| |
 |
| Title |
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance |
6 |
| Publisher |
Acclaim |
| Developer |
Midway |
| Genre |
Beat 'em up |
| Players |
1-2 |
| Version |
UK PAL |
Strong but flawed
|
Mortal Kombat has a somewhat troubled past. Originally receiving critical acclaim for Mortal Kombat, the first in the series shocked the world of gaming with it?s brutal violence and somewhat controversial finishing moves. The game was in fact heralded as Street Fighter II?s closest rival, but never by the hardcore. Mortal Kombat 2 came along and offered more of the same. More characters, more moves, more finishers and most of all, more blood. It was this same trend that led to the series? third encounter with Mortal Kombat 3. And then Mortal Kombat Trilogy. And then Ultimate Mortal Kombat Trilogy. You can see where I?m going with this can?t you? Then there were the spin-offs: Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Special Forces. It wasn?t long before the game moved into 3D in the vein of Mortal Kombat 4 which of course followed up with Mortal Kombat Gold on the Dreamcast. It was indeed widely assumed that the series was nothing more than a farce and nothing could bring it from this fatality that was bestowed upon it by it?s plethora of poor enhancement packs. Could this new version save this warmonger or are we simply looking at another Mortal Kombat game that doesn?t deserve even a glimpse at?
It seems that the gaming press and players at large are not the only ones that feel Mortal Kombat has become nothing more than a joke. Developers Midway clearly had this in mind when they, and more importantly series co-founder Ed Boon, thought up the latest incarnation of these bloody games. In fact, the mere mention of the name, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, should be enough to tell you that Midway have tried very hard to shed the image that Mortal Kombat has taken through the years and have decided to not call it Mortal Kombat 5 and instead shown that they are started afresh with this series. The introduction to start the game continues this mantra by killing off the series? long running hero, Liu Kang. Quite a bold step but the risk had to be taken and players had to know that this is not your average Mortal Kombat. But knowing about the problem that has bitten your baby is one thing, making your baby better is quite another.
The fighting system for Mortal Kombat has always been very simplistic. Growing up during the days of the 2D fighter, the series has always approached the fighting with a simplistic array of special moves and fireball attacks straight out of the 2D manual for kids. However with Midway finally realising that when the game reaches a 3D level more depth is required, we finally see some more moves and combinations added to the fights. Don?t get me wrong, the same special moves from previous games are present again here, but they play a secondary role to the new martial arts fighting system that is really the cream of this game.
MK:DA is in fact fairly revolutionary in it?s approach to it?s fighting now. Each character now has three martial arts styles (each I might add real styles and motion captured also) that can be toggled through at any time during the fight. The first two are hand-to-hand styles while the third is a weapon-based style. Need I say that this really does add leagues of depth to this game and at last Mortal Kombat is finally a joy to play. Upon first loading up the game and getting into a fight you could be forgiven in thinking that the controls and movement is slow and sluggish. It is important to remember though that this is not a button bashing game. One cannot get away winning a round by simply tapping all the buttons hoping for an Eddy-like manoeuvre to be pulled off. No, timing here is crucial and the right choice of style against the opponent?s is just as vital. Each style has a wide range of combos which can be stringed together quite effortlessly once you get the hang of the system. More importantly though combos can be strung between styles so the player is now able to begin a combo in the first style, switch to the second to continue and even finish it in the final style. This makes for some impressive moves and feels very satisfying if pulled off correctly.
But the game is not all about combos and all out fighting as one may expect. If playing through arcade on the later levels, or in fact playing against a skilled opponent sitting beside you, bouts are often fought circling each other (with the improved sidestep feature) and looking for areas in to attack. This is where the real beauty of the game lies. Watching two players circle and strafe each other, step in while the other steps out; let out a few feeler punches only to have them blocked and returned, only to be blocked again is truly a thing of beauty. It is not uncommon to see bouts end by time outs many times, with the final seconds frantic as each player looks for a way in to get those last few attacks to win the round. Enough cannot be said about this system because it is rare to see a western-based beat ?em up actually having a good fighting system and one might also be so bold as to say it has more depth to it than even the mightiest of battlers, Soul Calibur.
But time needs to be taken to explain the other features on offer in this game, and I know many are wondering about fatalities. To ease the pain of many, fatalities has made their return of course. They are however only limited to one each now and I feel for good reason. The series has returned to it?s darker routes in this game and the incredibly ridiculous fatalities such as Jax growing into a 500ft giant and stepping on his opponent are gone. To the same effect the bizarre friendships and babalities have also been removed. What is left though is particularly rewarding. While not as over the top as before, what is left has been refined and, in this reviewer?s opinion, slightly more disturbing than anything seen before. The fatalities are now closer to originals in content and are pretty dark in their execution. I?ll give you an example (but if you?d rather find out for yourself skip this part). For Scorpion?s fatality he throws his spear (which is attached to a rope as before) that skewers the opponents head. The game then changes to a wide shot and we see Scorpion tug twice on the rope hearing a neck-breaking crack each time. One final tug pulls the skull from the skin leaving gushings of blood and brain all over the floor. While it may not sound particularly disturbing to MK veterans, the improved visuals and animation really do make these fatalities a lot more realistic and brutal than ever before. But the fatalities are a useful addition for once, at least in a psychological sense, as after a long drawn out battle that the new fighting system bring, it is ever so satisfying finishing him or her off with a move straight out of hell. It just puts the exclamation mark on the fight and gives you the closure you need to get ready for the next epic encounter.
Being in true 3D for the first time (as opposed to MK4?s 3D world?s but lack of 3D movement) the developers have clearly spent a lot of time and money making this a game to contend with. Mortal Kombat has always been more mainstream that some fighters out there, but always failing on the gameplay fronts. With the game now having a great deal of depth to it to attract the hardened fighter connoisseurs they clearly felt they wanted to stay in the mainstream by not turning away players more inclined to play something where graphics are more important than gameplay. So all the animation has been motion captured, as mentioned before, and is incredibly realistic and fits well with the style of the game (surprisingly). The game engine has also received an overhaul of sorts. The arenas are lovingly crafted and are in some cases interactive, although no arena fatalities have been included this time around (to the best of my knowledge at least). The characters now boast an increase in both polycount and texture quality and look stunning.
The character design however is somewhat less inspiring. While a lot of detail has gone into each character, many of them feel very generic in their creation. The weapons are also overly large and detract from the glory of using a weapon in an MK game. The female form also seems to be something of an enigma to the creative team at Midway, leaving some to assume that these men have never seen how the female body is made up. While they were clearly fascinated by Sonya?s breasts, for instance, they seemed inclined to ignore how they could actually be made up of flesh and how material might be affected by, in this case, two melon sized objects pasted onto her chest. I?ve never, in all my time, seen a t-shirt wrap around breasts the way Sonya?s does. Have I focused too much on the breast?s of Mortal Kombat? Perhaps, but western developers always seem to put the focus of their female characters on their chests and I think that it?s time to move on. Especially when you can?t even get THAT right.
But one thing that has always held true to Mortal Kombat is the blood. The blood of course flows freely once again, exploding from the face of your battered opponent as you blast him into the air with an uppercut. The blood that does not splatter on the floor may land on you and will drip off your body as you fight on, although for some reason the blood here seems to have a mind of it?s own and acts more like a leech slithering around your leg than actual blood. But this can be forgiven as there is so much blood here. In fact, as the blood does not disappear as in previous games, by the end of a particular fight, the arena floor can be literally covered in red liquid and your opponent and yourself left battered. Because in a new addition to fighters, each character has 4 pain skins for their face signifying different levels of how they have been battered. It?s a pleasure to see after a hard fought bout the winner looking as bad as the loser with cuts and grazes all over his or her face. It?s not a new concept in practice, but new to 3D fighters and it is odd to think how it?s taken anyone so long to actually use this practice. However, the blood can be turned down low, or even off and at times I feel that it is good to do so as you can really appreciate the game for what it is rather than the bloodbath many will see it for.
The sound equals the graphics for effectiveness. It?s sadistically pleasurable to hear the crunch of bones and thwack of fist on face here. Also, while the music won?t win any awards, it has been created well for the content, with each arena getting it?s own dark rendition.
But longevity has always been a problem for Mortal Kombat games, and it?s something that has been addressed here. The new extras feature that has been introduced means that players now acquire koins through kombat which can be spent at the krypt to get kollectables (yes there is an over-abundance of the substitution of k for the letter c in this game). There are somewhere in the region of 647 koffins in the krypt which can be opened by spending the koins that you collect through fighting battles in arcade mode. Each koffin can hold anything from artwork from production to secret characters and arenas. In fact there are nine extra characters to collect through this system with another two being hidden even further away. These extra characters have just as much attention placed on them as the original cast and so once all these are unlocked there are even more possibilities for destruction.
The game also features DVD content which include two documentaries, one based on the history of Mortal Kombat and the other showing a day in the life of development of MK:DA. I have to say that I am in favour of such documentaries placed on games (seen before in games such as SSX Tricky) as it gives the player a better understanding of the amount of work that has gone into the game.
But while the game may well indeed have a great new fighting system, I will be curious to see if it stands the test of time, something that I am also doubtful of. While it can reward for many hours of gaming, I don?t think it has quite that panache that is needed to be called a classic fighter. It may stand up to games such as Tekken, Virtua Fighter or Soul Calibur for fighting, but it doesn?t have quite as much going for it as the other big boys in this arena. Saying that though Midway have done a great job getting out of the proverbial hole they dug for themselves and have taken the best bits from Mortal Kombat of old, added a great new fighting system and boiled it all up and refined the whole thing to make a worthy fighter that any Mortal Kombat, or indeed any beat ?em up fan should enjoy.
Seth Powell |
| Second Opinion - Henric Swahn |
I must say I've been very pleased with Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. The 2-player mode is ultimately satisfying - nothing beats crushing your best mate to death in a fatal duel.
The single player may be uninspiring and the difficulty settings may be completely broken, but there's still a lot of fun to be had, especially when saving up the so-called 'Koins' to buy new characters, arenas and costumes.
My score: 7 |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
