Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

"This is Mortal Kombat like you’ve never experienced before."

I’m a big fan of the Mortal Kombat series and couldn’t wait to play this one. First thing I did was I played arcade mode and started a fight. Before I even took control I was blown away by the whole look of the game, and when I could fight the whole feel was mind-blowing as well. The game has drawbacks though; you remember how mashing the paddle used to make the character do all sorts of moves. Well, now all moves are presets. Meaning that either you only play with one character at a time to get accustomed to his/her moves or constantly be looking at the moves list which conveniently has all the moves for each of your characters three types of fighting styles including the special moves for everyone included. Never the less this is Mortal Kombat like you’ve never experienced before.

Game-play-8.3/10
Anyone that has played multiple Mortal Kombat games has come to realize the main or reoccurring characters. This game is no exception. Among some awesome new fighters like Nitara-a woman that has features of a gargoyle and Roe-bai-chow-a fat drunken fighter, there are some old favorites like Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Sonya, Raiden, Reptile and many more. All characters have new outfits that look all right but you are able to unlock alternate outfits for everyone. Meaning that if you don’t like there current clothes you can get some more nostalgic clothes for some of the characters. Others have another set of different clothes that are brand new.
Up to this point fighting arenas have been boring and dull. MK: DA has totally overhauled the system. Never before have you been able to fight on a flying platform or an ice palace where the ice actually breaks under your feet. Some arenas have objects in them that are interactive meaning that kicking, punching of throwing your opponent into them will cause extra damage and the object will be broken into smithereens. One thing I didn’t like was the boundaries: all areas have a set space where you can fight and at the edge of each fighting arena there are invisible walls that actually hurt you if you’re thrown into them.
Every fighter has two fighting styles, one weapon and special attacks. Fighting styles range from karate, tai-kwon-do and tie-chi to some very weird and unusual fighting techniques like crab and crane. The weapons that the characters wield are all very simple weapons like short swords, Katanas, nun-chucks, spears, and lots more. All old characters have special moves that have been shown before in other Mortal Kombat game like Scorpions spear “get over here” move. There are also many new specials for old characters and for the new characters…their special moves aren’t that really exiting. All moves are presets and are all accessible from the pause menu by selecting move list.
Among arcade mode and versus there are other modes such as practice-practice moves and konquest--this is a brand new mode in the Mortal Kombat series. First you must create a profile that will serve as your file for the game. When you done you pick a character and you begin your journey to reach enlightenment…no. You go from place to place to learn all you’re selected characters moves, and you must correctly do all their moves accurately to move to the next round. Some characters have easy moves and some like Raiden have the hardest moves to do in the whole game, good luck.
The krypt is a room where you spend the coins you earned from fighting in Arcade mode or from completing konquest missions. The krypt is full of coffins that have a certain price to open them. There are different colors of coins that can be acquired throughout the game. Get the right type of coin and the right amount of them to open the coffin. Some have useless junk others have secret character and new fighting arenas.

Graphics-9.4/10
All characters are skillfully done. The most intriguing part of this is the women. I know by now you know how some games are driven by the sexuality of the women. This game offers skimpy outfits and large jiggling breasts for anyone who was interested. All other characters have sublime looking attire. Scorpions outfit looks far beyond what I ever expected it to look like and facial expressions have finally made an appearance in the MK series. The best part is depending on how much damage you’ve token will affect how bruised and bloody you face looks after the fight.
The arenas you fight in look amazing. They’re well textured and have little features that just make the places perfect. The shadowing is okay for this game, there isn’t a big round dot under your character there’s actually a perfect shadow, this is fantastic. There’ reflections too.
All the fighting styles they say have been made authentic as possible and it shows. The moves and combos all link together and flow in perfect harmony. The great thing is no two moves are alike meaning that one karate kick will be totally different from a shotokan kick I know this makes sense but I just hade to let you know how great they look and how diverse this game is graphically.

Sound-7.5/10
The music in this game is so boring, little quiet music that repeats itself.
As for the FX they are extravagant. The blood hitting the ground splashing is my favorite thing to hear. Other FX includes slicing of the weapons and making contact with the other characters. All these sound good especially slicing someone with a sword, ya I get off on stuff like that. The only voices are picking your character and winning a match, but who cares.

Story-3.2/10
Argg…this has got to be the winner for the lamest story in a video game. Shang Tsung and Quan chi have teamed up to take over the world. They first kill off the champion of earth realm: Liu Kang and the Leader of outworld: Shao Kohn. There’s two of my favorite characters gone which I found stupid. Now the fighters of earth must work together to stop them. Shang Tsung Is using the souls of fallen soldiers to reanimate the lives of the dragon kings lost army…if they succeed earth is dead. Depending on whom you beat the game with will show you what happened to that particular person after the competition.

Overall 7/10
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance has amazing graphics and a top end fighting system but lacks the fundamentals that make a good fighting game like online play, possible the biggest letdown of this game and style. They just improved the graphics put some unique fighting in it but it needed more something that separates it from other games I don’t know what that is but it doesn’t have it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/07/04