Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

February 24, 2003

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is way better than the series history might lead you to believe. Everyone agrees that the MKs peaked at 2 and it's all been downhill from there. MK3 was just silly and the move to 3D was not executed all that well. But all that is past. MK:DA has it all: graphics, gameplay and tonnes of replay.

The graphics won't take the crown from DOA3 as prettiest fighting game out there. Come to think of it, compared to all the other major fighting games out there (Virtua Fighter, Soul Calibur, Tekken, DOA), MK just barely holds its own. But then the graphics bar has been raised pretty frikkin' high. This is by no means an ugly game though. The fighters all look good. The males look ruff. Sub Zero and Scorpion have never looked better. Hsu Hao looks like a Village People reject, but he's the only weak link. The females, save the vampire, are all very do-able looking. And if you vampires in "that way" then I guess she's okay too. Taking a cue from the DOA games, their bits jiggle. Which is always a touch I appreciate. Way more than I should probably. To be fair, the fat guy's belly jiggles as well so there is equal opportunity jiggling. The arenas are all nice looking, if a little blah. And not nearly as interactive as in DOA. No one gets thrown off a roof into a neon sign and onto the cold hard, wet street below. Getting knocked through a statue or big block of ice is the best you can hope for. And doing so doesn't really increase damage by that noticeable an amount. Truthfully, interactive background bits are more often destroyed by accidentally punching them than by using them as part of a strategy of attack. Like all other MK's there are no ring outs. Which is kind of silly when a lot of stages take place in areas with precipitous drops all along the edges. A force field contains the action and keeps anyone from getting away. While it sometimes helps in juggling combos, the effect looks cheesy and doesn't add much to the experience. People falling to their painful deaths has always been a part of MK, and the absence here is felt. But that is offset by the fact that THE BLOOD STAYS ON THE GROUND!! This is the best thing to hit the MK series since the addition of jiggling tits. Walking through a pool of the enemies blood and leaving bloody tracks is good stuff. As is seeing how much blood you can splatter over a given stage. The blood effects in this game are fake looking, but in an endearing way. If a character is really nailed, they bleed buckets. The red stuff runs down their body to the ground where, as I've mentioned, it stays. The blood doesn't so much look like blood. More like fair sized red leaches quickly slinking down the characters. Cheesy, but it somehow fits. Another nice touch is the character's faces take damage as the fights progress. A close up of the victor after a particularly hard fought battle usually involves a lot of red, black and blue. It helps give a feeling of accomplishment. Overall: the character models aren't as elaborate as some, and are smaller on screen than in any other 3D fighter and the stages aren't all that impressive but there's jiggling and bleeding, so yay.

The sound is not all that remarkable. None of the music is particularly memorable. The announcer has the nice deep voice one associates with MK but all the other voice work is average. Jax talks some trash while dealing out the damage but all the female players sound like they were voiced by the same person. The effects are appropriately meaty sounding and the sound of gushing blood brings a smile to the face. The lack of the "Toasty!" dude makes baby Jesus cry.

The gameplay is where Deadly Alliance makes huge strides. No more jamming on the high punch buttons, no more reliance on low sweep kicks and uppercuts. It no longer feels like all the characters control the same save for their special attacks. Every character has three fighting styles they can switch between on the fly: two unarmed and one, well, armed. A couple of the styles are similar, but no two characters have the same move list. No colour swapped drones here. There is a nice variety of styles available. Kempo, Tae Kwon Do, Jeet Kun Do, Outworld, Drunken Fist(yay!), the list goes on. Some styles are all about juggling, others about throws, and a couple let you catch opponent's attacks and reverse them at your leisure. A few of the move inputs are weird, sometimes its down and kick to do a leg sweep, sometimes its back and kick. Some might find this annoying, others might say it makes each character feel more unique. A unique feature in MK:DA is that you can switch between all styles on the fly, even during a combo. So you can start on Karate, switch to Jeet Kun Do whilst the opponent is airborne and juggle him a bit more and then finish it all off with a might nunchaku whack. And most of these style switch combos make the blood flow even more freely: real good fun. Weapon combat also brings in the fun. Having both opponents swinging away at each other and watching the sparks fly adds a whole new, wholly enjoyable level to the MK experience. One more thing about the weapons: certain characters can opt to toss their weapons at their enemies in the hopes of impaling them. If successful, the weapon stays stuck and the blood (and hit points) pours out at a steady pace until its all gone and the foe collapses. Never gets old. Never.

All of these new additions to the Mortal Kombat combat are fully explained and explored in the new quest mode. You see, in addition to the basic arcade, versus and training modes, there is this new "quest" mode. Here the player will first learn the basics of the gameplay mechanics and then progress to learning all the ins and outs of every single playable character. Not only does this help you become familiar with each character's moves it also fills in some of their history, and the history of martial arts as well. This is a fantastic addition that more games should have.

Another part of the game that adds a LOT to the experience is "The Krypt" where the player can unlock all kinds of hidden goodies. Each fight a player wins, be it in arcade or quest mode, wins them some koins. These can be redeemed in the krypt for all sorts of things, from character sketches to movies to hidden levels. There are well over 500 things to be unlocked, that's a great incentive to keep playing. Not that that's needed. The core mechanics of the gameplay and the fun there is to be had here is more than enough to ensure that MK:DA doesn't leave your system of choice any time in the near future.

A review of any MK game would not be complete without a mention of the fatalities. They're a bit hit and miss. First off: each character only has one finishing move. Which is a bit disappointing considering each character has three distinct fighting styles. Also, there are no environment related fatalities. No spike skewering or acid baths here. And not all the fatalities are all that great. In particular, the females all have pretty lackluster finishers. But some, like Scorpion's, are good and brutal and bloody. All that being said, Fatalities might have been what first made these games stand out from the crowd, but this game is so fun and refined on its own that the Fatalities are gravy. They add to the experience, but are no longer the focal point. That pretty much says it all. The MK experience has matured enough to not need Fatalities to sell itself, although they no doubt help. Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, come for the sizzle, stay for the steak.

- Tyler