Ever since it's revitalization in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, this entry doesn't stray to far with new additions.
Graphics:
They aren't the best to look at but they'll do. It doesn't make a huge jump from the last entry of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. The character models are the same, the leveling details are blah and so far.... the only good thing was the fatalities. Though not as cheesy or funny that made UMK3 a stand out, it's well worth watching. Putting aside the fighting part of the game, the graphics are at it's worse in the 3rd person portion of the game called "Konquest" where you control a man set out on a quest to save the world. Konquest's graphics are so bad that a Playstation could handle this with ease! But on the PS2, the game suffered from slowdowns, you won't see what's in front of you unless it's 10 feet away from you! The characters are blocky... Lego blocky.
Sound:
If you played Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance to hell, you can tell that the sound effects are recycled to hell. The gruntings, the yellings, the groanings and a near everything is the same sounds from before. So far the voice acting is sub-par and funny to listen to. The sound doesn't really sound so great at all let alone using it for surrond sound. It's practically a waste of electricity to do that. Seriously... it is... just don't do it.
Gameplay:
When you see Mortal Kombat written all over a game... you expect it's only a fighting game nothing more. Think again, bubs, MK:D came into the ring with 3 additional games to up the replay value. The biggest addition is "Konquest" which I explained inthe graphics section. One of the addition that made it into the game was, Chess Kombat, which is like chess but has quite a twist to it. For example, if you want your knight to take a pawn, you'll have to take the square only if you defeat it in Mortal Kombat. If the Knight wins, then he takes the square but if the pawn wins, then no move is made. One last addition is Puzzle Fighter, remember Street Fighter's puzzle combat? It's EXACTLY the same but it has it's own Mortal Kombat taste to it. If you don't know what the Puzzle Combat is, I'll explain, it's like Tetris but instead of filling in the holes, your trying to align colors. If you align the same color 3 times, you'll clear that color or more if the same color is touching it. The additions are healthy for the game to break it from the monotomous gameplay that haunts the fighting genre.
Controls:
Whilst the controls have improved from Deadly Alliance, it still feels clunky at times. The combos are still hard to pull off and take much patience and training. Konquest however... thats another story... it's horrid. I don't want to go off explaining it... please don't make me. Please, don't!
A.I.
It's... so and so. The opponents puts up a really tough fight and Onaga is really cheap. This game requires you NOT to button-mash shince it won't save your sorry little behind because it requires thinking and strategy or you'll get beaten to a bloody pulp or a headless body. We don't want that now do we?
Overall:
The game is average but not great. The additional gameplay makes up for it's lackluster fighting but doesn't take the game to the greatness level. If your a HARDCORE MK fan, get it. But if your a newbie, don't get it.