Mortal Kombat: Deception Hands-On

The night before the official opening of E3 2004, Midway threw a world premiere party to debut Mortal Kombat: Deception to selected E3 attendees. Both the Xbox and PlayStation 2 versions were on display and featured a smattering of playable characters, as well as the chess, puzzle, and conquest modes.

One of the first things a Mortal Kombat fan will notice when playing MK: Deception is that the fighting system, while sticking close to the style-based system introduced in Deadly Alliance, has seen some changes that make the new game feel a little more like the classic 2D entries in the series. The first big addition is that uppercuts are back. The uppercut was the great equalizer in most of the previous Mortal Kombat games, fast enough to catch airborne opponents and powerful enough to turn the tide of a match. Here in Deception, they look like they'll be used for much the same purpose. Secondly, and slightly harder to notice, is that the game's combo system offers more opportunities to pop up and juggle your opponent. A big part of Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II was the ability to really experiment with juggles and try to fashion your own custom combos. Both of these additions seem pretty strong and definitely make the game feel quite a bit different from Deadly Alliance.

The version of Mortal Kombat: Deception that will be shown at E3 will contain 12 characters--essentially half of the game's main roster. Currently, playable characters include Scorpion, Baraka, Mileena, Sub-Zero, Sindel, Bo Rai Cho, Nightwolf, Hotaro, Ermac, Li Mei, Ashrah, and Kenshi. Twelve empty character slots remain on the kombat mode's character select screen. Some of these fighters--Jax, for example--have already been revealed. But some are still secret. On top of that, the roster hasn't currently been nailed down, and there's at least one slot yet to be filled. The team is currently weighing its options and considering either bringing back a classic character or developing an all-new character.

Many characters from Deadly Alliance retain a lot of their moves, but moves and styles have been altered across the board. New special moves have also been added, and the additional specials make the special moves feel somewhat more important here than they felt in Deception. Scorpion has regained the ability to teleport punch, which looks great. Ermac has the teleport slam that he used in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3--and it's even executed in a similar fashion. Baraka can shoot projectiles off of his blade, as well as execute a dual-blade lunge attack. Nightwolf's shoulder charge is intact, as is his arrow projectile. There are also some pretty interesting new specials. Hotaro has a projectile that aims to hit the ground underneath his opponent, popping the victim up into the air and toward Hotaro, much like Cyrax's bombs from MK3. Ermac has a levitation move that sends him up into the air. From there, you have a couple of different options. Pressing toward your opponent will execute a dive kick. Pressing down will execute a ground-pounding fall that damages standing opponents.

Mortal Kombat has always had some dangerous backgrounds, but Deception definitely takes this aspect of the game much more seriously. As has been announced previously, some backgrounds have some seriously dangerous sections--ones that can end the round immediately, regardless of how much life is on your meter. The game's backgrounds also contain multiple fighting areas, sort of like how Mortal Kombat 3 let you uppercut an opponent from one background to another, or how Dead or Alive lets you knock opponents off of cliffs or balconies, dropping them down to another arena below. One background, the Sky Temple, lets you continue fighting after knocking an opponent through a railing that surrounds the roof of the temple. But if either player gets knocked off that lower stage, the next drop is a lot longer--the falling player essentially explodes upon contact with the ground.

Speaking of exploding fighters, Mortal Kombat wouldn't be Mortal Kombat without a series of insanely over-the-top fatalities. Only a handful have been revealed at this time, but they look pretty awesome. The sequence that stuck out the most was one of Sub-Zero's fatalities. It starts out as you'd expect--Sub-Zero grabs his victim's head and yanks off his head, and the spine comes along with it. He then jumps back and freezes the still-standing headless body. And in a gruesome finale, Sub-Zero tosses the head at the frozen body, causing it to shatter into an icy, bloody mess. Most impressive.

Mortal Kombat: Deception is shaping up to be both a worthy sequel to Deadly Alliance as well as one of the most content-filled fighting games ever made. Deception is coming to the Xbox and PlayStation 2--complete with online play on both platforms--this October.