A very familiar game, played in an intersing new way.
MK Armageddon is very similar to Deadly Alliance and Deception, both of which are several years old. Each character has 1 fighting style (down from 2 in the previous entries) and a weapon style. You can switch on the fly, which creates some neat strategies.
The roster may be one of the biggest attractions here. The previous versions of Armageddon had almost every character in the Mortal Kombat series. The only person missing was Khameleon. She makes her grand return to the series in the Wii version, which is great. It now features every character who has ever been playable in any previous game. But the problem with this is, do we really need all these characters? Some people in the roster haven't been seen in years, and many of them were dead. Now they suddenly return with no explanation. How many people have been dreaming of seeing Sheeva fight Stryker?
There is standard arcade fighting, which lets you fight a list of enemies. Upon beating the boss, you get your charcter's ending.
Endurance has been added to this version of the game. Here, you fight a string on enemies. 1 round decides the victor. You don't get your health returned after each fight, so you you need to play carefully.
The control scheme has been revamped for the Wii. The analogue stick on the nunchuck controls movement, the Dpad on the Wii Remote lets you attack, and motion is used to complete special moves. This generally works very well, but the Dpad is a bit small to be used as 4 separate buttons. The classic controller and the Game Cube controller are also supported, if you want to play classic style.
Fatalities are done differently than in the previous games. Instead of putting in 1 combination and watching and elaborate death sequence, you now string together a series of moves in any order you like. This pales in comparison, simply because of the lack of variety. There aren't that many moves you can pull off, and nothing is charcter specific. In the end, everything comes off looking very uninspired.
Unlocking is done in the Krypt, using "koins" you earn in Kombat. Everything ranging from alternate costumes to production art can be found here. Some of the things in the Krypt can't be bought. Your only option is to play through Konquest mode.
Konquest is an adventure game about Taven and Daegon. They have been in a dormant state for years, and have just woken up. The were awakened to save the world from Armageddon. Once again, the Wii Remote and Nunchuck are used to move. The remote is used to move the camera. As a side game, it's isn't really all that bad. But with sub-par voice acting and repetitive gameplay, your only goal might be to unlock the exclusive content.
Kreate a fighter is here once again. You are given several options of what your character should look like. You can make them a normal human, an evil zombie, a Tarkata or one of the many choices they give you. The character's fighting style, weapon style and even their story is completely customisable. There are plenty of options to make the character you've always wanted.
The final play option is Motor Kombat. It's a simple mini game, featuring cartoony versions of the Mortal Kombat characters in race cars. They each have a special move that can work to their advantage, or their opponent's disadvantage. It's fun for a few laps, but it wears thin fairly quickly.
Mortal Kombat came out a year ago, and it certainly looks its age. The character movements are fairly stiff and mannequin-like. It looks good, but still could've looked much better.
The sound isn't too bad either. The music is fitting for the stage. Character grunts sound appropriate, but it would have been nice if there was a bit more. The voice acting in Konquest is a bit cheesy, and the writing isn't much better. It stands out as the lowest point in the game.
Armageddons is a good fighting game, and one of the few choices on the Wii. It isn't worth getting if you already have a version of it, but if you don't, this is the one to get. Any fans should feel right at home with this installment, but new comers would be wise to rent this first.