Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

"This isn't a good game."

Man, what a disappointment. After months of hype for the totally revamped fifth installment of the series, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was released to rave reviews from it's fans. Of course, those fans are stupid.

Reading some of the other reviews for this game here on GameFaqs, I was laughing out loud at their absurdity. Phrases like ''Best Fighting Game Ever'', ''The best fighting game available today'', and ''This is the number one fighting game yet'' are ridiculous overstatements.

This is not the best fighting game ever. Not at all. When it comes to 3D fighting games today, MK:DA simply can't compete. Before I start about the negative aspects of this game, I'll talk about the positive.

Graphics - MK:DA is a good looking game, no doubt about it. The returning cast look really nice with their updated looks, and the new characters are good looking as well. The backgrounds are also surprisingly attractive.

Sound - The sound effects sound good to me. There are a lot of voices in MK:DA, and they seem to be well done. Jax says some funny but stereotypical phrases when he fights. The music doesn't stand out as irritating.

Extras - MK:DA's Krypt offers over 600 secrets that are unlocked by earning koins. Most of these secrets are pictures, comic book pages, concept art, comedic videos, and unlockable stages/characters. If you're into unlockable material, MK:DA just may be ''The best fighting game available today'' for you.

If you're the type of video game player who prefers fighting games with good graphics, good sound, and unlockable extras then by all means--stop reading and go buy MK:DA. But if you actually pay any attention to the fighting engine then please continue reading.

The brand new fighting engine was hyped to be deep enough to compete with today's leading 3D fighters like Namco's Tekken 4 and Soul Calibur 2. But when it comes to depth, MK:DA just can't hang.

Gameplay - One of the selling points of MK:DA was the fact that all characters had 3 stances, 2 hand-to-hand and 1 weapon based. Combos that branch from stance to stance looked to be a promising concept. In actuality, the fighting stances aren't anything spectacular. Each stance has about 10-13 moves, and a handful of dial-a-combos. Each character also has three special moves. This translates to about 35 or so moves per character, which isn't very impressive considering all of these moves are performed by simple commands like ''2'' or ''f+2''.

The stance branching combos are lackluster as well. You may be excited at the possibility of creating your own style branching chains, but in classic MK fashion all the combos are the dreaded dial-a-combos. combinations that are guaranteed after the first hit connects and cannot be interrupted

That means that the longest string can be used without repercussion, unless you mess up. Why do a 3 hit string when you can go for the longest string for maximum damage? Well, the only answer I can think of is to juggle. But in MK:DA, juggling isn't very damage. For example, why do Scorpion's 8-hit 2,3,u+4,u+4, 2,3 for 19% damage when I can just do his 5 hit 2,2,CS,2,3 for 21% damage? I was excited that you can juggle in MK:DA but that soon faded when I realized that it's pretty pointless to do other than for flash. (Flash in MK:DA? I guess. Not that anyone will be impressed.)

MK:DA also encourages turtles.

In fighting games, what is the strategy to beat a turtle? You don't know? That's ok, Midway doesn't either. Throw > Block. At least, that's how it should be. In MK:DA you can block throws. How stupid is that?

MK:DA is also void of any oki. There is some wake-up, however. There are also some limited ''wall'' combos, where you attack your opponent against the strange energy dome that covers the fighting area, that add damage to your combinations.

The fighting engine is seriously weak. It just doesn't have much strategy to it. There are too many elements that detract from the gameplay to have MK:DA be considered a deep fighter. I understand that there are many people who could care less about the depth in fighting games, and MK:DA is for those people. The bad thing is, it's developed a fanbase of people who think they know about fighting games, but they really don't. This game does not ''Rip Tekken to shreds''. It is not the ''Best 3D-fighter on the market''. It's a shallow, below average fighter meant for casual fans. I don't like it.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 12/06/02, Updated 12/06/02