Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

"MK:DA Betrays classic MK and It's fans"

This MK was a highly anticipated release. The first Mortal Kombat game release in quite some time. One would think that given such a long time, Midway would have release a knockout game. Unfortunately this is not true. Despite the amount of time that midway had to develop this game, including at least one push back, 2 i believe, the game was still rushed and lots of things were scrapped at the end, before the final release.

The Bad:

Some of the things that were scrapped where the highly anticipated level fatalities, and many of the characters standard special moves. The other let was that there is only one fatality per character. The one fatality per character would be fine if the fatalities where good, but the fatalities that are given are stupid, simplistic, and unimaginative.

The game seems to depart form the excessive gore and violence that made it o so popular. I'm not saying that the there isn't any gore or blood, it's just not as violent as it was in the beginning. This also include the fatalities, such as Quan Chi's fatality where he simply jumps on the opponents head and stretches his neck, then hops off. The opponent then trips over there own feet. FATALITY. That not what I was expecting when I bought the game.

The other problem that I experienced for with the game, is it's inability to hold my attention. The game is very repetitive and there is very little else to do other than arcade mode and konquest mode. The only thing that has me playing this game is really the krypt. I was dead set on opening all the koffins and opening all the secret characters, and extra goodies, but the krypt is really huge and it will take some time to open all 676 koffins.

Midway has include Konquest Mode which is basically a way of getting to know and understand some of your favorite characters. The problem is that it's just too repetitive. It's the same stuff with different characters, and it can, at times, be quite annoying, such as when you get stuck on the combo that switches and makes use of all 3 combat forms. The problem is that you need to complete conquest mode with all the characters for a special reason.

The Good:

The game itself looks really nice. The levels are beautifully designed. There was meticulous attention paid to level detail. Some of the levels have game play interactions, such as the acid bath level, where the buddahs periodically spit out acid into the of play.

Now i said that the levels where beautiful but, the characters are even better. The characters come with life like body reactions, play it and you will see what i mean. The character outfits are stunning. The females are wearing skin tight outfits that show off there more tangible qualities. The men often where outfits that show off there bulging and defined muscles.

The characters bleed and bruise. The bruising is nice, because when you have just finished getting the life beat out of you and the camera zooms in on your opponents victory pose and you see that bloody bruised face, it kind of makes it all worth while. The blood is great, it oozes out of the body and then rolls down the body. The other thing to mention is that the blood stays on the level, it doesn't disappear.

The three different fighting styles are quite nice. They each have there own strengths and weaknesses, which adds an element of strategy to the game. Such as the weapon style allows you to deal out the most damage but in return you also take more damage than you would in one of the other fighting styles.

The Krypt once again. The krypt is full of sweet sweet extras such as extra characters, hidden levels, special videos, and a plethora of sketches and designs. As I said before opening the koffins is the only thing that keeps me playing this game.

Conclusion:

All this being said, the game doesn't hold true to it's origins, of excessive violence and gore. It was the gore and violence and excessive blood that got the game on the 10:00 news around the country, and it was the same thing that separated it from the other fighting games out there. Unfortunately they seem to be taking the game down another path, one not so violent and gory. Basically one not so confrontational. This being said if you were drawn to Mortal Kombat for the violence and gore maybe you should looks else where, but if you were drawn to this Mortal Kombat for other reasons then I say get it.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/03, Updated 01/08/03