Mortal Kombat: Deception

"The Ultimate Version of the best MK yet - All versions compared inside"

Mortal Kombat: Deception for Nintendo Gamecube

This is a two-part review. The first part is the game in general. The second review is a comparison between the three versions available.

Background: Mortal Kombat is back, with a direct sequel to Deadly Alliance. Like Deadly Alliance, the game features the same two big changes from the first four games: the new fighting styles gameplay and the RPG-esque storyline. The storyline is no less than five times the length of Deadly Alliance's storyline, as the game includes an adventure mode called Konquest that covers the background events of every MK game, and the events that happened before MK1. The actual story for MK Deception arcade-mode begins at the end of Konquest mode. The Konquest story and the events of MK1 - MK Deadly Alliance run parallel, and come together in the game's opening FMV. It is recommended that you play Konquest mode before getting into arcade-mode.

Gameplay: If you've played Deadly Alliance, there's not much to add here. If you liked MKDA's gameplay, you'll love this. If you hated MKDA, you may hate this game, although there are enough extras to make up for what you might have hated about MKDA. Arenas are now fully interactive. Weapons are placed which you can pick up and use, in addition to your own. You can bust through walls, floors and windows into new sections of the arena. Pit fatalities can be performed at any time, not just at the end of a match, and you do not need to enter in a button sequence. Simply do a hard enough punch or kick when your opponent is near a red zone. Each character now has two Fatalities, and even a suicide move (called Hara Kiri, a Japanese word for ritualistic suicide). Other than Trilogy, this game has the most amount of fighters in any MK game to date (if you include the amount of CPU-only characters in Konquest mode that you can unlock with cheat devices, this game has even more characters than Trilogy).

Graphics: Pretty much exactly the same as MKDA as far as character models go. You will even run into some characters from Deadly Alliance in Konquest mode, who did not make it to arcade mode. They have exactly the ame 3D models as MKDA. The arenas, however, look way more detailed. The arenas are definitely the zenith of the game's graphics. Fatalities are gory and amusing (Sindel's Hara Kiri is perhaps the game's funniest finishing move) but the guts and blood are just as fake looking as in MKDA, or the rest of the series for that matter.

Sound/Music: The music is a lot better. I'd say it's the best in the series. Sound effects seem the same as MKDA. Complete voice acting as added into Konquest mode for every characters, so all of your favorites from Sub-Zero and Rain have dialect. It is as cheesy as the movies, but amusing nonetheless.

Extras: The Krypt is back. Some Krypts open with Koins like in MKDA, others open with keys you find in Konquest mode. The major unlockable characters require keys rather than Koins. Test Your Might/Sight was taken out in favor of Chess Kombat and Puzzle Kombat, two very amusing modes you could enjoy completely separate from the main game. Chess Kombat isn't actually chess, but it's chess-like, where you pit your team against your opponent's team, as opposed to just one-on-one fighting. Like two armies fighting, if you take out the leader (king), you win. Puzzle Kombat is basically the MK version of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo.

Gamecube-only Extras: Shao Kahn and Goro are added in liu of not adding in online mode. They play like MKDA versions of their Trilogy characters (what did you expect?). Goro has all four of his Trilogy moves like his stomp and chest pound, and Shao Kahn has all of his Trilogy moves including the infamous taunt. Goro plays the role of the brute strength boss with no combos, while Shao Kahn has a variety of defensive moves to counter almost any style of fighting your opponent may throw at you.

Hori Pad Friendliness: Lots of people buy the infamous Hori SNES-style gamepad for the Gamecube, for a variety of reasons. For a fighting game, its better D-pad is essential. As the pad is missing the analog sticks, its "friendliness" with each game varies. You can play the arcade mode just fine with the pad, with the exception that you cannot pick up the arena weapons (requires the C-stick). Puzzle Kombat plays perfectly. Konquest mode requires the analog stick to control Shujinko, so you cannot use the Hori pad at all in Konquest. Using Sega's new Saturn pad for PS2 through the PS2-to-GC adapter has the same friendliness.

And now for the second part, comparing the three different versions of the game:

Gamecube Pros:
- Play as Shao Kahn
- Play as Goro
- Play as Onaga and MK:DA Konquest-only characters (pending Action Replay codes)
- Smoother graphics than PS2 (on par with Xbox on normal TV)
- Faster load times (on par with Xbox, pretty much)

Playstation2 Pros:
- Digital Surround Audio (same as GC/Xbox on stereo)
- Play Online with no online fee or Live fee
- Play as Onaga and MK:DA Konquest-only characters (with cheat device)

Xbox Pros:
- Digital Surround Audio (same as GC/PS2 on stereo)
- Best graphics if you have HDTV (same as GC on normal TV)
- Faster load times (on par with GC)
- Play Online without cheaters

Controller is not a factor here (as whether the GC, Xbox, PS2 or Saturn have the best controller is a matter of opinion, whereas Xbox having better graphics is a fact).

As far as graphics go, if you have a normal TV, Xbox and GC look the same, even if you use component cables. Xbox looks best if you have an HDTV, GC doesn't have HD-output. PS2 looks the worst in all cases, but not that bad as the graphics engine was improved over MK:DA.

Cons for each system are obvious, look for the pros the other systems have that your version doesn't. Cheat devices don't exist for Xbox (Action Replay XBX is just a savestate trading utility) so online players can't cheat like they do on PS2 online, but that also means codes don't exist to play as Onaga to play as MK:DA characters (Kung Lao, Sonya, Quan Chi, etc, they're all there).

Also note, Premium/Kollector's Edition extras are not factored in. Only the standard versions are compared, as that is the main game.

Overall, MK Deception gets a 9/10, as its only bad trait is lack of online play.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/05/05