I remember when I was in grade school and one of my friends told me about some game that had photo-realistic people ripping each other’s spines out. I was officially exposed to Mortal Kombat and holy shit I couldn’t believe what I saw. Sub-Zero ripping a guy’s SPINE out of his body, Kano ripping someone’s heart out (alot of ripping goes on here apparently) and of course, Scorpion’s infamous spear to the throat attack and the unmistakable “COME HERE!!” line. After several mediocre outings of MK3 and 4, Midway attempts to resurrect the MK series with Deadly Alliance.
Ever since MK1, this series has always concentrated more on the blatant over-the-top nature of the fighting moves and the fatalities. In this edition, MK finds itself playing catch-up with titles such as Virtua Fighter 4 and Tekken 4. Each character now has two different fighting styles to choose from as well as the use of an individual weapon. While it’s not difficult to switch between styles, this all adds up to a HELL of alot of button combos to remember. I understand that most of you chimps are happy with simply beating the hell out of the other person which is fine. However, to get any really cool looking strings of moves off, you’ve got to remember more keystrokes than if you were hacking into the fucking NASA mainframe.
In any fighting game the most important thing is BALANCE between the characters. While some may be slow, and some may be fast, they’ve got to be basically equal as far as strength and abilities go. Unfortunately, in MK:DA the player can easily find several VERY exploitable moves on a few characters.
There more than a few good points, though. Visuals ROCK and if you’re a fan of gore you’re in for a fucking treat. Blood is just EVERYWHERE and the more damage they take the more the characters bleed. The fact that there’s only one fatality per character is kind of a let down.
While it has its good points, I’d suggest renting Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance before buying it but, If you’re a hardcore fan of fighting games, definitely give it a shot.
