Mortal Kombat: Armageddon

"A weak ending for the series"

I've enjoyed the Mortal Kombat series for what it's worth. I remember my neighbor renting the original for the Genesis and us staying up for the entire night playing it and looking in his brothers magazine for all of the fatalities and stuff. Ever sicne I have played every title released in the series except the one before this game. I think it went down hill after the second game but it never really went bad until the side stories like Mythologies and that one other with Sonya that was released. Has the series come full circle now and in it's finale demeaned itself? How does this finale to the current gen of gaming go out? With a bang of whimper? Read on!

The story is pretty much something big is happening, every contestant ever has come back, even the dead ones, and it's a fight to the death to save the world. It's an alright story, really. The problem is, the endings are text with a voice over and while what happens sounds cool. We don't get to see it. That's just lame and it's unfair to the fans to deliver such a crappy ending when we're use to actual endings.

The graphics in the game are really mixed. Some characters look good while others have been messed with and look like crap. I liked the new look for the guy whose name slips my mind at the moment but he has the bicycle kick. The levels are decent enough but are really far from interesting and the amount of level interaction from other games in the series just isn't here. Oh and while this review is mainly about the fighting game itself let me say that Konquest mode is ugly beyond belief with fog and under detailed items.

The sound in the game is okay. Decent music and okay voice work. The sound effects are your typical Mortal Kombat fare. I could mute the game and I'd live through it all.

The control in the game is simplistic and very user friendly. This was the easiest Mortal Kombat game to just jump into and have fun. Moves are easy enough to pull off but not really dumbed down. Long time fans might not like it as much but it's good for the casual gamers out there. Sadly the Fatalities have taken a back stead and are weak and super easy to do. Not happy with that aspect.

The first thing you'll notice with this fighting game is the huge cast. Every character in the series is back in this game plus a few new ones. The new ones are kind of lame though and the look of some of the old characters is rather off. Besides that I don't think any fighting game has ever had this many characters in it. Even if some are just carbon copies of others.

Each character may seem different at first but a number feel like hollow carbon copies of others. Kind of lame but oh well. Unlike the past few games each character only has two fighting styles and while they aren't the same as those games, they are just borrowed and swapped with the other characters from the past games. This seems a bit unfair and cheap since it doesn't require you to really learn anything enw and makes this game feel more like an expansion than anything else.

The game offers a few different modes. Arcade features a 7 character battle. One on one of course in a 3D circle arena. The levels are slightly interactive as well. So the arcade is very short and it doesn't matter what difficulty you pick because it's always 7.

Also we have a kart racing game with weapons and stuff. A little bland but mindless fun. It offers 3 or 4 tracks and maybe 6 characters to use. It's nothing special but a decent bonus.

We also have Conquest mode and while I never tried it in the last two fighting games, it's rather lame in this one. You walk along linear paths to find chests and items. You will encounter guys and it goes into a one on one fight. For some reason I thought it would play like Shaolin Monks but it doesn't. The long load times don't help matters either.

The game may offer a lot of unlockable content and characters to beat the game with but it all seems useless and underwhelming. It's like they just wanted to cram as much as they could into the game but forgot to give it any depth. The game also features on-line play but I didn't try that portion out.

I'd recommend this game as rental for the die hard fans of the series. But if you're fan looking for closure to this series then you really won't find it here. The game really does let down when it comes to its text based endings and feels a little cheap. Don't get me wrong, it does end the characters half way decently but the problem is that it is all text based. Just not enough thought went into this game which was pretty much made for the fans to finish the series off on this gen of gaming. It's not for everyone but it's a nice casual rental. If you can find it for $10 and under then maybe buy it but otherwise I'd pass.

Story - 6/10
Graphics - 6/10
Sound - 7/10
Control - 9/10
Game Play - 6/10
Replay Value - 7/10

Final Score – 6/10

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 07/20/07