The Best MK Title Yet (XBox version) (Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (Xbox))

Member Name: Guile176

Product:	Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (Xbox)
Date:	06/04/03 (644 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Best MK yet

Disadvantages: Graphics could be a hair better

Its been a long time since gamers have seen a new
Mortal Kombat game. In fact, its been about 3
years since the last one was released. That title
was none other then Mortal Kombat Gold for the
Sega Dreamcast. Sadly, most Mortal Kombat fans
were tired of the series at this point due to and
outdated graphics engine and tired play mechanics.
Personally I thought MK Gold was a cool fighter
that most gamers never really gave much of a
chance. Now we have the newest in the series
titled Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. Knowing
that the series was in need of a dire overhaul,
the games developers over at Midway set out to do
everything in their power to make this game what
the fans have been wanting. Have they succeeded?
Well, im happy to say yes.

The MK series has always been known for its cool
storyline and the way its characters tied into it
all. MK: Deadly Alliance is no exception. This
time the evil sorcerers Shang Tsung and Quan Chi
have joined forces and killed series favorite Lui
Kang. Its now up to the heroes of the Earth Realm
to bring an end to this deadly alliance.

The character line up in MK: Deadly Alliance now

consist of around 20 different characters. Fans
will be happy to know that most of the more
popular characters such as Scorpion, Sub Zero, Jax
and Sonya have made the cut. Sadly, quite a few
faces from MK Gold are nowhere to be found. So, if
you were a fan of characters such as Reiko or
Baraka, then your out of luck. Thankfully Midway
has added several new faces to the series such as
the Sub Zero like female ninja Frost and the
sightless warrior Blind Kenshi.

And yes, character fatalities are back. Each
character has 1 that they can perform at the end
of the final round. For the most part these are
very cool, however some like Sub Zeros skeleton
rip look a little on the cheesy side. And if your
wondering, there are no friendships, babalities or
animalities here. This can either be a good or bad
thing depending on your taste.

Something new to this series is the way you can
change fighting styles. Each character has 3
unique fighting styles which can be changed at the
press of a button. Out of the 3 styles each
character has, 2 of them are unarmed and 1 is
weapon based. Weapons vary from character to
character. For examp
le, Scorpion will use a katana
sword while Kitana will use her fans. Some
characters also have impaling moves which will
slowly drain your opponents life bar until the
round is up. However, once you impale your weapon
into an enemy you'll lose it for the rest of the
round. Also, unlike in MK Gold weapons cannot be
knocked out of your hand when hit.

The gameplay here is much different then any of
the past MK titles. Trying to play this game like
you played past games in the series will get you
nowhere. The fighting feels alot more like games
like Tekken or Virtua Fighter. There's alot of
cool looking combos you can do as well. One of the
best things about the combo systems is how you can
change fighting styles midway though. While this
wont work with all combos, you can find some
really strings to do maximum damage to your
opponent.

Another thing I liked about the gameplay was the
CPU AI. In the past the CPU in many of the MK
games was notoriously cheap. If you set it on the
easiest difficulty setting, one match the game
would be a cake walk while the next you would get
pummeled silly to the ground. Boss fights also

relied more on finding cheap tactics and repeating
them over and over till you won. Thankfully that
all seems to be a thing of the past and you don't
have to be an MK master to play the game solo.

For playmodes, Midway has gone all out to ensure
that playing the game solo will give you some
serious playtime. Here you get your standard
Arcade mode, a practice mode, 2 player Vs mode and
the ultra cool Konquest mode. While the others are
pretty self explanatory, i'll explain the Konquest
abit. If you've played any console version of
Street Fighter Alpha 3, then you will sort of know
what to expect here. In Konquest you must go
though a series of challenges such as doing
certain combos or winning fights. Its a really fun
mode to play and will probably keep you glued to
your TV for quite some time. The challenges start
off pretty easy but as you get further on they
become quite difficult.

In the Arcade and Konquest mode players can also
earn six different kinds of special koins. These
koins can be used to open up koffins in a special
krypt menu. Koffins can contain anything from
unlocking hidden characters to giving you

alternate costumes. And if you think your going to
unlock everything in a day or 2 then think again.
Im not sure on the exact amount but it looks as if
there's at least a good 200 or so koffins to
unlock. Talk about play value.


<b>Graphics 8:</b>
The graphics in MK: Deadly Alliance may not look
nearly as good as something like DOA 3, but they
are good nonetheless. Levels and characters are
made fully out of polygons and run at a very high
frame rate. Animation is a little jerky at times
but overall is very good. Special effects like
fireballs, water and ice could have looked much
better on the XBox. Its pretty clear that this
title was originally designed around the less
powerful PS2 hardware and not the XBox. I wish
Midway would have taken a little more time to
enhance the graphics some in this version. Oh
well, they could have been worse I guess.


<b>Sound 8:</b>
The sound here is done really well. You get alot
of crisp sounding effects and voices with some
fairly non descript techno/rock music. Its just
too bad Midway didn't take advantage of the XBox
hard drive and let players use
their own music. Oh
well, maybe next game.


<b> Control 9:</b>
Like I said earlier, if you go into this thinking
you'll play it like older MK games then you'll be
disappointed. Once you do get used to the new set
up, I think you'll be surprised by the responsive
controls. Especially if your using the S Control.
I do suggest you go to the practice mode before
diving into the other modes. It will really help
ease you into the new style of play.


Overall, I really enjoyed MK: Deadly Alliance. I
would highly recommend this to anyone that's into
either the MK series or just fighters in general.
Even if you've hated this series in the past, I
urge you to give this game a try. You'll find that
its a much different game then you once knew. You
may be pleasantly surprised with it. Great job
Midway, you've crafted one of the finest fighting
games i've played in some time.

Summary: