Mortal Kombat: Armageddon

"MKA delievers a decent end to this generation of the series."

MKA is a decent game at best. Nothing remarkable, but not bad either. Gameplay is actually somewhat more simpleified over it's predecesor, MKDeception, as each character only has one fighting style now, as well as their weapon fighting style. The new air combos are neat and fairly enjoyable, but ultimately don't add as much as Midway made it seem like they would. Beyond the additions of parries and good breaks, the actual gameplay of the core game isn't that different from MKDeceptions. Not particularly a bad thing, Deception was a fun game, but removing a style from each character and thus removing a ton of combo potential, hurts the game, particularly when combos are such a big focus of the recent MK games, MKA included.

However, these removals become a bit more understandable the first time you see the character select screen. No less than 62 characters populate MKA, with 4 hidden characters, plus your Kreate A Kharacter. With this many characters, it becomes more obvious that some of the games omissions are likely do to all the data taken up by this mass of characters. There's characters from every previous Mortal Kombat game present, in fact, every character from every Mortal Kombat is here, from regulars like Sub Zero and Liu Kang (in Zombie form), to bosses like Shao Khan, Kintaro, Goro, and Motaro, to joke and obscure characters like Meat, Mokap, and Chameleon. In fact, the only missing character from Mortal Kombat is Khameleon, the female ninja version of Chameleon from the N64 version of Mortal Kombat Trilogy. Otherwise, everyone's here, even people like NIghtwolf, Stryker, and Rain are in. Overall pretty darn impressive, and certainly one way to make up for the gameplay omissions.

Perhaps one of the most looked forward aspects of MKA was the new Kreate A Karacter feature. And of course, the first thing it's getting compared to by jsut about everyone is the Create A Soul from Soul Calibur III, which, to be fair, is the best thing to compare it to. Unfortunately, you don't have as many actual options for your KAK's apperance as you would in SCIII, though there's still plenty to pick from, and some nice, varied choices, as opposed to SCIII's many recolours and texture changes to teh same basic outfit peice. You only start with a few options to pick from, however, by collecting Kurrency (Yes, it returns, but it's far less stupid than in was in the last two, it's easier to get and there's only one Kurrency type, instead of 5) you can buy more stuff to use for your KAK. What makes MKA's KAK mode really awesome is the fact that you get to pick and customized your character's fighting style, special moves, and weapon fighting style, once again useing Kurrency to unlock new moves. THis gives it more depth and your character more customization, making it more fun in that area. The biggest flaw with MKA's KAK, though, is that you only get one per profile, unless the option is, like, hidden or something. It's most likely due to memory restrictions again, but it's still a pain to have so many options and only be able to use so many of them at once.

Next up is this game's version of the previous two's "Konquest Mode". This mode, while still noting amazing, is leaps and bounds over the versions from Deadly Alliance and Deception. No longer a glorified tutorial, Konquest is it's own mode. Taking a page from the side story game MK Shaolin Monks, the majority of Konquest Mode is now spent running though a level while finding new and interesting ways to beat the ever living crap out of those who attack your character, while entering traditional Mortal Kombat fights when ever you encounter a “Named” character from Arcade Mode. It's pretty fun, though it can get old after a bit, and can be frustrating at times. The story to this mode is largely forgettable, and stars a new character named Taeven, as he hurries to complete a quest set forth by his parents years before to prevent Armageddon form happening at the hands of the various Mortal Kombat characters, however, along the way he must deal with his brother Daegon, who is also looking to complete the same quest, but is going about it in a horridly ruthless fashion. Like I said, pretty forgettable. One of the big draws of this mode, however, is the sheer amount of Kurrency and unlockables to be found in it. By collecting the 60 Relics hidden in Konquest mode, you can unlock things like characters, arenas, Kurrency, or best of all, unlocking the entire in game Krypt – which also makes a return in MKA.

The Krypt in MKA is mostly the same deal as the previous games, with the exception of you now get to know what you're buying before you buy it, eliminating one of my biggest gripes with the previous two game's Krypts. The Krypt in MKA is largely pointless, however. Almost all of the Alternate Outfits, Arena, and Music you could buy here can be found by going through Konquest, and if you get all 60 Relics in Konquest, the whole damn thing is unlocked for free anyway, leaving you to use your money on Kreate A Karacter mode. It seems like an afterthought, though it does include some neat production and promo sketches, if you're into that kind of thing. Not really worth wasting the time on, though.

Perhaps the most… interesting new addition is the new minigame. Replacing Deceptions Chess based minigame and Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo rip off is a new kart racing minigame called “Motor Kombat”. Oh, Midway, does your cleverness know no bounds? This new minigame is serviceable at best, having only a few karts and tracks to select from, and not much in the way of depth in terms of what each character can do and what the in game powerups do. It's likely to get old after a few plays, but damn is it neat for those whole 2 races! Its novelty and nothing more, but despite that, you're sure to find yourself playing it online, at least once.

I haven't had the chance to try MKA's online aspect yet myself, but the general consensus form those I know who have played it online is that the Xbox version seems to go with a hitch or a hiccup, and the PS2 online mode has it's hiccups, but it's mostly smooth and quite playable. Both standard versus mode and Motor Kombat are playable online, and you can even show off your Kreate A Karacter to all the other online MKA players

You'll notice that I've somehow avoided bringing up arguably the most famous aspect of the Mortal Kombat franchise – the Fatalities. That's because I wanted to save the game's biggest flaw and worst aspect for last. In what was most likely an effort to free up game data for the massive amount of characters in the game, Midway made the bizarre decision of stripping every character of their unique fatalities. Yep, that's right, no more Scorpion lighting his defeated foe on fire to the sound of a Dan Forden “Toasty!”, or Kano frying anyone with his laser eye or anything like that. Instead, they have replaced the character specific fatalities with the new Kreate A Fatality system. How it works is that, when an opponent is defeated, the familiar call to “FINISH HIM/HER!” will sound, and a bar will appear. You have until this bar empties to enter the first command in your Fatality chain, such as entering back, back, and square (On the PS2) to rip an enemy's rib out. Once you've done this, the screen goes black, you do the action, and the bar refills, giving you the chance to enter another command. You can do this up to ten times, each command making the timer refill and go back down faster than before. There's a set of commands for Fatality Finishers, like down, down, circle (Again, on the PS2) rips out the enemy's spine, a la Sub Zero's old fatality. When you finish your Fatality or time runs out, you are rated based on how long your Fatality chain was, and reward with Kurrency accordingly. Neat, but having all the commands memorized to get a full, or even decent chain, is pretty hard, and a lot harder than knowing the character's old, specialized fatalities, nor are these Kreate A Fatalities as flashy as the old specialized fatalities. Overall, it's a neat idea, but implementing it for EVERYONE instead of just, KAKs, particularly at the cost of individual Fatalities, pretty much ruins the idea's execution.

I think that about covers the entire game. All in all, its fun and has an excellent amount of variety between all the characters, Kreate A Karacter, Konquest, and Motor Kombat. A lot of sacrifices were made, though, to fit everyone in, and it shows in many different ways. I recommend that anyone who's a fan of the franchise or liked Deception should pick it up, but maybe not until after a price drop. Everyone else might want to wait until it's used and after a price drop or two, cause this one won't be winning over any new fans.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/16/06