Sunday, October 24

Deceived


"Baraka says, PLAY MORTAL KOMBAT, FOOLISH HUMANS!!!"

I just got myself a copy of the latest blood-fest from Midway, Mortal Kombat Deception for the Xbox. It's going to keep me occupied until Dead or Alive Ultimate arrives within the next couple of weeks.

The story of the game continues the events in the last game, Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance. When every other warrior has fallen in battle, Raiden the Thunder God confronts the two fiendish sorcerers Quan Chi and Shang Tsung himself. There is a terrific battle (shown quite spectacularly in Deception's opening cinema), but ultimately not even Earth's greatest ally can defeat the two villains. It seems that the Deadly Alliance has triumphed. However, right after they win, Quan Chi and Shang Tsung have a falling out, and start fighting among themselves.
The ruckus is suddenly joined by an ominous third party, with the arrival of the monstrous Dragon King, Onaga. Awakened by the sorcerers' machinations, Onaga has returned to claim his place as the ruler of Outworld. To stop the beast, all three former enemies rise up and join forces to fight Onaga. But it is all in vain as the Dragon King seems invincible. Raiden, in a last ditch effort to stop the monster, sacrifices himself in a massive explosion that destroys the entire fortress where they are all standing. But this final effort too is in vain.
Onaga lives, and now rules Outworld from his dark temple. It is only a matter of time before he extends his influence to the other realms. The scattered fighters of Mortal Kombat, both heroic and villainous, must battle and face Onaga in this latest, and most crucial fight.

Deception's roster of fighters is half-available at startup; you'll have to work at unlocking the majority of combatants through gameplay. The lineup includes a lot of veterans, and several new faces (none of which really stand out). Most of the characters seem to have gotten a bit of a design makeover, with intricate costumes and detailed character models. Like DOA, the many arenas often have multiple levels to which fighters can get thrown into. Unlike Dead or Alive though, there are also Death Traps which can end a round immediately once a fighter is thrown into them and crushed or burned. However, oddly enough, while it ends a round, it does not necessarily end a fight (EH?)- if a fighter gets impaled in the first round, he or she will still fight in the second round. ODD.
Aside from the regular fighting modes, there are three new modes of play- Chess Kombat is an Archon-like board game which mixes a bit of strategy with rounds of MK fighting. Puzzle Kombat is a Tetris clone with SD versions of the fighters, and Konquest Mode puts you in the shoes of Shujinko, a young fighter who will grow up to become a powerful martial artist. It's in Konquest that most of the game's secrets and unlockables are found (unfortunately). As before, secrets are either found or bought or unlocked in the Game's Krypt, mixed in with tons of fluff like production photos, video files, designs and other crap.

But even all the crap and extras can't help a clunky gaming engine. ULTIMATELY, MKD is all about dial-a-combo gameplay which basically favors you using the longest and best combo over and over, grotesque characters and gratuitous blood and gore (which is amazingly still being hyped up after all this time) and new minigames which really are more diversions than anything else. Not as clunky as the previous game- just more of the same with a couple of more waffle to pad things out. Bottom-line, if you liked the earlier Deadly Alliance, you'll probably go ga-ga over this. Otherwise, it's just more of the same.

I'll probably play through MKD to unlock the available fighters, but I'm pretty sure I'll set it aside once Ultimate arrives. For now though, it's playable but really not my bag. Give me Streetfighter, DOA, Tekken or Virtua Fighter anyday.

Mortal Kombat Deception is available for Xbox and PS2. A Gamecube version is scheduled for release early next year.

No comments: