Mortal Kombat: Armageddon

"Again, quantity does NOT equal quality."

There's this feeling that you get when you know the relationship you're in is dying; this sense of disappointment and unease, and a dreading of what's to come. You either try and talk it over, or avoid it entirely, hoping that somehow, some way, things will go right. Most of the time, it doesn't wind up working. Sometimes, you even overcompensate for whatever flaws you've got, and wind up doing very little to improve overall matters in the least.

This is one of those times.

Certainly, the game boasts a ridiculously large roster of characters, an expansive create-your-own fighter system, a new interactive fatality system, a racing side-game, and an adventure mode. But the majority of these things are fundamentally flawed, and some aren't even necessary. Read on...

GAMEPLAY: 6/10

The actual gameplay is fairly simplistic; each fighter is possessed of two fighting stances, reduced from Deadly Alliance and Deception's three, more often than not one bare-fisted and one with a weapon (some characters have two bare-fisted styles, however). This actually goes a very long way towards reducing large combos, and let's face it; three styles for 60-odd characters would have been programming nightmare.

It's no secret that the Mortal Kombat franchise has never been what you'd call the most intricate of fighters. Dial-a-combos, severely overpowered characters and an overly simplistic fighting system have long plagued the series; worse still are the quick fixes and patches that have been implemented in order to maintain some semblance of fairness in the system: Maximum Damage, anyone? Deadly Alliance's major flaw was that long dial-a-combos, once initiated, could pretty much guarantee a victory if the first hit connected - a breaker system was implemented in Deception that proved to be moderately useless in stemming the chaos. Worse still was the system of universal tracking which made the dodging feature useless against high-level players, not to mention pretty much everyone had an infinite combo or two. More complaints included the fact that it was possible to attack your opponent while while getting up; the ability to attack or evade was an option long since deemed necessary. The ability to acquire a free throw, guaranteeing more damage, after performing certain moves was as well a major issue, as through such throws, some infinites were possible. A good player could feasibly grab you once and end a round.

At long last, MKA has addressed these issues. A parry system lifted directly out of certain other fighters (let's let the unoriginality slide, it needed this) has been implemented, meaning attacks - even most throws - can now be prevented with proper timing. The ability to attack or roll away while rising from the ground is now in place as well, making for a much fairer game - this is unquestionably the greatest addition to the series' engine in years, and without a doubt MKA's greatest feature. It's a pity it had to be implemented so late.

Sadly, the previous 2 games' flawed move properties were not properly addressed. Throughout the course of play, it's inevitable that certain combo hits will not even strike the opponent. While this does not happen very often, and is of course dependent upon your character and enemy, it's still very irritating. Try Sheeva's third attack in her weapon stance on a couple of fighters and see what I mean.

A new aerial kombat system has as well been implemented, and while there's not that much of a point to it save to look pretty, it certainly is fun. Too bad it, like the standard fighting system, is very generic, offering little variation between characters. Hell, practically half the special moves are split amongst the cast, serving the same purposes with slight graphical tweaks.

And of course, it unfortunately cannot go without saying that as improved as the system is, it is still inferior at its core to others such as Soul Calibur. It is most fortunate that this will be the final game in the series to use this engine, dated even at the time of its first presentation back in Deadly Alliance. Let's hope MK8 does better.

Oh... did I mention that at the time of this writing, the first infinite combos have been discovered, and more than a few combos that do 70% damage or so? Whoops.

Now, a good number of MK's fans are hooked because of the delicious ultraviolence that the game presents and is renowned for. Fatalities, which need no introduction, are the series' trademark. However, they have been altered: rather than entering a simple combination and watching the guts fly, this time through the player can extend the suffering through the new interactive "Kreate-a-Fatality" system. Finishers are now done in stages of up to eleven steps. A player can simply choose to tear his enemy's head off immediately, or pound, rip, and bash the fallen combatant to a pulp before finally finishing them off, assuming their hands are quick enough; with each entry of a new step, the time given to perform the next is reduced.

Now, while this may seem innovative, and there are certainly many ways to maim, this KAF system is uniform for all fighters; gone are the days when Sub-Zero would freeze his enemy and shatter them. As a result, each character has lost some of the uniqueness that made them so appealing in the first place. To boot, some characters can draw their weapons to facilitate the gory process, while others cannot, a prime example being Mavado and Kabal: the first has this ability, the second does not. Why is this? The system feels rushed, a patch to save on the effort needed to program unique finishers for all characters. And it goes without saying that in a game with 60-odd characters, a LOT of variety is needed. I've already found myself snapping their necks and being done with it. Points lost for that. Even though you're given more koins (the game's currency, used to unlock parts in KAK and items in the Krypt - more on those later) for longer fatalities, the payoff is far more easily acquired in Konquest, and just isn't worth the effort.

Interactivity is not limited to the fatalities. The death-trapped backgrounds introduced in MK Deception return here, but with far less grandeur. Oh, the new Wastelands catapult is nice, as is the giant roller present in the Armory stage, but nothing new is really offered. Weapon pickups, also introduced in Deception, return as well, but they're few and far between. As well, a few stages are ported straight from Deception. There's a definite feeling that little attention was paid to the backgrounds this go-around - even the new rendition of the classic Soul Chamber level is sparse of detail.

Perhaps the most bittersweet of the game's features, however, is the Kreate-a-Kharacter mode. Choose from a myriad of attacks, special moves, and a plethora of clothes and accessories (most of which must be purchased) to make your dream fighter. Adjust their voice, facial features or body size. Write their biography (which will appear as their ending upon game completion). The KAK mode is expansive as all hell, and truly impressive. The possibilities are limitless...or are they?

Sure, you can whip up versions of Ryu, Akuma, Sephiroth, and a host of other popular video game characters. There's a lot to work with. But there's more that you can't.

I'll put this straight out: Some items that would only make perfect sense to use in such a mode are just not available for use. Creating four-armed shokan style characters, or fat characters, is impossible.

That goes for special moves, too: No machine gun from Jax. No bombs from Cyrax. No tazer from Stryker. All in all, I'd say maybe 30% of the game's special moves are available for use. Too bad, hmmm?

If this weren't enough, You're forced into having one hand-to-hand and one weapon style. And of the weapon styles available, you've got your choices of Swords and Axes. No staffs, no kali sticks, no daggers. That alone extremely limits what you can do with your created character. If you're creating Superman, I hope you've written up a good reason as to why he's carrying around a giant club.

Seriously, there are some blindingly obvious options which should have been there, but just aren't. And if you want to use a pre-existing fighting style, I've got news for you: you're going to have to whip the whole thing up from scratch (And that is a laborious task, I can assure you): there are no fighting style pre-sets. Sadly friends, KAK, just like KAF, just like most of this game, feels unfinished.

Which is also what I could say about the game's testing phase. The whole game is riddled with bugs. Something so simple as performing Mokap's slamming special move causes the audio to get quiet for a second. Performing fatalities on Moloch causes him to clip through the floor (he does that when he's getting up after losing a round, too). I've seen Rain's water blast come out invisible. Created characters (see below) can't perform long fatality strings properly. And perhaps most glaring of all issues is that fact that an online glitch present in Mortal Kombat Deception which permitted a player to move before a round had started is STILL present - it's disgusting that this wasn't even addressed. And while I'm not online myself, I'm told that the game's online experience is horrid, frequent disconnects, unsaved scores and sluggish gameplay, particularly during aerial kombat, having been mentioned. Sad.

STORY: 1/10

To those of you who insist that story does not matter in a fighting game; I maintain that MK is the major exception to this rule. Many fans of the series feel that the MK saga is, while not exactly the epitome of literature, still an engrossing thing to take part in; the mythos built up over the years since MKI is quite expansive. It also helps that when a series does not have much else to recommend it - MK never was the best fighter, again - such things serve to occupy the player's mind, and appreciate it for what it does have.

We've come to love our various characters, even the sillier ones like Bo Rai Cho and Johnny Cage have a faithful fan following. When we all heard that MKA would serve to kill off the majority of the current cast, we all sincerely hoped that they would go out with one hell of a bang.

Nope.

In our last lovely episode (Deception), the realms were under the threat of the risen Outworld overlord, the Dragon King. Both the forces of good and evil had descended into absolute chaos as a result of his machinations. Treachery and deceit were everywhere, and it truly seemed that he was unstoppable. How was he dealt with?

We don't know. MKA opens by letting the player know that the various powerful fighters' constant combat has somehow weakened the realms' stability or some such thing, and a failsafe was in fact placed many ages ago in anticipation of such an event - a quest that two brothers would undertake to defeat the firespawn Blaze would decide the fate of the realms, allowing or preventing Armageddon by somehow dealing with these powerful warriors. That's the game's premise and the storyline played through in Konquest, Taven, the main hero's journey to confront Blaze. The very might of Blaze himself would lure the other fighters to him, scrambling like rats in order to defeat him and acquire his power. There, they would be dealt with.

Does this sound like a cop-out to anyone else out there? I thought so.

With the exceptions of Taven, his brother Daegon, and Blaze himself, none of the other fighters are given a storyline with the exception of the few encountered during the course of Konquest - and they are not given much. That's right, you've got 60-odd characters, and their storyline is pretty much "Durr, gotta power up and fight." Characters long dead since MK3, like Sheeva and Motaro, are brought back without a valid reason. Mortal Kombat: Deception's events aren't even resolved.

Topping off the fact is that the endings seen when completing Arcade mode are, for the most part, utterly ridiculous. I'm not talking about the fact that each character is seen performing a kata while the events are recounted, abandoning the former method of pics-with-text (a lot of pics would be necessary for that, and I understand that time constraints do apply).

Apparently, acquiring godlike power results in an influx of silliness: Most characters either perform actions that are completely uncharacteristic if not downright stupid of them (Teen girl squad, anyone?), or get inadvertently transformed somehow as a result of their newfound godhood (Who Wants To Be a Living Planet?). Now, granted that 99% of these endings are NOT going to be considered part of the ongoing saga, but that does not mean that they had to be written this badly.

My hat goes off to the writers: The series' plot, the one thing that shone through blazingly above all else, has been flushed down the toilet. It was bad enough that Shaolin Monks contradicted everything about the game timeframe it was based off of, and is considered by most fans to not even be a valid part of the MK saga, but this is just pathetic. This is how the current chapter of the MK series ends; not with a bang, but with a loud farting sound effect. For shame.

AUDIO: 8/10

Speaking of SFX, I must say that the audio throughout the series' history has always been pretty damn awesome. It was with something of a surprise that I learned that the series' main sound man, Dan Forden, had taken something of a backseat this time to allow for new blood to step forward and compose more of the music. It's standard MK fare as a result, always very nice and atmospheric, but there are only one or two tunes that really jump out and grab you this time through, unlike Deception which had some truly kick-ass BGM - I still headbang to the Lower Mines track when I hear it. Actual sound effects are pretty crisp, and it's surprising to note that most of the cast has a unique voice to themselves. Bravo!

GRAPHICS: 7/10

Once the initial breathtaking five-minute introduction is over, it's pretty much what you've been seeing since MK:DA, although surprisingly much cleaner-looking on the whole than Deception was. There's nothing mind-boggling here in terms of visuals, but it's certainly passable.

THE REST: 4/10

Konquest:

MKA's adventure mode is much improved from MKD's; it actually is its own mini-game in the vein of Shaolin Monks. It's where the storyline (or what passes for one here) takes place, and is pretty much the most fun part of the whole package. As Taven, you'll travel through jungles, the arctic, caverns, and through the pits of hell itself on the way to Armageddon while bashing around the frequent waves of enemies who come at you, and avoiding the odd deathtrap. It's very simple, and while you'll certainly die a few times, it's nothing that can't be breezed through. The entire game is no more than six hours long, and while hardly a challenge, it's still a joy to play. Sadly, it falls short of MKD's Konquest in that no particular effort need be made this time through in order to acquire hidden items for use in arcade mode - they're practically thrown at you.

The Krypt:

Like MKDA and MKD before it, this little room, selectable from the main menu, is where you'll find all the game's unlockables for purchase. But since going through Konquest once or twice does that anyway with the greatest of ease, this will more than likely be used only to pick up the few items you've missed. Your Koins are frankly better spent in KAK, buying parts. This is more of a one-stop-shop for the really, really, really lazy than anything else, although some of the concept artwork visible here is interesting, and early gameplay vids and unused bios provide more insight into the game's creation. Still, it could have been done without.

Motor Kombat:

You know, you might have had fun with Deception's Chess and Puzzle Kombat. They were nice distractions. But that really is all they were. Puzzle in particular was a blatant rip (they'll call it a tribute, if you ask) of Capcom's Super Puzzle Fighter II. This time, the 'inspiration' comes in the form of Motor Kombat: Super-deformed style MK fighters taking their war to the road in their own vehicles. Powerups can be collected, and gory obstacles must be avoided. Of course, each character has their own special move to help them come in first.

Mortal Kombat does Mario Kart. How cute.

Let me say right now that just as many of you do not play a fighting game for a story, I did not purchase this game to drive around a track. If I wanted to race, I'd buy a racing game. That simple, really. Difference is between this and the story is that the latter is something that's always been a selling point of MK to its community. It needs to be there. This doesn't. The time and energy that went into creating this distraction could have been better spent expanding Kreate-a-Kharacter or Kreate-A-Fatality even further, or god forbid, giving the characters biographies. Still, if roadkill is a thrill for you, then you just might enjoy this for a little while before you get bored of it. It's really nothing special.

SUMMARY:

Don't let the shiny roster of characters or the multiple modes fool you: The lack of biographies, the incomplete status of KAK, and the ridiculous amount of bugs are enough to prove that game was slapped together from a variety of half-hearted ideas and rushed out the door (Hell, I've even seen a typo in Hsu Hao's movelist). No heart went into it, no serious planning. And this is the lesson that needs to be learned if MK is to ever be taken seriously in the future - concentrate on what your game's supposed to be all about, rather than trying to accomplish everything.

You can't have it all. But you should have what counts, and balancing it properly and knowing how to make it work right, that's the trick.

THE GOOD:

-Improved fighting engine
-Gigantic cast of characters
-Enjoyable Konquest mode
-Ability to create a character

THE BAD:

-KAK is severely limited
-Redundant Fatality system
-Glitches everywhere
-Pointless Krypt feature
-Unnecessary Motor Kombat Mini-game
-Dated fighting system
-Unbalanced gameplay
-Poor online experience

THE UGLY:
-Horrible plot
-Entire package feels rushed

OVERALL SCORE: 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 10/23/06