Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

For some reason, companies always try their best to piece together a feasible storyline for beat-'em ups. Why this is is beyond me, as just how many people buy these types of titles for a good story? Nope, we simply want some good old fashioned fighting. But anyway, for the minority here's the spiel: The fate of Earth Realm once again lies in the hands of another tournament, therefore battle must once more commence between the variety of humans, sorcerers, demi-gods and other beings that have entered. A wide range of regular and extra-ordinary special moves are at hand for the one-on-one, three-round duels. But this time there is a new twist...

 

The first major change that should be noted is the transition into the full three dimensions, and Midway seems to have managed to make the move a relatively smooth one. Perhaps when compared to the sublime Soul Calibur, MK: DA may come off worse due to the characters sometimes appearing clumsy in their movement, but the responsiveness and overall flow of the action is more than adequate. Animation on the whole is also of a 'more than decent' quality, with little touches like being able to bruise combatants' faces being a nice inclusion. Even though the fighters' appearances are actually rather bland, their motion-captured moves and complicated combos are very striking. A truly pleasing effort!

 

The 'Musik of Mortal Kombat' has never been extremely memorable...sorry, scratch that. The music of the MK series has always been utterly forgettable, simple as that. Whereas Capcom has always at least attempted to produce interesting background tunes in its Street Fighter series, Midway either lack the ability to do so, or perhaps believe that the games can solely rely on gruesome voice-overs and blood-curdling sound effects to provide the utmost atmosphere. Whatever the case, whilst the speech-clips and various *thuds* and *squelches* are satisfactory, something more would have been greatly appreciated.

 

The fighting system of old has been given a bit of spring clean