Send this back to the Monastery for training! (Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox))

Member Name: Wolfzilla

Product:	Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)
Date:	07/04/07 (179 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Hey, MK2 can be unlocked!

Disadvantages: Hey, it's better than the actual game!

Given that Midway finally appeared to have their Mortal Kombat franchise back upon the rails following some disastrous games, it was only a matter of time before Midway once again decided to try and elaborate upon the MK universe in a game out with the confines of the 1-on-1 Fighter, and given the somewhat impressive nature of the recent ‘Konquest’ adventure modes in their last 2 fighters, I wasn’t at all surprised when Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks was announced, and given that the series always had the potential to step out of the boundaries of the fighting game, I purchased the game as soon as it was released, hoping that the recent (somewhat undeserved) praise lavished upon recent games would rub off on Midway, and the game would prove an improvement upon the company’s 2 prior attempts to take MK out of Fighting games, the potential-wasting Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero and the utterly terrible Mortal Kombat Special Forces.

The plot of the game is something that once again cements the fact that Ed Boon actually doesn’t actually know the plot of the game series he co-created. For a start, it is set up to be the plot of Mortal Kombat 2, only shown through the perspective of Liu Kang and Kung Lao. Where it falls down immediately, is that it does not revolve around a Martial Arts tournament, as it actually should, and takes an approach that would have been much better suited to imagining the plot of any sequel made after the second game, where tournaments never took place. The game also manages to screw up the first game’s plot, by having Scorpion on the side of Shang Tsung, Sub Zero seemingly survive, and the tournament basically consisting of everyone in a room fighting. While this makes for a pretty cool cutscene, that isn’t how tournaments work guys. Imagine if this year’s World Cup saw all 32 teams on the same pitch at once. Strumash is the word I’m looking for, that is how the tournament is portrayed. Anyway, the plot revolves around Liu Kang and Kung Lao going to Outworld to stop the evil overlord Shao Kahn, who has set his sights upon Earthrealm, of which we are part. Teaming up with allies in Outworld, the two Shaolin Monks must put their personal differences aside to defeat Kahn and save the realm.

The worst thing is, that had Boon actually read up on the plot, or at least got whoever was in charge of that aspect of the game to do so, we could have had an awesome plot that really fleshed out the series. Instead the blatant gaffes that all MK fans will spot grossly outweigh the cool points.

So, if Shaolin Monks isn’t a fighting game, then what is it? Well, given that the series is based around martial arts, the only other Genre of game it could easily lend itself to is that of a Beat ‘em Up, and that’s exactly the route Midway have taken. While the game does incorporate elements of Platform games, such as puzzles and such, as well as a Role-Playing style ability to level up your character and earn new abilities(although what Action games don’t use this feature these days?), the main crux of the gameplay revolves around beating up swarms of enemy troops, before taking on a boss character, who is usually an established series character, in a 3D environment.

To begin with anyway, the game is a joy to play. You get to traverse various locales from the MK universe, from the portals of the Outworld to the bottom of the pit on Shang Tsung’s island, the stages have been painfully and lovingly recreated from how they appeared in the first two games, and the enemies consist of the guards and other flunkies that frequented the backgrounds of such stages. When you start out, it’s fantastic swatting away swarms of these goons in these lush settings from my gaming history, and the fact that the game lets you perform finishing moves, including the famous Fatalities, as well as Brutalities and the new addition for taking on multiple foes, Multalities. Finishers actually work by defeating hordes of enemies and building up a Fatality meter, which, when full, allows you to press the White button to enter the Fatality screen, where you are prompted to enter the correct button combination to dispose of your enemy in a gruesome fashion.
As you would guess, Multalities kill all enemies on screen, and Brutalities are basically boring. What though, you may ask, is the point of these flashy finishers? Well, the idea is that the more flashy you kill your opponent, the more experience you get, the more experience, the more moves. ‘alities’ score you a lot of experience.

Also in there is Weapon combat, which allows you to pick up certain weapons to use on your foes, or even pick up parts of the scenery to smack them around with. This adds a nice touch to the game, especially given that it leads to some gory finishes to the grunt foes. Come to think of it, those Shao Kahn grunts really have got it bad, in that they can also fall victim to numerous ‘Stage Fatalities’ AKA interactive scenery that, if knocked into, will hand them another gruesome end. These include catapults, spikes and cliff-edges, and can provide a quick way of disposing with foes.

The game has 2 Gameplay options, Single Player and 2-Player Co-op. It sees players either choosing one of, or both in Co-op, Liu Kang and Kung Lao, and using all of their unique special attacks and skills to dispose of enemies. The controller’s 4 face buttons control Jump and the game’s 3 default attacks, Quick, Launch and Power. Holding down the R trigger and pressing any of these acts as a modifier, unleashing one of the character’s special moves for each attack button. For example, with Liu Kang, X+R shoots a Fireball, while B+R performs the flying kick. The White Button is, as I mentioned, use to set up Fatality attacks, the Black is used for throws and the L trigger acts as a Lock-On for when there are multiple enemies.

In general, this control system is easy to learn, and overall a good system to work with. Where it can fall down is the response. On numerous occasions, most notably the finally boss encounter with Shao Kahn, I’ve been frustrated by Special attacks not coming out, and downright infuriated by my character’s bizarre decision to walk instead of run while I’m desperately holding down the analogue stick.


Now, before I get onto the game’s faults, I do feel that it does have it’s good points, and I’ll talk about them first. For a start, the first while of playing it is fantastically good fun, running around these areas I had only seen in 2D format 10 years ago, smacking up enemies using all sorts of cool Kung Fu before getting into a boss duel with a character I knew. The weapon combat is pretty cool, and in general, I feel that the engine and system the game is trying to push are good.

However, with that said, there are so many things that infuriate me about the game. It’s ridiculously bad hit-detection and targeting, made most prominent in the last 3 boss fights, the sometimes appalling camera angles, the short length, the fact that the game basically shoes you into completing the game via the quickest route, forcing you to miss a lot of secrets…basically trying to play the game can be unimaginably frustrating if you try to persevere past an hour.

What is worse is that the game squanders some great ideas. It doesn’t really squander it’s wonderful environments and secrets, but essentially does everything to keep them that; secret. Once you complete the game, you can unlock Scorpion and Sub Zero to play the main mode with, however this is marred in that the game simply plays the same plot, just replaces the Liu Kang model for Scorpion and so on. This could have been awesome if they had made this a totally separate plot(cause keep in mind Scorpion actually became Sub Zero’s protector in the second game after killing his brother? You do remember? Boon certainly didn’t). These flaws aren’t even counting the ones inflicted upon the MK fans who know the plot and such. Was re-designing all the characters outfits really necessary? Goro shouldn’t have appeared after the opening video, he was supposed to be thought dead, and how in the hell can Jade be killed in this game? had these people ever played any games in the series before being hired?.

The game also offers a Versus mode which offers the player around 8 fighters to choose from. The only problem is that you have to unlock them all. Fantastic. Needless to say, after the last couple of MK fighting games, I couldn’t talk anyone into playing this with me to try out, the choice of playing as Baraka, Liu Kang or Kung Lao in what isn’t even a proper fighter apparently didn’t seem that enticing. I’m confident it will be a mode dogged by many of the same problems as the main game, bad aiming, less than perfect response etc.

Graphically speaking, the game is very much a mixed bag. While the stages look fantastic, painstakingly recreated and bristling with that wonderful Gothic-meets 70s Kung Fu feel that characterised the series in it’s early incarnations, I thoroughly applaud this aspect of the game. What I’m less happy with is the character models. I mean…they aren’t bad as such, but this is an Xbox, they should be so much better. We’re talking first gen-PS2 stuff here, where they look ok, but compare this to most other big titles on the market right now and the game just looks awful with regards to its character models, and as I mentioned, I hate the fact they re-designed every character’s costume. Reptile should have still appeared human at that point in the timeline!

The sound in the game carries on the trend of inconsistency. While the music also contributes to the wonderful atmosphere, the same oriental tinged, yet spooky and gothic sounding tracks found in the first two games score the game, but where this falls apart is the voice acting in the cut-scenes, which is laughably bad, most notably Shao Kahn’s new voice, which lacks any of the grandeur or coolness of the voice he became famous for having.

Overall, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is quite possibly the one of the most disappointing games ever. It is better than the other two attempts to take the franchise out of Fighters, but at the same time, when you consider that Beat ‘em Ups have enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance of late, spearheaded by the rather masterful Ninja Gaiden, and just how short Shaolin Monks comes up is made all too obvious. This game really isn’t even necessary for MK fans to play, given that all it does is mess up the story of Mortal Kombat 2, which we really don’t need. I guess the game, as with it’s most recent sister fighting games, do at least show that Midway has the foundations of making a decent game worked out, it’s just finishing it to a satisfactory degree that seems to be their problem.

As a neat little point, Mortal Kombat 2 is included in the game to unlock, alongside the expected production art and so on. The only thing is, it’s quite a toughie to unlock, and when you do, you just realise how far the franchise and series has went off the rails. This would almost grant the game an extra star, if not for the fact the game was already included in the Midway Arcade Treasures 2 compilation.

Review also posted on Epinions.com

Summary: Midway tries to cash in on the franchise in a lacklustre fashion...again! it's the Mid-1990s again!