Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance [Platinum Hits]

• Release Date: 2003 10
• Genre: Fighting
• Style: 3D Fighting

Game Description

The fifth Mortal Kombat fighting game is the first to be designed exclusively for home consoles instead of the arcades. The game features a new 3D engine to support the familiar combination of weapon and hand-to-hand combat, but moves are now based on real-life martial arts styles, such as Crane, Snake, Tai Chi, Tae Kwon Do, Muay Thai, Tang Soo Doo, and more. Fighting styles can be switched at any time during a match, and the damage a character receives will be visible on his or her face, body, clothing, or movements.

Returning characters from the best-selling series include Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Cyrax, Jax, Raiden, Sonya, Kitana, Shang Tsung, Quan Chi, and Reptile. Characters making their debut in Deadly Alliance include a female counterpart for Sub-Zero, a blind samurai, and a masked tribal warrior. Arenas take place in fully 3D environments, fraught with spiked pits, pools of acid, and other deadly hazards. New special moves and gruesome fatalities will also be included as the franchise makes its debut on the next-generation systems.

Review: Overall

Midway's most recognizable franchise makes its next-generation debut with a new fighting system, revamped 3D graphics, and most of the over-the-top attitude that has drawn both ire and adulation from countless fighting game fans since its 1992 debut. Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance reunites many of the classic characters with a cast of new warriors in a twisted tournament to decide once and for all the fate of humanity. While the series has dwindled in both creativity and popularity over the years, Deadly Alliance helps bail out the ailing franchise with enough changes to make it the most memorable Mortal Kombat title since 1993's Mortal Kombat II.

Despite a simultaneous release on three different consoles, the game is virtually identical on all platforms aside from a few expected visual enhancements offered by the GameCube and Xbox over the less-powerful PlayStation 2. Even these aren't as dramatic as one would have hoped for, with changes coming in three areas: resolution, reflections, and loading times. Both Xbox and GameCube versions offer sharper visuals, cleaner textures, and reflective floors that seem a bit dulled on PlayStation 2 in comparison. Sony's machine also has slightly longer load times, averaging out to around five to six seconds before each fight versus the GameCube and Xbox's three seconds. Everything else is the same.

Mortal Kombat 4 introduced three key concepts that would be refined for this fifth installment of the series. The first, of course, is the 3D fighting engine, allowing players to sidestep away from foes rather than move in a linear plane. The second is the addition of weapons, which changes the style of fighting considerably, and the third is shift from 2D digitized characters to fully 3D models. Deadly Alliance packages these additions with a revamped fighting system, by far the biggest change in the series to date. Each character now has three distinct fighting styles he or she can switch between at any time without penalty. Two styles are based on actual fighting disciplines while the third is weapons based.

Changing fighting systems during competition is instantaneous, but individual moves seem stiff with delays uncharacteristic of a Mortal Kombat title. The fighting never feels as fluid as it could be, with ever so slight pauses one moment and a flurry of moves the next. Winning a match often boils down to being the first to initiate cheap juggling moves that hurl the opponent high into the air before the character bats him or her like a piñata across the arena. Whipping out weapons also minimizes the strategy associated with the different styles, since it immediately gives a character an edge. The result? The other player switches to weapons and you have a completely different game.

While the developers tried to address this problem by making the character who uses weapons receive more damage, it's difficult to attack someone at close range when he's armed with a broadsword. On a positive note, there is more of a rhythm associated with the fighting than in previous versions, and the varied styles do in fact require different techniques in order to use them effectively. It's just that fans expecting the same fast style of action might be in for a shock when they first turn on the game. Stringing together different moves is more Virtua Fighter than Mortal Kombat, and combos can be devilishly hard to register with any degree of consistency, as they take into account a character's position as well as how fast certain buttons are pressed in sequence.

The 3D characters range in visual quality. Some show wonderful detail while others seem to have been given the short end of the stick. A rarity among video games, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance's fighters look better clothed than they do showing skin. This is more a testament to the visual effects, which do a nice job of handling the complex movement associated with robes, capes, and gowns, making the fighters fun to watch. The developers even made Cyrax cool, adding tiny blinking lights around his torso and shins, and oil spilling out from his metallic body instead of the usual blood. A fighter like Johnny Cage, however, looks like a plastic Ken doll in comparison -- perhaps because his bare torso never moves like it should.

Once of the biggest surprises, despite Deadly Alliance's M-rating, is how tame the violence seems. There is blood, and it is still ridiculous on the default setting. Punch a character in the head and watch as a couple of pints spew out (which now drips and slides off the body). Yet this was a franchise that relied on shocking brutality to lure in gamers who were tired of the typical Street Fighter II clones. By trying to emulate more realistic fighting styles, there are few risqué moves and only one fatality for each character -- a major change from previous titles. Even the environments are bland. While all are nicely animated, arenas are little more than small rings restrained by an invisible force field. Where are the collapsing floors with spikes? The breakaway walls? With the new 3D engine, there was a missed opportunity to create environments filled with steel buzzsaws, moving platforms, crushing walls, and so forth -- is this not Mortal Kombat?

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance extends its replay value with two modes, cleverly titled Konquest and The Krypt. The former is a training mode of sorts, that has players doing menial tasks like sidestepping from an opponent to near impossible tasks like performing lengthy combos while switching between different fighting styles. The latter offers 676 "koffins" players can purchase using a series of colored "koins" earned by winning fights or completing Konquest challenges. Since the majority of the Koffins are filled with sketches, animations, and similar tchotchkes, perhaps the mode should have been called The Krap. Yet players need to keep opening these chests up to find the locked characters and arenas.

Despite some questionable features, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is a significant improvement over past versions of the series. The varied styles of fighting combined with a fresh crop of interesting characters are strong enough to make you want to sample each one. Two-player fighting is entertaining, with the ability to bet collected coins and the game keeping track of a number of important statistics for each user profile. Most of the criticism comes from the changes made to the series, but the series had to change if it ever hoped to survive. Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is not the same Mortal Kombat you grew up with. It desperately tries to be taken seriously as a fighting game, and despite some rough edges, it largely succeeds.

Review: Enjoyment

The fighting system has improved, though it lacks the fluidity of previous titles. Combos are too hard to perform and the computer AI is extremely difficult to beat during the single-player Arcade mode.

Review: Graphics

Clean textures, bright colors, and nice background animation make this the best-looking version of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, though some of the characters aren't as impressive as others.

Review: Sound

The announcer lacks the menacing quality found in the earlier games, sounding more like an angry Michael Dorn instead of the spawn of Satan. Character voices and the music should be better.

Review: Replay Value

The replay value comes from the Versus mode, as both Konquest and The Krypt will annoy players who just want to unlock the characters and arenas without the fluff. Purchasing 676 coffins will take a huge amount of time.

Review: Documentation

Where are the fatalities or individual moves for each character? Not in the manual, which instead provides a list of each coffin box so you can check them off (and no, it doesn't say what's inside them).

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