Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

"This review is for the biased and unbiased fighter."

Note~ This is a review for the PlayStation 2 version of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

Mortal Kombat 5: Deadly Alliance. To rent, or to buy? That is the question! For the next few minutes you will be reading my opinion/ review on this game. Though I could have written this review when I first received my copy of this title, I decided to wait until the excitement died down within myself about the whole idea of the long awaited sequel to be released of the MK saga (whew, long sentence). This wont be a long review, mind you! It wont have no back history like ‘When I was a youngling, I used to play MK like there was no tomorrow,’ or some long run on about how MK started out. Nope, I will be getting straight to the point. Right about.... now!

The graphics in this game look great. Each arena is high in detail, very 3-D. Almost makes you wish that you could stop the fighting that goes on and go explore these back drops on the levels. Decent interaction that goes on in the background (people walking around, wind blowing things around, ect.) Reflective surfaces were also a nice touch. Blood from characters stain arena floors, and on the ice arena you can even crack the ice from jumping around to much. A couple of minor gripes though. When doing fatalities, sometimes pieces of the ground disappear around the character and become solid black (or sometimes a reflection of the character. Other than a few graphic clipping problems, the game looks solid.

The sound affects are decent. You have the slice sounds, metal clanging, groans and moans, ect. But, a few of the characters share the same voice over groans, which is disappointing since this is the 128 bit gaming age. Every character should sound different! Stage music is decent, has the Mortal Kombat feel. Not much more to say.

The controls is where the game really shines. The game plays similar to the old MK’s with the ideal of having four attack buttons and a block button. But now, instead of having a pesky run button, you have a special move button and a stance button. The special move button works as a grab button and well, a special move that can be done with whatever stance you are in. With some fighting stances, its an escape, while others it can be a taunt. Kind of cool in its own little way. Back are the basic dial-a-combo, but much more user friendly this time around. Now they can be done similar to Tekken combos, which is a great plus. I myself hated the combo system in MK3 (MK4 was a little more redefined). So expect combos to become a great strategy in your fights to come. The game also plays in full 3-D (like Soul Calibur), so that might also take a little while to get used to (unless you are a hardcore fighting game fan). Also comes back is Test your Might, which plays exactly the same as before (which feels kinda dated) [which is nothing more than button mashing until the time runs out] and Test your Sight. Test your Sight is a game were an MK medallion is placed in a cup, and then you watch as a group of cups are mixed around on a table. You then chose the one you think the medallion is in. Its a little more fun than Test your Might.

Now we come to the extras. The extras are kind of a let down in this game, due to the fact that they are mostly character sketches or pictures of useless junk that none but the most hardcore MK fan would bother seeing (and even then they wouldn’t feel to excited about unlocking some of these pics). Its a shame you can’t remove your button guide while viewing the pictures. It takes away from the experience. You do get a few videos though, which wouldn’t be the kind you would think. You get a bunch of ‘arena test’ videos which are just quick 360* pans around the arena before the final touches were made. Only a whole 3 videos you unlock are worth watching (keep an eye out for ‘Cooking with Scorpion). Other things you do unlock through the game is stuff like, extra characters, a few arenas, costumes, and back grounds for each of the characters and arenas. So its not like you get fully gypped when it comes to the extras department.

The replay value is so so. You will find your self spending many hours going through Arcade and Konquest (Konquest is a training mode) to get lots of MK Kurrency so you can buy the rest of the coffins in The Krypt. But, after you buy everything... you may find little to come back for. All you have for game play modes is Arcade, Versus, Practice (which is real worthless by the way), and Konquest. Whoo hoo~ four game play modes! Geezus, this is the 21st century for crying out loud!!! Hell, MK4 had more game play modes than that! This area is a bit of a let down, specially with the great fighting engine that was made for this game. How I loathed to try it out in a 100 person endurance mode (similar to Tekken’s survival mode). No matter, we can always hope that stuff like this will be added for MK6.

My overall scores will actually be broken into two scores. One for hardcore MK fans, and the other for hardcore fighting game fans. I’ll start with the MK fan score.

1 = Pathetic
2 = Horrible
3 = Poor
4 = Mediocre
5 = Decent
6 = Good
7 = Great
8 = Superb
9 = Outstanding
10 = Flawless

MK Fanatic score~

Graphics: 10/10
Best looking MK yet. Should meet up to any MK fan’s standards. Great character models, attention to detail, and designs for arenas.

Sound: 8/10
All your basic Mortal Kombat sounds are here, still suffers from people sounding to much alike.

Control: 10/10
Plays very fluid. No more stiffness when playing Mortal Kombat. Yay! You will miss the uppercuts though...

Extras: 7/10
Tons of sketches and rendered MK combatant pictures with a little bit of biography/ history for each of them. Enough to make an MK fan happy... for a while.

Replay Value: 9/10

Mastering characters will take awhile, and also unlocking all of the Koffins. Playing the Test your Might and Test your Sight is always fun, which makes it also a big bonus.

Tilt: 10/10

Overall: 9.0 / 10
OUTSTANDING
~~~~

Fighting Game Fanatic score~

Graphics: 8/10

This game isn’t the best looking fighter out there, but it is good looking none the less. The game sports facial damage to characters as fights ensue, and blood trickles down character bodies and stains the grounds. Game doesn’t suffer from jag syndrome, so it is pleasant on the eyes.

Sound: 7/10

Characters tend to sound the same, all of your basic contact hit sounds are all there. Nothing really special here. Some great arena music though.

Control: 9/10

The game plays very fluid, similar to Soul Calibur. Each character has their own distinct fighting style, which is a major plus. Only drawback is that each character doesn’t have a high amount of combos, special moves and such, so you may feel a little bit limited.

Extras: 5/10

Lots of Pictures of previous MK games, lots of early game concept sketches, useless videos, and unlockable characters, arenas, and costumes. Nothing to special.

Replay Value: 7/10

Lack of game play modes come close to delivering a fatality to the replay value, but due to the MK Kurrency on the game, you may find yourself going through the Arcade and Konquest modes many times so you can gain enough money to unlock everything from The Krypt. You and a friend may also decide to duke it out in Versus mode, and bet Kombat Kurrency on who will win the match.

Tilt: 10/10

Overall: 7.7 / 10
GREAT

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/11/02, Updated 12/11/02