Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

"Flawless Victory? Well....ALMOST!"

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THE GORY DETAILS...
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MK: Deadly Alliance is the latest installment of the franchise sporting 63 fighting styles, a new fighting engine, and of course the fatalities. Does MKDA have what it takes to return this long forgotten franchise into a contender...or should it have stayed as dead as Johnny Cage?

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DEADLY IS BEAUTIFUL...
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Graphically, MKDA is stunning. Taking a page from all the current fighters as well as some classic fighters like the vintage Killer Instinct, every arena is jam packed with vivid colors and detail - particles of dust or snow blow around, the marble arena floors have reflective surfaces, villagers travel to and fro or repair their possessions in the background, and there some objects that are interactive. Statues of Buddha will spew fireballs periodically and the green slop in the Acid Bath arena has its own deadly sprinkler system, giving the fighters more than just their enemy to worry about. Speaking about
the fighters themselves, each sport over 7000 polygons each and throughout a fight, their bodies will break down with many cuts, scrapes, bruises and lacerations.

The fighters attire (along with some parts of their anatomy) ripple in the wind or bounce during the fight, adding more to the realism factor. Of course, there's also the blood which sprays or drizzles over the contours of the fighters body and often times a powerful attack to the face will cause the fighter to recoil backward and nurse their trobbing noggin that's just oozing the crimson stuff.

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DEADLY SOUNDS EVIL...
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MK music vet Dan Forden scores the music and sound effects in MK: Deadly Alliance and, like always, it finds its own mood depending on the arena or the intensity of the battle. The quality of the samples have improved as the sounds of flesh hitting bone sounds like deep sickening thuds instead of the wet slaps of previous MK games. The weapons clang and ring as the collide with steel or emit sharp tearing sound with they collide with sinew. And when the screen darkens, the music turns into a spine-tingling warble akin the a Stanley Kubrick horror film.

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DEMONIC GAMEPLAY ABOUNDS
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MK: Deadly Alliance sports the most drastic change to the franchise in the gameplay department, and for the better. Gone are refferences to High Kick and Low Punch - the button layout now gives you attack buttons labled 1 thru 4, a seperate block button, another button for ''Special Attack'' (which can be a throw, a taunt, an impale, a strafe attack, or a POWER UP depending on the fighting style). The run button goes the way of the dodo as well and in it's place is the ever useful ''Change Style'' allowing fighters to switch between their three fighting styles at anytime. It is this department where MK Deadly Alliance shines its weight in gold as this button is very instrumental in custom combo creation and extention.

However, one debated aspect of all MK games is the aspect of skill - previous installments lacked the depth and skill that DOA, Tekken, Soul Calibur, and VF4 have in spades. As a result, MK is often regaled with contempt by the elitists. That is no longer an issue as MK Deadly Alliance's combo system REQUIRES AND REWARDS ACTUAL RAW SKILL and won't hesitate punishing those that lack it!! In all honestly, the combo might look like an easy array of button mashes from the pause menu's move list, but looks are very deceptive. To put it another way, only the most skilled players will be able to successfully unleash 5+ hit combos that deal 20% or more damage as changing your fighting style to continue the onslaught requires precision timing (often times, it will require the technique of ''buffering'') as well as a vast knowledge of what attacks to use and when (and you also have to worry about reversals). Defensive players that tend to turtle or toss projectiles won't last long as projectiles are easily avoided by blocking or sidestepping, leaving you wide open for punishment. I'd go so far to say that pulling off a FATALITY is much, much easier than pulling off huge combos (something that used to be reversed in previous MK games).

The bonus games ''Test You Might'' and ''Test Your Sight'' are easy at first but progressive get very hard, especially the latter. ''Test Your Sight'' puts you up against the classic shell game from ''The Price Is Right'' where a single dragon coin is moved and shuffled around on the stable. At later levels, more cups are added and the shuffling speed increases dramatically. These bonus games are necessary because they are the only ways to earn Onyx and Platinum koins for the Krypt - a vast room of 676 coffins that contain tons of extras - which is a very nice way to ramp up the replay value.

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ALL IS NOT SO DEADLY...
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Now comes the more troubling aspect of MK Deadly Alliance as the controls are somewhat irresponsive. You can be holding block and still find yourself getting battered to death, which can be frustrating and pulling off the limited ''franchise'' style trademark moves can be tough. Then again, I had this much trouble with VF4 so maybe I suck and the controls are dead on.

As a diehard MK Fan, MKDA lost some points with me due to each of the 21 selectable fighters only have 1 Fatality each without much posibility of the stage-based Fatalities from previous games. Now, some will say that MK isn't about Fatalities and they're flat wrong. If Ed Boon's own admittance isn't enough to sway them, a simple word-association test with your friends will. Guaranteed, once you mention ''Mortal Kombat'', the majority of your friends will respond with ''FATALITY'' (a few might say ''GET OVER HERE!'' or ''FLAWLESS VICTORY!'') because that term is simply synonymous with anything involving MK - Always has been and always will be.

Even though MKDA does indeed skimp on the QUANTITY of fatalities and it losing points with me in that field, in it's defense, the QUALITY of the fatalities that are present are excellent. To me, quality doesn't equal excessive blood and gore necessarily - the animation, camera work, dark music, etc. are what I look for first and in these departments, MKDA's Fatality quality doesn't disappoint (except for a few). Be aware, though, that ''quality'' is relative. What I find cool, you might find absurd (for example, I like Quan Chi's Fatality - a fatality that's often ridiculed by others).

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OVERALL
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MK Deadly Alliance shouldn't be passed off just because it's MK. There's plenty of gaming goodness here to please open-minded veterans of the series with all the goodies to unlock, but for those that wanted another rehash of the same 1990s style gameplay with tons of projectiles, teleports and other cheese moves may very well be disappointed with MKDA. Those crutches of the past are long gone and buried.

I refuse to compare MKDA to VF4 and Tekken because MK is a ''fighting game'' whereas VF4 and Tekken are more ''fighting simulations''. Simulations mainly require more depth and strategy and comparing MKDA to them seems to be unfair - not only to those games but to MKDA as well because MKDA (like all Midway games) simply doesn't take itself THAT seriously. In the end, it's a solid game with tons of replay value and it's a blast to play, despite some of the shortcomings. One more Fatality to each character and a few stage-based Fatalities would made it a perfect 10.

Without them, all it's getting is an 8, which is rather fair.
Almost a flawless victory! Not quite...but almost.

If you are looking for a TRUE sequel to MK2, MKDA is it!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/06/02, Updated 12/06/02