Mortal Kombat: Deception

"Don't be deceived, this is a fun game."

Wait, there's fatalities in the game, yet every character just keeps coming back? Ok then. After the huge success that MK: Deadly Alliance was, they decided to bring out a new one! Is it better? Definitely.

STORY
Basically, the Deadly Alliance of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi won. YES! Finally evil prevails! But then an even more evil jerk known as the Dragon King came along and pretty much ruined their victory...and got them killed by Raiden, who sacrificed himself to kill the king known as Onaga. Trying to unbalance the laws and destroy the realms, Onaga has to face a whole slew of warriors, many of which are aiming to take him down. Let the Kombat begin.

GRAPHICS
The graphics are pretty good, I don't think they're perfect but they're not bad at all. I just want to know why all the characters look so different from back in the day? Why does Sub-Zero look like Shredder from the Ninja Turtles? Nontheless, expect nice facial damage effects, amazing arenas to battle in, and some nasty and gruesome fatalities.

SOUND
The audio has the same sound effects that we've heard from past Mortal Kombats. This is some old, old audio. The freeze ice ball sounds the same, Scorpion's "Get over here!" line sounds exactly like it did years ago. Not that they're bad or anything though. Still, the music is great, and of there's some okay voice acting as well.

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay is exactly like Deadly Alliance, in fact characters who are in both games haven't changed their moves. To be honest I find the fighting is a little clunky. The animations don't look that great and it all seems robotic and stiff to me. Not the best motion to have in a fighting game. And if you've purchased the Gamecube version you've got yourself two characters that weren't on the other consoles, Shao Kahn and Goro. They're a fun treat to have. A great feature that was added however were the stage fatalities. Basically a few levels have environments that can get your opponent killed...so say you knock Scorpion around and he falls into a giant grinder. Instant death.

But what stole the show for me was Konquest mode. Basically it was a story mode where you play a guy named Shujinko, and you actually travel lands like Earth, Outworld, Netherrealm and such, fighting enemies, training with other fighters, beating on random people, and when you clear the story, you unlock Shujinko for the regular arcade mode which was pretty awesome. What I loved most about Deadly Alliance was all of the unlockables and videos in it. Not to worry, Deception has that as well.

You can actually unlock bloopers to the terribly acted Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero game! That's always fun. And finally, they added a puzzle game, and a chess game. And to be honest it was actually fun playing the Puzzle Kombat. Chess....it was interesting idea and that's all I'll say. It's fun, I still love Mortal Kombat, even if it's fighting system isn't the greatest. Oh and Gamecube owners beware...the memory space is 58 blocks. 58! That's too much.

IN THE END...
This is a fun fighter with a great story, over the top action, and tons of replayability. It hasn't really changed since Deadly Alliance but hey, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/16/06