Mortal Kombat: Armageddon

"An unsatisfying end to a troubled era."

The last trilogy of Mortal Kombat games have been the subject of some debate. Proponents argue that the simplicity of game inputs and the wealth of added content give ease of learning and added replay. Detractors argue that the fighting engine, which should serve as the core of the game itself, has been consistently plagued with problems that hamper any real high-level play, and that the added content is often shoddy at best.

The latest Mortal Kombat, and the last one to be released on the current (as of this writing) generation of systems reunites all the characters in the main fighting series (and some who appeared in dream match scenarios like MK: Trilogy or alternate versions like MK: Tournament Edition). The logic behind this is to create a new slate for the franchise as it moves to more powerful hardware. Does it deliver?

Graphics: 7/10: The in-game graphics are largely on par with the previous entry, MK: Deception, with some extra flair in the environments. The backgrounds are nice, and everything moves a decent clip with little to no slowdown, despite all that's going on. However, only the new characters got new models. All the old character use existing models with almost no alterations at all.

The new Konquest mode looks sharper than the previous version, but it's still rather stark overall and uses fog in many places. No slowdown, but the camera could use some work, especially when dealing with enemies (see Gameplay for more on that).

Motor Kombat suffers from the same problems as Konquest, sans the camera. It runs nicely, but seems to stutter a little online. The graphics are a little on the sparse side, but ultimately it's a side game, so I won't fault it for that.

In summary: the graphics are serviceable but not exemplary.

Sound 7/10: The music, in its entirety, seems to be styled more after MK: Deadly Alliance than MK: Deception. It sounds softer which, in my opinion, makes it less memorable. Some of the themes aren't bad, but overall the music is forgettable.

Voices still use the same gibberish that is now a hallmark of the series. Preference may vary, but it's unfortunate that they didn't use a larger pool of voice actors. Many characters sound the same, which is odd considering that in Konquest alone, you meet a large enough variety of people that would ensure that voices would sound different. Speaking of which, the Konquest voice acting is fine. Lip-synching is another matter, but it's acceptable.

In summary: Music fits the scenario but is ultimately not memorable. Voices are par for the course.

Gameplay 6/10: The gameplay is the most important part of the game, and unfortunately it suffers from some problems.

The game adds some new wrinkles to the play: characters can now stop incoming combos from starting by parrying them, characters now have more options when knocked to the ground (including simply staying there for a bit), and air kombat. Create-A-Fatality is also added, allowing you to string together various moves to orchestrate your own finishing moves on your opponents.

Parries look pretty powerful initially, but you can't parry throws, projectiles or lows. You also can not parry in the middle of a combo. There are enough ways around parries that prevent them from being a game stopping tactic, but parries are unlimited and they have too large an active window (much like Dead or Alive 2's reversals), which encourages sloppiness, which makes them overpowering in low to middle-level play.

Grounded options return from an absence in Deadly Alliance. Now when knocked down you can attack while rising, or stay on the ground, or roll to the sides. Characters can also hit enemies who are lying on the ground with some attacks. However rising attacks are pretty fast, and actually seem to favor the person who got knocked down rather than the attacker.

Air kombat is arguably the most polished aspect of the new additions, despite its limitations. You have a good variety of moves, and you can string together one or two combos before you're forced to return to the ground. Air combos don't do that much damage compared to the ground combos, and you can techroll out of any slam, which in turn limits the opportunities to get obscene damage.

On the downside, air kombat can be tricky to land reliably if your timing is off, only specific launchers allow the chance for a followup, and since ground combos do much more damage it's often not the best option. Also, some characters have ground combos that end in launchers that can be air comboed after, and others don't. On a purely visual note, it also looks really silly floating there that long. That doesn't factor into my analysis though.

Create-A-Fatality, more than almost any feature in the game, falls into the love-it-or-hate-it category. You can beat, thrash, dismember and blow up your opponent in a variety of ways, and boss-class enemies (except for Shao Kahn) have access to a separate list of mini-fatalities. Good timing and creativity can create some interesting results.

Fatalities were an iconic part of a character's design, and well-designed fatalities stood in a player's mind long after he turned the game off. With all characters limited to the exact same moves with the exact same timing, a little bit of their uniqueness is lost. Also, after a while, creativity ultimate fades after you realize that many moves are exactly the same, the only difference being that the victim is facing a different way. Some characters also have more options than others. Ultimately, Create-A-Fatality's a wash. I feel that it, in its current state, diminishes the characters overall.

The rest of the game plays much like Deception did. However, the game retains its stiff animations, limited breaker system and dial-combo based offense. Throws breaks were not implemented, despite statements to the contrary, and the odd pauses when hit are still there. The hit detection is exactly the same, and when you put this all together, the game feels like more of the same with some bandaids slapped on.

This is especially exacerbated when you consider that not a new style exists within the game. All pre-existing characters lost one style and were then transferred to the new additions. Existing styles themselves might not be a problem, but the styles were neither tweaked nor refined. Instead, moves were taken out and air kombat moves were added, which have little to do with the actual styles themselves. There is also the problem of style duplication with different names, something that isn't new at this point but still disappointing considering how much of the characters have already lost what makes them unique.

In summary, it feels like playing a game that was average 3 years ago, and that's not a good thing.

Konquest plays like a stripped down version of MK: Shaolin Monks, which both a good and bad thing.

On the upside, combat is a lot more enjoyable, and the areas are easier to follow and offer a good amount of interaction. You can unlock a lot of stuff in the Konquest and items and koins are easy to find (compared to previous games), which means you can enjoy the quest and then enjoy the stuff you've unlocked without waiting at a spot for a week.

On the downside, your options still feel limited in the field, especially since you can't jump (minor thing but it still seems a little silly that you can freeze time but can't skip over a log in your path), the main character is unlikable and, without spoiling the ending, ultimately the story is pointless. The use of fighting game battles as opposed to in-game boss battles seems like a quick way to stretch the story without actually programming a separate boss battle, but this is a minor quirk and as such it's ignored in the analysis.

Motor Kombat plays like a stripped down version of Mario Kart, and it's serviceable, although the levels are boring and some deathtraps are placed in odd places, it's rather fun if you can find enough players online, since local play is 2-player only. Unfortunately if you don't care for racing you're out of luck since this is the only minigame you can play.

In summary: The combat is seriously stale at this point, Konquest doesn't offer enough to truly expand on the game experience, and Motor Kombat won't replace Mario Kart any time soon.

Content 7/10: As usual, MK comes with a large assortment of side material.

Create-A-Character (or Kreate-A-Kombatant) is your basic character creation tool. It offers a varied amount of options for creating a character that resembles you, or something unlike you at all. It has its limitations (only a few body types and weapon types) , but overall it runs very well. However, the potential for characters made in this mode to be overly powerful is very real, especially since characters can mix and match moves without any real penalty. And since it uses the same engine, your mileage varies depending on how much you like the gameplay.

The Krypt is infinitely improved over the previous versions. You now know what you're unlocking before you unlock it, so you never have to spend you hard-earned cash on something silly if you don't want to. Everything is easier to access, since you have more stuff per page and it looks nice.

However, outside of the costumes, stages and (I suppose) music, most of the Krypt is still pointless filler. No-one can convince me that a picture of the Midway staff is more valuable to the game experience than bios of all the kombatants, or that a short animation of a kart video-in-progress is more interesting than a ending viewer (You can not view your endings after completing the game; you have to play through again).

Speaking of which, the endings in the game are largely inconsequential. Warning to those who play through for that purpose, if you're expecting a rich tapestry to be woven explaining the events of Armageddon, you will be sorely disappointed. As of this writing I have completed Konquest twice and completed Arcade mode with all the characters in the game, and learned very little of any real consequence. This hurts Armageddon because if you have been following the story, you are given very little, if any, sense of closure.

In summary: The content is of better quality overall than the previous versions, but is lacking areas that really matter to the game experience.

Long Story Short: Moral Kombat: Armageddon suffers from a lack of polish that hurts the intention of the game: to send off the characters and the fighting system with a bang. However, rarely any real adjustments to the underlying problems with the fighting engine, and an overall lack of engaging content to wrap up the presentation ultimately defeats the purpose.

We can only hope that the MK team does better with the next engine.

Overall score: 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/13/06