3rd Times a Charm!

User Rating: 7.7 | Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks PS2
If your an MK follower (like myself), you'd know that Midways' first 2 attemps at a MK Action Adventur were far from great. The mediocre Sub-Zero Mythologies, or the absolutely awful Jax: Special Forces. You may be wondering how bad IS Special Forces? Well GameSpot gave it 2.1!
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Luckily for Midway, "3rd time a charm". This is overall a very good game, though (sadly) is dull and won't have too many hours of gameplay.

The Graphics
The graphics are very good, though not groundbreaking. Cutsceens are pretty good, and the Fatallity vidoes are awesome.

The Controls
The controls are simple yet fun,with a button to jump, a button to Melee. And you hold down on R1 and press any of the 4key buttons to do a projectile/special attack. And you learn special moves as you go on, such as Long Jump, Double Jump, and Wall Climb.

When you choose to start a new game, you can have 1player or a Ko-Op. 1player is fun to play, and stuff, but Ko-Op is definitly the best mode in the game. It's really fun to play with a friend. Though it can be tricky, expecially with the bad camera angles.

Even though the game takes place around the time of Mortal Kombat ll (which is considered the best Mk game ever) the story isn't the best. Some things are so obvious, and you can see them coming a mile away. There are even some plotholes with the story. And the voiceovers are just terrible.

The Characters
The characters you can use in Story Mode are Lui Kang and Kung Lao, with 2 unlockable. And theres a VS mode whic has like 8 characters. Sadly, VS mode is 2players only, so it's easy to tell, Shaolin Monks was made to be a multiplayer game-no, theres no online feature, don't even ask.

The Story
The Story mode will take you anywhere from 4-12 hours, depending on your skill. Took me around 8.5 hours with Ko-Op. And the story is the same for all 4 characters, which is dissapointing. So if you beat the game once, you may not to try it again.

Heres another upside however, this game has the most awesome Boss Battles. MK has always been known for having insanely hard Boss Battles in the days of MK1 and 2. This game has very fun Boss Battles. Some Boss' are Reptile. Baraka, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Kitani, Shang Tsung, Oni Warlord, Goro, Kintaro, and the final boss battle is Shao Kahn (surpise surprise). Shao Kahn is a HUGE pain in the a**, I hate this boss. its very hard. you need to be very cheap against him.

Each level in this game is a stage in Mkll, thats a plus. The game is also environmentalally interactive, like in the Living Forest when you toss zombies at the trees and the trees eat them.

The Extras
The game has alot of unlockabkes in Kontent mode. you unlock stuff by finding secrets in story mode. You can unlock concept art, arean and character pics, but the best is a full version of MKll. But only one problem, this version of MKll I find is EXTREMELY difficult, much harder than the SNES or Arcade version. I have troubles getting part the first guy. This MKll will make you want to toss your PS2 or XBOX out the window.

The Final Say
So, as you can see, I had alot of negative and positive things to say about this game. So, how do you know if this game is "for you". Simple, if your a hardcore Mortal Kombat fan, get this game. If your not an MK fan, this game won't appeal to you. This game will appeal to MK fans only.