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Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks - PlayStation 2, Xbox (2005) |
Mortal Kombat's previous attempts to break out of its conventional one-on-one fighting roots have been… if there's a more condescending way to say "subpar," that'd be the best adjective. Mythologies had an interesting premise, but it was ultimately hampered by unfair difficulty complimented by too many pitfalls mixed with one of the worst control schemes in game history. Special Forces turned out even worse, churning out a horribly bland product that nobody would guess had anything to do with Mortal Kombat just by glancing at it. Not even MK4 was as bad as these two Shokan-sized mistakes, but admittedly it wasn't much better, either. After Special Forces, the series was starting to lose touch with its original spirit by introducing lame characters and terrible plotlines that revolved around said characters, particularly Deception's dreadful quest mode starring some Shaw Brothers reject calling himself the hero. MK did truly suffer through the dark ages throughout the zeroes, but there was one fairly bright spot right in the middle of it with Shaolin Monks, Midway's third attempt at an MK action game. Considering their prior track record with beat-em-ups, no one really assumed much out of Shaolin Monks when it was first released, but it turned out to be a surprisingly fine effort. It proved that not only could a good MK action game could be made, but it also brought back some of that old-school charm evocative of the series' early games. Said charm is heavily based on the game's semi-canonical place as an interquel taking place right at the end of the first Mortal Kombat with the events leading up to MK2. The game actually opens with a badass cutscene that depicts a battle royale placed at the end of the first tournament, with all the good guys (Raiden, Liu Kang, Sonya, Johnny Cage, and Sub-Zero) against the ungood guys (Scorpion, Kano, Reptile, Baraka, and Shang Tsung), when Kung Lao jumps in (disguised as a tournament guard) and Liu gives the old wizard a severe beating, but Goro's intervention allows Shang Tsung to create a portal and escape. The floor crumbles and some of the heroes get out, but Liu Kang and Kung Lao fall through and get separated from everyone else. It's a real cool intro that harks back to the simple days of Mortal Kombat before urban invasion and zombie heroes were a thing. As the title suggests, the main focus is on the Shaolin Monks, Liu Kang and Kung Lao. While they've never quite been up to the popularity status of Scorpion and Sub-Zero, the Monks are two of the series' most famed and important characters, and they're certainly a more appropriate choice to star in their own buddy action game than other potential combinations (Noob Saibot and Rain? Sindel and Sheeva? Kobra and Kira?! Sorry for that last one). There are plenty of cutscenes, though the plot itself is pretty straightforward, where the duo has to journey into Outworld in order to put a stop to Shang Tsung's evil schemes and work their way up to besting Shao Kahn. There isn't much to say about the story, but the cutscenes are skippable in case you'd prefer to get right to brawling. Before the action, you get to pick whether you control Liu Kang, Kung Lao, or even team up with a friend for both to wreak simultaneous carnage! The game starts with them surviving their fall into Goro's Lair and Raiden telling them to hightail it to Wu Shi Academy. Not too long after, they are accosted by ugly Outworld denizens who want to beat the stuffing out of them, and you're introduced to combat right off the bat. You can either smack then with quick attacks, pop them with a launching attack, knock them down with a power attack, or shrug off surrounding enemies by throwing them. On top of the standard attacks, the Monks' trademark special moves carry over to their repertoire. Holding the right shoulder button and pressing one of the attacks releases one of their specials; Liu Kang has his fireball, flying kick, and uppercut (without the cartwheel at the start), and Kung Lao has his hat toss, teleport, and cyclone spin. All the special attacks are useful in their own ways, but they're powered by a small blue bar beneath your life meter that drains with use, automatically recharging during non-use. You'll also earn new abilities for traversing the environment as you play, like a long jump, or the Fist of Ruin, which lets you destroy certain stone structures. You'll have to do the occasional bit of backtracking and to open up secret areas, but not nearly as much as your average Metroidvania. You'll also come across secret areas containing stuff like concept art and secret areas, some of which can only be accessed with two players. Of course, Liu Kang and Kung Lao's signatures even include their finishing moves; after all, what's a Mortal Kombat game without Fatalities? MK vs DC Universe, but that's neither here nor there. Unnecessary answers to rhetorical questions aside, Shaolin Monks has even managed to wedge Fatalities into its formula thanks to that big red orb to the left of your life and dash meter that fills up with blood as you whomp on enemies. If the orb fills up, you can initiate a stunning strike on an enemy and cause the good old "FINISH HIM!" mantra to pop up, prompting the input of a combination that consists of four directions and a button. Liu gets eight and Kung gets nine in total, some of which are old classics (Liu's Dragon chomp and Kung's vertical bisection hat slice) and some fresh new finishers, like Liu brutally breaking most limbs before going for the neck snap, and Kung pulling a cute rabbit out of his hat in allusion to his Friendship from Mortal Kombat 2, only to hilariously beat his opponent to death with it. That's probably the goofiest out of the lot, but suffice it to say that these are amongst the best life-enders since MK2. But wait, it gets better! At some point in the game, you gain a second blood tank to store your Fatality energy. If you max out both tanks, you can perform the all-new "Multality," an area-sweeping attack that obliterates every enemy in the vicinity. Liu and Kung have two each and they can be useful, under the caveat that both tanks drain for using them. Even better is when you gain three tanks later in the game and you activate the "Brutality" mode. Akin to Dante's "Devil Trigger" from Devil May Cry, activating Brutality superpowers your characters and makes them liquefy any mook they hit. Liu Kang is imbued in fire as he spits out infinite fireballs and viciously beats down enemies, while Kung Lao takes his hat in hand and uses it for melee, splitting bad guys apart at the sinews with the tap of a button. Finishing off singular enemies with Fatalities nets you bonus experience, though Multalities and Brutalities get you no extra points. However, the big way to rack up experience points is to keep the damage flow rolling and keep hitting enemies to extend your combo count while also killing them. Build up your combo count high enough and you might even hear a "Toasty!" - the signal for you to hit the Start button and earn yourself some extra XP. Depending on how many enemies you destroy while keeping the combo alive, you can gain quick experience, which then can be spent on enhancing your special moves and adding new combos to your repertoire. The experience system is pretty light compared to other games that reward your carnage with more moves or weapons, and you can actually max out your moveset before you even hit the game's halfway mark. It's disappointing that there's not too much you can ultimately get with your points, but at least you're practically guaranteed to have all you need to pummel Outworld's goons well before the game's end.
Said goons come in a fair variety of Outworld's denizens, starting out with basic Oni but quickly moving up to trained Tarkatan warriors. Yup, you face soldiers from Baraka's race, and they even liberally use familiar blade spark projectiles. Other fodder includes slow-but-plentiful corpses and skeletons, different types of Demons (with the Generals being particularly rough), and rival mercenaries from the Black and Red Dragon clans, who start out fighting each other before they focus on you. Two popular background characters even make their way in as somewhat infrequent enemies: The Mask Guards (from MK1's courtyard) and the Shadow Priests (from the Tower and the Portal in MK2). This is a decent variety of otherworldly thugs to beat upon, though perhaps the Tarkatans are a little bit overused. It's still neat to observe the evil denizens of Outworld, considering the interesting atmosphere MK2 created for the realm many years ago. It is clear Shaolin Monks relies a fair deal on its nostalgia factor for entertainment as indicated by the locations you visit, which includes almost every arena from Mortal Kombat 2 in some form and even a few areas from the first game. Heck, you start out in Goro's Lair (still complete with those ominous staring eyes) and transition to The Pit, before you move to the Wu Shi Academy which contains the Warrior's Shrine. Everything else from that point on is familiar from MK2, with The Portal acting as a nexus to other familiar locations, including the Living Forest, the Wasteland, and even the Dead Pool. The environments themselves are full of deadly hazards you can either knock or throw enemies into, and at several points, you are even required to hurl your enemies into some nearby catapult or spike wheel to clear a path or unlock a door. The game's puzzles don't really get much more complex than this, though in some situations the targeting when you're attempting to throw in a specific direction can be spotty. However, it is admittedly cool to be able to use the environment to your advantage like a classic MK stage Fatality, and it interjects a bit more variety into what would otherwise be a standard "beat the snot out of multiple enemies" formula. Also there to spice up that formula are numerous boss battles, often the most challenging part of any brawler. The boss fights are mostly against familiar MK kombatants, and much of their classic moves are also intact. You can expect to engage in a trio battle between Kitana, Mileena, and Jade, a swampy rumble against Reptile, a long-range duel on Baraka, a frosty tussle against Sub-Zero before he realizes you're not his enemy, a brutal battle against Goro, and an incredibly persistent Scorpion who doesn't die when you expect him to. These fights take place in the same engine you fight the regular enemies in, which means that even the regular fighters put up much more of a fight than they did in the fighting games. Non-familiar enemies include the first boss fight against the Oni Warlord, the Orochi Hellbeast which you fight twice, and a really heinous platforming segment while being dogged by Reptile's giant pet snake, all of which actually fit pretty well alongside the familiar battles. Akin to MK2, the three final battles are Shang Tsung, Kintaro, and Shao Kahn. But unlike MK2, the big SK whips out his warhammer and becomes an incredibly evil final boss, almost as much as he was in the old days. Optionally, you can fight Kano before the last battle with Jax assisting you, and a hidden Ermac even awaits you if you know where to look. These bosses are all quite fun and challenging, and you even get to perform special custom Fatalities after draining their lifebar. Be careful, though, because they won't be afraid to pull one off on you, either. Absolutely no one from the first two MK games is left out of the loop, and Noob Saibot even shows up for a brief cameo even if he doesn't really do much. Even Kabal, arguably the best new character in MK3, shows up for a pre-mask appearance. So there's a lot of old-school Mortal Kombat love abound in Shaolin Monks, including Midway's penchant for cramming the game full of secrets and easter eggs. The overall map structure is non-linear and you can go back to almost any area you want, save for Goro's Lair and The Pit at the beginning. This accords to the huge amount of secrets hidden in every cranny of every area. Seriously, each section has at least one secret yin-yang that, if grabbed, unlocks a secret piece of concept or stage art. You'll have to jump up to ledges that might not be immediately visible on-camera, or you may have to toss enemies through breakable walls. Some secret tokens can only be accessed if you are playing in co-op mode, which can be admittedly annoying, but only if you're a 100% completionist without a reliable player two. Still, buddy or no buddy, there's a lot of bonuses to find if you look high and low, like the aforementioned battle against Ermac and even an appearance from the elusive Smoke, who tasks you with special missions that lead to a bodacious bonus: The original Mortal Kombat II! Its difficulty is still as brutal as ever, but it's cool to have around for those who are either nostalgic or missed out on it in the nineties. Perhaps the most prominent unlockable is a certain duo of former palette swaps who are even more popular than the Shaolin Monks themselves. While Liu Kang and Kung Lao are the mains, it wouldn't be Mortal Kombat if Scorpion and Sub-Zero weren't somehow playable. If you beat the game with Liu, you get to play as Scorpion in the main game, and Kung Lao nets you Sub-Zero. They come with their own familiar special moves like Scorpy's teleport punch and Subbie's ground freeze, though their normal attacks are somewhat lazily borrowed from the monks, and they have much fewer Fatalities than the main heroes to boot. Still, it's a neat bonus that adds further replayability to the main quest, though it is quite goofy to see the ninjas reskinned over the monks in all the cutscenes. It gets especially silly when you see Sub-Zero make jokes about Kitana, to which Scorpion will angrily counter "She's not my girlfriend!" If you ever get tired of tearing up Tarkatans and you have a second player along, there are even more fighters you can choose in the game's versus mode. In this mode, you naturally get to pick Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Scorpion, and Sub-Zero, but you also get to select four more familiar faces not normally playable in the main game: Johnny Cage, Reptile, Kitana, and Baraka. These characters all have their familiar moves and Fatalities, and Johnny actually gets an all-new one that takes his infamous groin punch attack to ridiculous levels. It's actually quite fun to play against other fighters on the Shaolin Monks engine, even if it's not as deep or tight as a conventional one-on-one fighter. However, you'll have to unlock most of the fighters in the main mode, and its presence may make one wonder why the four exclusive characters aren't playable on the campaign. Regardless, it's still a neat extra, and what's even neater is the presence of the original Mortal Kombat 2 as another campaign unlockable, awarded to you if you finish Smoke's five secret missions. Shaolin Monks could have been the best beat-em-up of 2005 were it not for the release of God of War a few months later. Granted, Shaolin Monks is more like a straight old-school brawler and God of War has a heavier emphasis on its puzzle and platforming elements, but both games are ultimately similar by virtue of involving multiple ways to brutally obliterate mobs of enemies. Shaolin Monks didn't quite get as much exposure to the public as God of War did, with the Greek choleric going on to sell over three million copies and Shaolin Monks not even reaching up to one million, which is quite a shame. Sure, it's not quite as polished as Kratos's mythological killfest, and it does have its fair share of foibles like the insubstantial experience system, the annoyance of trying to specifically throw enemies into something, and a few segments which really drag on like a droll zombie boat ride in the Wasteland. It's funny, really, considering how much inspiration God of War itself takes from Mortal Kombat. (A supernatural warrior using supernatural abilities and brutal finishing moves on his enemies? Boy, wouldn't it be crazy if Kratos was in a Mortal Kombat game? Like that would ever happen.) Yet for all of its faults, Shaolin Monks is still a danged fun game and, for its time, the best thing to have been produced under the ailing Mortal Kombat name in years. It arguably stands out above the actual MK fighting games of the 2000's and also doubles as a solid entry in the nearly-dead genre of beat-em-ups. Around this time, we saw such other "gems" as Final Fight: Streetwise, which was not bad on its own but dubious as a Final Fight revival, and Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance, which was just bland all around. There was also the fantastic God Hand and the underrated Urban Reign, but they didn't quite have as much public push. Shaolin Monks did not sell as well as it could have, perhaps due to MK being thought of at that time as a fading relic whose cheese-and-gore appeal was wearing thin. It's too bad it was relatively refused in the public eye, as it was the last unironically venerable MK product to be made before Midway's eventual collapse. After Shaolin Monks, MK's status would take a turn for the even worse, but at least this served as an enjoyable reprise for the series' heyday. |
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox) |
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Mortal Kombat Armageddon - PlayStation 2, Xbox, Wii (2006) |
As new systems like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 appeared, developers were slowly starting to move away from the systems of the current generation and onto the next. Before Midway moved on, however, they made one final game for the PS2 and Xbox generation. What they promised was that this would be the final game with the MK kombatants as we knew them, and the next game would start off with an entirely brand new cast. Some people, in fact, took this as the news this would be the final Mortal Kombat entirely. While neither of these ended up happening, this does feel like sort of a big farewell to the series. It's not, but that doesn't mean it's not a shame it's not a very good one. The Elder Gods have a problem. The kombatants have gotten so powerful and so numerous that their fights are slowly beginning to wear out the fabric of reality. Which you would sort of expect to happen when you have fighters who can decapitate people with one punch. Not only that, but the fact that the warriors of light and darkness are having a huge, all out war isn't helping with that at all. And so, the Elder Gods cause a huge pyramid to rise out of the ground, with all the fighters running toward it to see what's at the top. It's Blaze, given power by the Elder Gods to kill off as many kombatants as possible to prevent the end of the universe. As you can imagine by the title, a whole lot of people are going to die, and this time around, not everybody is going to come back. Shed a tear for poor, poor Mokap. Just like Trilogy before it, Armageddon is another "Dream Match" style game. Every character who's been playable in the fighting games so far is back here, which means that there's an insane 64 total playable characters. Sareena? She's here. Hsu Hao? Yes, sadly. Meat? Sure, why not. You can even be Motaro, if you don't mind the fact he's lost two of his legs. Even the characters who were previously dead have returned for pretty much no reason, just so they can make another appearance and end up dying again. And with a new Konquest mode comes a new character to join all the returning cast, and this time around, he comes with his own evil counterpart! The fighting mechanics have been revised once more since Deception. Since there's more than 60 characters, they all only have one hand to hand style and one weapon each. Honestly, the exclusion of a second hand to hand style really only helps the game feel smoother, since you don't have to memorize three entire lists of moves and combos. On the other hand, though, it does result in less move variety. The chain combos have been shortened ever more since Deception, so that they're only reach up to three or four hits each. There have been a few minor changes to the combat engine, too. When you get knocked down, you now have a few options: You can either delay getting up, or you can do a quick kick or an uppercut as you get off of the ground, like in pretty much every other popular 3D fighting game. Not a huge gameplay difference, but it's a decent way to pull a surprise attack on your opponents. There's also a new 'parry' move, done by hitting back and the block button together. If you can manage to properly time it to an opponent's attack, you'll knock them off balance for a chance to counterattack. The timing on these isn't nearly as strict as say, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, and unlike Combo Breakers, you're free to parry all you want. They don't work against special moves, however, so watch out. There's also a new feature where you can do combos in the air, either by jumping into an already airbound opponent or popping them into the air and jumping after them, Marvel vs Capcom style. Since you're still limited to the chain combos you can do in the air, however, it doesn't feel as nearly as smooth as Marvel vs Capcom. The problem with a game that has more than 60 characters is that they tend to feel really, really samey. This was an issue with nearly all of the MK games in the past, but it's even worse here. Most of the fighters tend to share nearly exactly the same animations and more than a few of the moves. The bright side is that some of the characters have gotten a few extra moves, so Hsu Hao is no longer stuck with two special moves like he was in Deadly Alliance. Kira, however, is still generally gimped, especially now that the characters she stole her moves from are in the same game as her. Some of the older characters have also gotten new outfits, including Stryker, who wears a futuristic looking SWAT outfit into kombat. The stages keep the extra interactivity they got in Deception, including multiple tiers, stage hazards, and death traps. Most of the stages are 3D versions of levels from the classic games, including the Bell Tower, Goro's Lair, and the Subway. There's also a few new stages, including Sektor's new warship. There's also a stage set in Hell, which is basically an infinite series of platforms that you and your opponent can knock each other onto. There's still no way to set death traps for the winning round only. Even the laziest characters at least had their own Fatalities to set them apart from each other in the earlier games, but in Armageddon, they don't even do that. For whatever reason, probably due to deadlines, nobody has any character specific Fatalities, at all. Instead, there's a strange new 'Kreate-A-Fatality' gimmick that makes you string together moves to finish off your opponent. Once your opponent is dizzy, you have a limited time to put in an input, which is usually two directions and a button press. You only have a limited amount of time to do each move, and with each subsequent move you get less time. What you're supposed to do is get in as many moves as you can before performing a finisher to end the Fatality. The chain moves include things like pulling organs out of your opponents, tearing their arms out and whacking them with them, or kicking them in the nuts. You're also able to put your opponent in different positions, which opens up even more moves. Boss class characters and characters with swords also get some moves only they can perform, but that's pretty much all you get when it comes to unique moves. You can have up to 11 steps in your Fatality before you end it, but oddly enough, if you don't actually do one of your finisher moves, it doesn't actually count as a Fatality. Even if you've ripped your opponents heart, brain, and arms out, which most people would consider pretty fatal.
At the end of the arcade mode, you fight Blaze, who's actually pretty easy to take down. He is, however, a little tougher than Onaga, since you can't just walk around and shatter things that stun him. He even blows up in the exact same way as Onaga. For an ending, you get to watch your fighter do a kata on top of the pyramid, accompanied by some text and narration. This is all you get for every character, even the nice still images from previous games are gone. Most of the endings for the unpopular characters involve them dying, which, since they're unpopular, is all right. There's a new mode that lets you create your own character, similar to the one seen in Soul Calibur 3. While it's not as deep as something you'd see in the WWE games, there's a decent enough variety of parts and clothing options to make decent looking Sephiroths and Strong Bads. In fact, you're pretty much expected to make Sephiroth, since one of the hairstyles is ripped straight from him. They even call it 'Fantasy.' Subtle, Midway. It helps that you're not limited to medieval-ages clothing like in Soul Calibur 3, which gives you a lot more freedom to make characters. Unfortunately, most of the character parts are locked until you pay enough koins to actually use them. It's kind of annoying, but since there's only one type of koin to keep track of now, it's not nearly as bad as it could have been. What's really frustrating, however, is that there can be only one character per player profile, so if you want to make and use more than one, you have to swap profiles on the character select screen and remember which profile belongs to whom. You're also able to customize your character's moves, although this is kind of limited. You can select every single one of a character's basic moves, categorized by the input used to perform them. You can also give your character a projectile, a charge move, a disabling move, a teleport, and a throw, all of which are taken from the other characters' move sets. Unfortunately, there aren't any special moves that don't fall under one of those five classes, which means most created characters are going to feel pretty smilar. Weapon types are also severely limited: If it isn't something that can be swung like a sword, you can't use it. This only leaves generic swords, maces, and axes, which gets boring pretty fast. Just like Deception had a minigame that ripped off a much better game, Armageddon has Motor Kombat. It's basically the Mario Kart to Puzzle Kombat's Puzzle Fighter. You can chose from a bunch of superdeformed Mortal Kombat characters, who each have a personalized vehicle to race in. Johnny Cage gets a sports car, Jax has a miniature tank, and Bo Rai Cho races around in a beer keg. It's a pretty sub-standard racing game, with only a few tracks to race on. There's also hazards scattered all over the track, like a gong you can drive through to make iciciles fall onto the other racers. Unlike Mario Kart, things tend to end rather bloodily for anybody who gets hit with a hazard, but anybody who gets killed will pop back onto the track just a few seconds later. There's only a couple of powerups on the track, compared to the multitude of items you'd be able to use in Mario Kart. Lightning bolts give a brief turbo boost, while stars let you use your character's special ability. Every racer has one item they can use, and only one, which means that Kitana and her shield probably aren't going to be very useful compared to Johnny Cage's projectile. You can also bump to either side to hit the other racers, possibly knocking them into a hazard if you can time it right. Motor Kombat is generally best avoided if you have any other kart racers in your game library. While it's definitely better than, say, M&Ms Racing, it still feels kind of slapped together, and the time spent making it should have gone towards the fighting engine instead.
The Konquest mode returns, and it's been majorly improved since the boring faux-RPG it was in Deception. This time around, it's been turned into a brawler, something closer to Shaolin Monks or God of War. It starts off with Taven's parents expositioning about a quest that he and his brother Daegon have to undergo to see who will succeed their father as the protector of Edenia. Apparently, their plan is to put a sleep spell on both their sons and encase them in stone, until it's time for them to race to the pyramid that was built by their father Argus and defeat Blaze. When Taven is woken up a short time after his brother, he's directed towards a temple dedicated to Argus, somewhere in a jungle in Earthrealm. While he manages to make it to the temple and receive a message from his father, he ends up getting captured and interrogated by Sektor. An attack on Sektor's warship by the Special Forces allows Taven to fight his way off, but things quickly start to go south from there. The story is decent enough for what it is, and it helps that Taven is way less of a doormat that Shujinko. Taven starts off with a decent variety of moves, like being able to do a quick three-hit punch combo, a roundhouse kick that knocks enemies away from him, a throw, and a few moves that launch opponents into the air so he can juggle them. Over the course of the Konquest mode, you'll also unlock new special moves that can be used against the basic mooks, like a firey ground pound and a projectile. These special moves tend to do a lot of damage, but they're limited by a meter that gets recharged when Taven lands hits on enemies. Sometimes enemies may get dizzied, giving Taven the opportunity to do a Fatality on them and recharge his special meter. These aren't anything special, though, just quick finishers like uppercutting an enemy's head off or impaling them on Taven's fist. Every once in a while, you'll also come across weapons that you can use in a certain area, like a hammer that smashes enemies into a red paste with a single blow, or a light saber. For the most part, fighting with the mooks is pretty fun. Enemies don't take much punishment before they die, and your special moves will generally tear right through them. It's a good thing, too, since you're usually put in situations where you get trapped somewhere and have to kill a ton of enemies to make your way out. The further you go, the tougher enemies you come across, and they go from simple punching and kicking to throwing grenades at you. There are also times you run into one of the other playable characters, and when this happens, the game switches to the main fighting engine. In between fighting with mooks, occasionally Taven comes across hazards to avoid, like statues that shoot out spinning blades and spiked crushers. Unlike the Konquest mode in Deception, it's entirely possible for Taven to die, either through kombat or through traps, and if he does, he'll get kicked back to the last checkpoint he reached. Konquest mode only takes about two or three hours to finish, maybe a little less, depending on your skills. It's not overly challenging, aside from a few points when it's especially difficult to avoid the many, many one hit kill hazards. If it were a stand-alone product, it wouldn't be nearly as good, but as a distraction from the main fighting mode, it does a pretty good job. It definitely manages to outclass Mythologies and Special Forces, at the very least.
The Krypt also returns, although it's much, much smaller than the ones in Deadly Alliance and Deception. This time around, there's only one type of coin, meaning you don't have to grind nearly as much to buy the stuff you want. Actually, you barely even have to go into the Krypt, since you can unlock pretty much everything through the Konquest mode. There's 60 relics hidden throughout the mode, and for every 10 you collect, you'll unlock a new reward. They're not that difficult to find, and if you manage to get all 60, you'll instantly unlock everything in the Krypt. Or, if you're really lazy, you can just use traditional cheat codes to unlock the stuff you want, something that wasn't an option in Deadly Alliance or Deception. Your coins are much better spent on the character creation parts, most of which are locked at the start of the game. Overall, Armageddon isn't that much of a step up from Deception. It's nice to see so many forgotten characters return, but the fact that they feel all so similar kind of diminishes the "big finale" feel the game has going for it. There are some minor engine tweaks that make the game feel a little more fresh, but it isn't really enough. Konquest Mode is actually pretty fun, compared to the snoozefest it was in the previous two games, but Motor Kombat is just too limited to be any real fun. With the next generation, however, would come some badly needed change. Possibly even a little too much change, given the subject matter of the next game In the series. The PS2 and Xbox versions are mostly identical, except that the Xbox one has support for four players in Motor Kombat as opposed to just two. If you're really that desperate for a mediocre kart racer, of course. The Wii version, released some time after the others, has a few extras, once again at the cost of online play. Which the Wii actually supports, so why it wasn't included here, who knows. Besides being able to use the GameCube and Classic controllers, you can use motion controls for special moves and Fatalities, which is probably a terrible idea in actual practice. It also has Khameleon, the female ninja from the Nintendo 64 version of Mortal Kombat Trilogy, as a playable character. There's also a new Endurance mode which works the same way as your average survival mode. |
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox)
Mortal Kombat Armageddon (Xbox) |
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