MK: Armageddon is the last game of the current generation. It’s too bad it goes out with a whimper rather than a bang.
Anyone who has been following the current Mortal Kombat storyline will remember that in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance the shocks began to roll in. Liu Kang and Shao Khan were taken down by the alliance of Quan Chi and Shang Tsung, Sub-Zero has a new female student who fights similar to him, there is now a new training mode called Konquest mode, in which you can learn how to control the new fighting system and now all the characters have multiple fighting styles allowing for a wide range of combo’s and versatility in the fights. There were also problems, the most glaring being the lack of stage fatalities as well as only one fatality per character, but in the end, Deadly Alliances was a very solid game. Deception followed this up by giving us yet another shock. The bad guys had won, defeating the good guys and nearly succeeding in raising their undead army. However, the introduction of the ancient Dragon King, Onaga, brought that celebration to a halt. Raiden, Quan Chi and Shang Tsung try to fight together to stop the monster, but are all taken out in the end. It seems as if the Dragon King is unstoppable. We are also introduced to Shujinko who, in the horrid Konquest mode of this game, is duped into wasting his life granting the Dragon King the power to shape the realms as he sees fit. Many further changes were wrought by this game; Raiden becoming a dark vigilante type protector, Liu Kang wandering about as a zombie, Shang Tsung and Quan Chi were dead and Scorpion was serving as Champion of the Elder Gods. While not the best MK game, it was still solid enough, with enough fatalities and stage fatalities to be a decent purchase for any who were fans of the franchise. Many fans were eagerly chomping at the bit to find out how the game truly ended? Which character endings would be the true ones? We had to wait to find out.
Which brings me to exactly where MK: A fails the hardest. As soon as you turn the game on, a very attractive cinema explains that there are too many powerful Kombatants in the realms and it’s threatening the very fabric of reality. This was forseen by the Elder Gods and a failsafe of sorts was enacted in the hopes that it would avert Armageddon. The storyline plays out over the new Konquest mode, but its lacking where it matters most. None of the characters are given bio’s to help explain who they are and what they are doing there. This leaves this game being a generic beat them up for newbies. Whose Striker? Whose this Chameleon dork? Goro, Kintaro and Motaro, who the heck? They explain nothing about these characters and it leaves the game feeling lifeless. Then the biggest flaw becomes apparent; They never explained what happened in the end of Mortal Kombat Deception! Shao Khan, Quan Chi and Shang Tsung are walking around without a problem but yet Liu Kang is still a zombie and Raiden is all evil. Reptile is fighting in the same game as Dragon King, forgetting the fact that Reptile was turned into the Dragon King at the end of Deadly Alliances. Smoke and Noob Saibot are no longer a tag team like they were in Deception and characters long thought dead (Kintaro, Motaro and Sheeva spring straight to mind) pop up without so much as a “hey how’s it going” to tell us whats going on. Sadly, the endings are just as devoid of anything relevant. They show your character doing a kata and a voice explains his ending. That’s it. To say nothing of the fact that most of the endings are mostly irrelevant to the characters in question. Monks become nearly godlike, special forces agents become cyborgs and others become what seems to be “illegal” gods who are hunted by the Elder Gods for not asking their permission before ascending. They reek of cop-outs, leaving things open and not explaining anything and are sub par even for the Mortal Kombat series.
Arcade mode is much like the last two entries in the series, although you will notice several differences fairly quickly. There are an ungodly number of characters to choose to play as and they almost all have their own moves and combo’s, there are a few who have the same style, but its kind of expected with how many fighters there are. The fights themselves are mostly as you would assume with a few new add ins, air combat, a ridiculous number of stage fatalities and Kreate-a-Fatality. Air combat is a rip off of the awesome air combo’s you could do in Shaolin Monks, but it is almost all the same moves for every character with a few animation differences for certain fighters. It also interferes with certain moves; for example, if you try to jump kick the enemy but they jump at the last second, you will do an odd little jab attack meant to start an air combo causing you to miss by a mile. Its annoying and it really defeats any enjoyment to be had from this “innovation” to the fighting system.
The stage fatalities are another thing that needs to be touched on. When they were removed from Deadly Alliances, many MK gamers cried foul and rightly so. The Pit has been a longstanding tradition and to not even have that was just depressing and it seriously marred this otherwise good game. Deception added in a healthy dose of these, but they were useable at any time, so if you were losing the fight, a quick knock off the ledge let you win the fight. They weren’t fatalities anymore, but more like ring outs from Soul Caliber or Virtua Fighter, but with lots of blood. MK: A does its best to use revamped versions of lots of the stages from previous MK games, they threw in a huge gob of stage fatalities. What this means is that in most stages there more stage fatalities than ever before, sometimes two per stage and four different ones in a one particular stage (it seems to be trying to mix the Pit from the first three games into one area). This can get very annoying very fast as all it takes is one well placed knock back attack from a dying foe and you’ve lost the round. And with the mini-boss / boss characters, like Moloch and Shao Khan, it will happen. A lot. It becomes more of a crutch of the fights in those stage as opposed to an added element.
Kreate-a-Fatality is this games biggest “innovation” but it is perhaps the biggest example of hand waving in this game. Rather than make actual fatalities for all the characters in the game, they let you choose an almost combo like way to kill your enemy. By inputting commands you can do generic things, such as break an arm, punch them in the gut, knock them to their knees and so on. You can do up to ten of these, but it doesn’t count as a fatality unless you do a finisher which consists of ripping heads off, breaking necks and ripping out spines. As you input more commands, your time frame to input the next is lesser, causing you to learn what moves you can and cant do with the time remaining. This sounds fine, but it kills the personal touch Mortal Kombat has been known for. What good are fatalities without Sub-Zero using freezing attacks to kill his foe or without Scorpion using his spear or his even more famous “Toasty!” flame attack. You will not see Kano rip out any hearts or Raiden blowing up heads with his lightning attacks. This was likely done to make the game more streamlined, as it must take a huge load of programmers not to have to program 50 or 100 different fatalities, but Mortal Kombat isn’t Mortal Kombat without theme based fatalities and its honestly not something that I think many gamers will be able to get over. As an added option for Fatalities (kind of like an alternate Brutalitity) this would have rocked, but as the only thing you get it falls flat on its face.
Konquest mode is, sadly enough, this games high point. This is good in that its an interesting diversion in which you can unlock many of the items in the now staple Krypt mode (an area you go to, where you can unlock characters, art and other extras with Koins you earn and find) and the story is interesting. This is bad in that the arcade mode should be the high point, but it really isn’t in this game. Konquest plays much like a watered down version of the last Mortal Kombat release, Shaolin Monks, with the exception being that its nowhere near as frantic or in depth. You have a punch, a kick, a block and grab attack plus a few special attacks. You will use these, repeatedly, to take out wave after wave of generic minions, occasionally being given a cool weapon to make the slaughter faster or using the odd background items to help you kill them, tossing them on spikes or into flames for example. When you encounter another famous Kombatant it will go to a traditional arcade style fighting battle although there are no fatalities.While it sounds boring or repetitive it is actually quite fun for one run through. There are a huge lot of relics to be obtained and getting them unlocks secret characters for arcade mode, however almost all of these are in plain sight and will allow you to easily unlock all the characters in one pass. This Konquest mode is a huge improvement but it is still not enough to hold this game up.
However, it should be noted that this game is definitely a Mortal Kombat fan-boy dream come true. Any of your favorite characters can be played in this game, with the exception of Khameleon from the N64 Mortal Kombat Trilogy. In addition, every character has between four to six special moves, two distinct fighting styles (usually a hand to hand and weapon style, although some have two weapon styles) and a plethora of combo’s. You will have a lot of fun playing through this if you can get past its flaws, especially since cult favorites like Stryker are back and more useful than ever before. To say nothing of how Kreate-a-Kharacter pushes this to the next level. You can build your own character from the ground up with an in-depth system that rivals most wrestling games create a character modes. The amount of ways you can dress up your character are amazing and will allow for some inventive combinations (my KAK is Ghost Rider, Yay!). However, like much else in this game, it’s a bittersweet victory. You can make some great characters, but certain ones, like Tarkatans, Baraka’s people, and the Shokan, Goro and Kintaro’s people can only be partially done. Who wants to play a Tarkatan who cant use his blades as attacks, to say nothing of who really wants to play as the two armed reject of the four armed Shokan race? Youre only allowed two weapons to chose from, sword or axe variations and the special moves leave a lot to be desired, not even being half of the moves found in the game. Truly sad as this mode could have made the game.
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon will find its fan base regardless of whatever anyone has to say. The rabid fans will pick up this game and find plenty of things to like about it, which is good for them. There is fun to be had here, although its nowhere near as much fun as this game could have been. Deadly Alliance and Deception are far better than this game, which is kind of sad as the developers should have learned enough from those two games to make this one a real winner. MK: A is just not a solid enough game experience to merit buying it, especially as I got bored of it when I had rented it. I would have hoped that the final chapter of Mortal Kombat as we know it would have been treated so much better than it was, but as it is, I really cant recommend this game to any but the most die hard fans.
Score: 4/10