Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

"People looking for a fun uncomplicated fighting game will love this installment in the MK series."

To be honest, I really had no expectations of this new MK game to be good. I had hated every single MK game before, but I thought that hopefully, this latest installment might remedy the horrible problems in the earlier highly-popular arcade games. To my extreme relief, it did, and MK:DA is an excellent fighting game that may not appeal to those self-proclaimed fighting game purists who live for 10-hit combos and whatnot, but anyone looking for a fun, fast and exciting fighting game should get Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance.

The storyline is that Quan Chi and Shang Tsung has become allies and killed the two greatest threats to their ''Deadly Alliance'', Shao Kahn and Liu Kang. Yes, you read it right, the main character is dead, what a refreshing approach. They decide to rule the world or something, and as usual, the best fighters of Earthrealm go and fight them. Whatever. IMO, a bland average story, nothing special.

The gameplay in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (spelling it out so you won't forget) is good, and great fun for anyone who wants to play a easy to get into fighting game. Nothing too complicated here. Each fighter has 3 different styles, 2 of which are actual real-life martial arts and the other is a weapon. Changing styles is as easy as pressing L1 and you can even change styles half-way in a combo to do extra hits. These styles add a nice touch to the game. Each style has about 20 different moves and combos which usually involve nothing more than fast button presses, no qcf-lp things here. Each character also has a couple of character-specific special moves that are commonly performed by pressing Right-Right-Button or Down-Right-Button. This simple style of performing attacks may turn away most hardcore fighting game buffs, but casual fighting game fans should find this refreshing.

This game is also a lot less cheap than previous MK games. Sure, there are still some cheap moves like the impaling of weapons which causes the health bar to slowly drain, but the ultra-cheap-continous-no-escaping-mad-punches-of-doom are gone and so is the uppercut.

Kurrency is the mode of unlocking things in this game. After defeating enemies in arcade mode and Konquest mode (more on that later) you'll get Koins. There are 6 types of Koins (I just realised that I should have spelt every C as a K) in MK:DA, which are used in the Krypt to unlock every one of the 6-7-6 unlockables. Yes, 676. Six hundred and seventy-six, which range from hidden characters, costumes and levels to concept art and hilarious videos such as the amazing wonderful Cooking with Scorpion!!11!eleven!1one!1! MK hardcore fanatics will soil their shorts when they see the sheer number of unlockables. Needless to say you'll be playing this game for a long time. 2 types are only avaliable by playing the Test Your Might and Test Your Sight mini-games, which happen at intervals which you can set. TYM is just a button masher and TYS is guess-which-cup-the-ball-is-under.

Profiles are profiles that you have to create to play most of the modes. You can only get Koins when you have a profile, so without one the game is boring. Profiles also keep track of what you yourself have unlocked so no one else can see your Cooking with Scorpion video. If both players have a profile when you fight in VS mode, you can wager coins to give to the victorious player.

It seems that the developers of MK:DA have strived to seperate this installment from the previous. Not only the obvious, like the name, MK:DA instead of MK5, but almost nothing except the characters have been kept. The fighting engine is completely new and so are the costumes, modes and everything, really. The killing of Liu Kang (not a spoiler, you'll see this in the opening movie) helps this statement as well as the high number of new characters. Unfortunately, some of the characters leave a lot to be desired, such as Hsu Hao, Li Mei and Drahmin who look crap and have bad moves and little to no storyline.

Konquest mode is kind of a basic tutorial where they show you the ropes. Each character has 10 missions, combined with the beginning 8, makes a grand total of 218. Don't tell anyone I said this, but when you finish all of them, you'll unlock the Ultimate Prize! 2 new useless characters! Each character's missions not only teach you the basics and combos of each style, but also add some background info about the character and some good interesting storyline, a new concept to the MK developers. You'll also get Koins through this mode.

Control (or Kontrol, heh heh heh) is simple and easy to learn and master. The four main buttons are used to attack and are simply labeled Attack 1, 2, 3 and 4. None of that high punch low kick stuff here. Up and down sidesteps while left and right, surprisingly, moves the character left and right. L1 changes the style of the character, R2 blocks while R1 is Special Attack, which differs with style. Taunts, retreats, power-ups and impales are some of the attacks. The control is simple yet initutive and no one should have any difficulty learning it.

Replay in fighting games is always extremely important, as if there is no replay, the player usually won't come back for more of the same, unless the gameplay is exceptionally good. MK:DA delivers strongly in this aspect, as the 676 Krypts and the 218 Konquest missions should have gamers playing this title for a long time. There are different endings for each character after you defeat arcade mode too, so you'll have to win with every character if you want to view everything in this game. This really helps the score of MK:DA, you'll be hard-pressed to find another fighting game, maybe even game in general with this much replay value. Definitely one of the strong points of this game.

The graphics are overall great as well, though my only complaint is the excess of blood. Some blood can be realeastic, and with MK there is usually more, but this is by far too much. Every strike with any weapon, especially a sword for obvious reasons, brings up a fountain of blood. Even when the opponent is blocking blood drips from every part of the body. Sometimes the blood looks like leeches slowly sliding down. Too much is not good in this case. One good touch is that the blood stays on the ground throughout the fight.

The character models are beautifully detailed and nicely modeled. Definitely one of the stronger points of this game. The backgrounds usually have plenty of activity, like a waterfall in the Lin Kuei level I think, and footprints are left in the snow (and blood). Scars from fists and weapons are left on the face of the kombatants too, very nice touch from Midway.

The audio is nice, the tracks for each level are usually fast-paced and help to pump up the excitement of the match. Weapon sounds are accurate, you'll hear the sound of swords clashing when swords are clashing. Nothing really bad here.

Overall MK:DA is a great fighting game that should not be missed if you are a fan of fighting games or are looking for a nice fun, fast-paced game that will tide you over for a long long time. The replay will keep you hooked while you're having fun with the great fighting engine and the excellent graphics. A must-buy for previous MK fans or fighting game fans.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/11/03, Updated 01/11/03