characters in the "Krypt" (more on this later). Many of
the characters made the jump (or continued the jump) to 3D well. The
one exception is Reptile. Basically, he looks exactly like Lizard
Man from Soul Caliber (without the shield). I just find it
strange that he de-evolved into some sort of B-movie monster.
Granted, his ending adds a new twist and the background story (from
the Konquest mode) explain this change, but it takes some getting
used to. The rest of the classical characters look great. One
interesting feature is battle damage. Character faces become bruised
and cut throughout the matches. Granted, this system is nowhere near
the one present in Mortal Kombat cofounder John Tobias’ Tao
Feng: Fist of the Lotus, but it still adds to the violence. Like
every other Mortal Kombat game, characters spill ungodly
amounts of blood throughout fights. Unlike many other bloody
fighters, the blood actually stays on the floor of the arenas. At
the end of a long and bloody match, you can expect a carpet of blood
on the floor. You can adjust the amount of blood in the game or even
turn it off, but does anyone actually want to play a bloodless Mortal
Kombat? It just feels wrong. Ask anyone who played the SNES
version of the original. It had better sound and graphics than the
Genesis version, but featured a censored game that took away the
edge.
The
stages seem to be typical for a 3D fighter as well as typical for a Mortal
Kombat game. Some have breakable pillars, some shoot acid, and
some are just normal. I have two major complaints on the stages.
First, no ring outs. I find it annoying that some of the stages do
not have ring outs. If you’re fighting on a floating platform, you
should be able to be knocked in the drink. This also goes hand in
hand with my second and largest complaint: no stage fatalities.
Yes, you read that correctly. This is the first Mortal Kombat
game to NOT have a stage fatality. There are stages that SCREAM
for stage fatalities, yet for some reason they are not there.
The
fighting in the Mortal Kombat series has finally been brought
to the modern age of fighting games. Each character boasts two
martial art forms and one weapon. This allows characters to perform
combos that link the various attack forms. The controls are set up
differently also. Instead of having a high/low kick and high/low
punch, the buttons are labeled as attack 1, 2, 3, and 4. This allows
flexibility with multiple fighting styles. Some styles focus on
kicks while some focus on punches. However, it makes the fighting
much more complex and almost requires players to fool around in the
Training Mode or Konquest Mode. The fighting seems very balanced.
Certain forms are quicker, some have more power, and the weapons
leave you unguarded. This forces people to switch from each style
constantly. Is it worth it to trade off defense for a strong weapon?
Do you want to risk using your slower, but more powerful form
against a quick opponent? This system creates really good matches
because it forces players to make trade-offs. One would think this
would lead to three separate fatalities for each character, but it
does not. You must switch to a fatality stance and perform the
finishing move for your character.
Yes.
This is the first Mortal Kombat game since the original that
features only one fatality per character. Is this a bad thing? It
really depends who you ask. I personally like this approach to it
since the fatalities became ridiculous by the third game. The
fatalities in this game are gruesome, but in line of something you’d
see in a violent-yet-cheesy martial arts movie or some mind-numbing
action movie. Some classics are still around. Kano still yanks
hearts out (though he also pulls out every other organ), Sub-Zero
does the headpiece (although he takes the entire skeleton with it),
and Raiden still electrocutes people. Many others seem sort of
familiar, but the fatalities are not only pushing the boundaries of
taste (like the original) but also pushing the shock factor. Mortal
Kombat was built on shock factor, and it is refreshing to see it
return to the games.
The
combo system needs some work. Personally, I would love a game that
gives me the freedom to string together my own combos. Mortal Kombat
does not. The combos seem set in stone and the moves do not really
allow you to string custom combos together. The game has many combos
per character, but this makes fights become fairly stale after a
while. This also reflects on the overall control scheme of the game
since many of the moves have a sluggish feel. For example, if a
combo has you pressing attack 1-1-1-4, it may not register all of
the 1’s if you do not hit them at precisely the correct time. It
takes a long time to get used to the timing. I still have problems
performing some of the longer combos because it does not register
some of the hits. For the most part, the fighting engine is good,
but there’s always room for improvement.
Throughout
the game and in the various modes, you can earn "Koins."
What good are these? Koins are used to unlock "Kontent"
from the "Krypt." The Krypt contains 676 "Koffins."
Each Koffin has a different secret in it, ranging from characters to
alternate costumes to concept art to comic books to other Koins.
Yeah, there’s a lot of junk to unlock and one may want to search
on the Internet to figure out which ones are the characters. Many of
the classic characters have to be unlocked (like Raiden, Jax, Cyrax,
and Reptile) and the starting set of characters grows very old very
quickly. I actually enjoy this form of unlocking things because you
constantly earn coins in arcade mode.
Also
worth noting is the return of the long absent "Test Your
Might" contests. After so many fights pass, you have the
opportunity to break something. You do this by jamming on the
buttons and pulling the trigger when a meter rises high enough. If
you really want to know what I’m talking about, search around and
find an original copy of Mortal Kombat, play a few matches
and then you get the same thing. New to the mix is "Test Your
Sight." This is basically "find the coins under a cup
after it's moved." Pretty fun and easy to get Koins. Koins are
also earned in Konquest mode (yet another incentive to play the
Konquest mode).
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