...by having the narrator tell you what happens to everybody at the end of Arcade battle while you view a stupid Kata of the character you won with. Pfft. That's all I have to say about the endings. As far as the gameplay stands, MKA delivered exactly what I was expecting. Unfortunately, what I expected was a dissapointing re-hash of the same fighting mechanics used in Deadly Alliance and Deception. They didn't do anything to change the gameplay except strip everyone of one fighting style, narrowing it down to only two (thank goodness for that), but it's still the same, stupid, unresponsive, slow, clunky "dial-a-combo" system used since 2001. Sure, the new arial combat system works wonders, actually much much better than the ground combat, and the new parry system is pulled off fairly well (which is a major surprise) but they don't do much in keeping the core fighting fresh, exiting and worth learning because, quite frankly, there is no learning involved. Once again, it's only a matter of who happens to MEMORIZE (not learn) the most damaging combo and pull it off first or when their oposition is recovering from a blocked or whiffed move which still, sadly, is very slow due to the fact that it takes more frames to complete than any recovery animation in any game should. The special moves, however....... still come out slowly and are easily dodged because the game still allows you to move in and out of the 3D arenas. The arcade mode is like it was in Deception, with a more classic, MK 3-style screen for when you're moving to the next character. Each stage gives you a set amount of coins, and it gets bigger as you move up. You only fight 8 characters however, so you can get done pretty quickly if you're on Medium difficulty or less, especially with Death Traps to use to your advantage. The really cool thing about arcade mode, though, is the fact that you get some coin thrown your way in the middle of a match for almost any reason. You perform an air combo, you get some coin. You perform a Deth Trap, you get coins. You get 50 coins for every hit in a successful Fatality, so there's a possibility of 500 coins for a 10 hit fatality (That's probably the one thing that actually gives you a good reason to do a fatality other than boredom or curiosity). All this currency is added on top of what the stage is worth, which you receive regardless of what you do as long as you win. Even if you lose the match, all the coins you gained during the actual battle are kept, so you can earn 240 coins in a match, lose, and continue, you still get to keep the 240 coins. That's actually quite stupid. Your standard Practice mode is standard. Well, like in Deception, you fight against a dummy character to sharpen your skills (more like refresh your memory), and you can knock the dummy into the various Death Traps on the stages you've unlocked. Also like Deception, however, there aren't too many options to choose from. No where does it go in as much as even a latter 2D Capcom fighter, let alone the current 3D competitors like Tekken and Virtua Fighter, such as a recording feature or a feature that lets you infinitely fight against a cpu opponent at various difficulty settings. Once again, this is quite a bit of a disappointment, as it gives nobody but rookies a reason to go to this mode. Now when it comes to versus, all I have to say is it's exactly the same as the previous two, but there isn't an option for wagering coins anymore, which totally takes it down well more than one notch. Once again........AGAIN............wrong move, Midway. As for online play, it's the same as Deception, so don't bother.
Bottom line, this was definitely the perfect chance to try many new things, and they passed it up.
Now, when it comes to the fatality system.......seriously, don't even get me started on how much of a cop-out this is. Honestly, I think it was just a way for Boon and the rest to give themselves an excuse for not giving at least one fatality per character. The result is this generic looking, overly complicated "custom" fatality system. What would have made this a much more welcome addition to the series, considering it's a complete replacement as opposed to an alternative you can use to get more currency, is if everyone had their own exclusive ender incorporated into the system using the power they are most famous for (Sub-Zero's freeze, Scorpion's fire breath or spear, Kung Lao's Hat, Liu Kang's Dragon or Fire Ball, Kitana's fan or Kiss of Death). This would be done with the same button combination for everyone, for instance "Back, Back, Forward + Attack 4", just like the rest of the moves were. Something along that line, for a fact, would have given us so much more enjoyment. I could go on and on, but let's move on, shall we?
The only features in this game that top Deception are the huge cast of characters and all the stages, with the death-traps being the best in the series by far. I especially love the way they re-created classic MK3 stages like one of my favorites, the Sub-Way. Something I knew for a fact, though, that would top the one of the previous games, was the opening pre-rendered cinematic. Deception's topped Deadly Alliance's with ease, Shaolin Monks' topped Deception's like the cherry on a sundey. Armageddon's? It is by far the best opening sequence to any fighting game I've ever seen. If only the endings could've been this done like this. The two gameplay modes that stand out though, are the Konquest and Kreate-a-Fighter modes. This version of Konquest is the best thing to come out of Mortal Kombat as an extra mode since Chess and Puzzle Kombat. It has you starring Taven, brother of Daegon (both of whom make their way on the roster as playable characters) on a quest, which is more like a rat-race, if you will, to see who gets to and defeats Blaze first, fulfilling one of the two possible outcomes, prophesied by their mother, Delia. This mode plays much like MKSM, with the exception of a jump button being implemented for arial combat and easier mobility, which is all-encompassingly non-existant. Regardless, it's fluid, fast-paced, with no slowdown, and bearable load times, definitely topping the Konquest of Deception by a land slide.....NO.......an Avalanche!
As for the K-a-F, I'm having much fun with creating existent characters (Hulk, classic Reptile from MK 1, 2 and 3, etc.) as well as my own, sometimes wacky, but mostly serious characters. Also, feel free to name your hand-to-hand style and your weapon and give your character his or her very own biography, which will be read as their ending when having beaten Arcade mode. There is much to be found here, too bad you can't customize individual limbs sizes, you only have a choice of Small, Medium or Large body types. The Hulk I created wasn't the Marvel-Vs.-Capcom/Comic-Book Hulk, the biggest I could make him was the Lou Ferrigno-from-the1970's-live-action-television-show Hulk. Still, very cool. The only problem is the gameplay sucks so much that it makes this mode useless. I mostly just go to this mode to try to see what I can make, and never take these characters into the fight.
Motor Kombat? Umm, let me just leave it at this, for the sake of time and sanity. Think about what Mario Kart would be like if the gameplay was unresponsive and frustrating, and then lessen the character roster to 8 and the stage count to about 4 or 5 tracks. Add death traps. Nothing to be seen here, folks, sorry for the inconvenience, move along, move along.
The graphics are very impressive considering all the crap they crammed onto this disk. No step up from Deception (if anything, a slight, barely noticeable downgrade) but still good. The sound, like most of the animation used in the game, is recycled from both Deadly Alliance and Deception, but the soundtrack is as awesome as it should be, but as long as they keep Dan "Toasty" Forden, then they don't have anything to worry about. Some new dialogue for Konquest was recorded, but still the same old gibberish and weird grunts used when pulling off moves and getting hit. No even the Premium Edition is worth your money. Sure, it features 60+ minutes of video, and the arcade version of UMK3 but since they decided to put it all on the same disk as the game and not the bonus dvd, it suffers from some very game-breaking frame rate drops, which is weird.
I'm mad at Midway. They had the chance to do a much-needed overhaul and squandered it. Somethings were taken out for the sake of easier playability, some were at the expense of a lasting appeal and replay value. In the end, Mortal Kombat Armageddon is an Apocalyptic disappointment.