THE GOOD:Old favourites return once more
Style system where there are 3 different sets of moves per character
First decent Mortal Kombat game released in a while
Test Your Might returns
THE BAD:
Only one fatality per character
Krypt and Konquest modes could have been better
SUMMARY:
I bought this game after hearing that it was, by recent standards, one of the best games in the series for a long time. So I went and bought it and wasn't really that disappointed with it. The team that made this game obviously did something that hadn't been done for a while with this series and sparked interest in it again. Everyone knows of the Mortal Kombat series and it was infamous for the sheer brutality that was involved in it, and I'm sure most violence fans will have played this. Missions like making your opponent bleed 80 pints of blood are obviously impossible in real life add a bit of comedy to this game, but just the right amount though.
I hadn't played a Mortal Kombat game in a long time and so was unfamiliar with where the storyline had got to. Afterwards I understood why characters like Shao Kahn (who I'd seen in Mortal Kombat 3 back on the PSX) weren't in it anymore. It's still a good versus evil storyline with Raiden still heading up the forces of good. Other old favourites such as Sub Zero, Scorpion and Kung Lao are back in this one, along with a few newer ones like Frost. I don't play these games for their exceptional storylines but if there's one there I want to know about it.
Another thing that pleased me about this game was the return of the "Test Your Might" mini game where you had to bash buttons in order to raise a bar high enough to break a material with a Karate chop. The materials range from bamboo all the way up to much harder ones like Diamond. It's a game most people who've played Mortal Kombat have seen, but I hadn't played that in a very long time so I was pleased to see that in.
As far as the actual fighting goes, a lot of the characters still have their trademark moves. Scorpion still has his legendary "Get over here!!" attack and Sub Zero can still freeze anyone. One thing I was disappointed that wasn't in this game was Raiden's "hayabubbalaare!!" kamikaze attack. I loved that move and even though this was in 3D I didn't expect them to leave it out, but they did. There are still the fatalities, but only one per character now and there are no stage fatalities. The only fatality I ever knew from Mortal Kombat 2 was the one on the bridge above the pit where you merely had to uppercut them onto spikes below. There also aren't and babalities or animalities in this game, possibly because this was one of the more serious Mortal Kombat games in a while. There are 3 styles for each character, two hand to hand ones and one with a weapon. So there are plenty of moves for you to memorise and use. Fighting with a weapon causes you to do more damage, but also take more as well so it isn't all good in that style.
When you don't feel like doing the main mode there is the Konquest mode. Here you have to do a certain number of missions (15 I think) per character which will involve things like doing a certain combination of moves or making your opponent bleed 80 pints of blood. If you manage to do this with every character than you will unlock two hidden characters.
When you fight you might notice yourself getting different coloured coins. These are coins that can be spent in the Krypt to buy yourself various things which are contained in "koffins." They range from unlocking characters to a hilarious video of Scorpion chopping a chicken in half. There are also many other things which I can't remember. While this seems fun at first it does get rather tedious after a while. The prices differ greatly from koffin to koffin and the more expensive ones are likely to contain the better rewards, so I'd save up for those first.
They also continue the trend of replacing a lot of the letter c with the letter k, which is mildly humorous. All in all this is a good Mortal Kombat game, especially considering the recent ones. It has just about the right mixture of everything to please the majority of Mortal Kombat fans. Cynics might argue that the series is getting old and it's had it's heyday already, but this is certainly a game to change their minds. It changed mine anyway and if you call yourself a fan of this series of games you should go out and buy this.
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