Mortal Kombat Deception

[camrE]

Mortal Kombat Deception review

So I rented this game to find out

The characters still look like plastic cause the bastards still used the same lame engine.

The characters still move like tanks. While I wonder if they were going for a more “realistic” fighting feel, but I can’t help but notice a 300 lbs fat man, Bo Rai Cho, is leaping about 6’ in the air.

The Konquest mode is really a gimmick, while I have heard numerous complaints about it, that it’s a lame rpg mode, I look at it for what it is. This is a fighting game before anything else; if you were looking for final fantasy VII in here as a bonus, look again. While I think the mode was put together good enough, it really is very short and feels like a waste of time. It is fun to roam around these legendary worlds that we’ve been hearing about for so many years though. While it is short (I beat it in about 4 hours) it’s meant to be lengthened by the many worthless challenges to fetch this and fetch that. All of these I ignored as they result in koins, which I can attain in battle, which I why I bought this game. To fight, not to fetch Oni teeth.

The gameplay has been improved a lot since deadly alliance, but it still falls short in many areas, like I said before, the movement of the characters is unreasonably stiff, the sidestepping is worthless also. In my opinion, mortal kombat could have remained true to the 2D genre. Just has Street Fighter EX series has. The AI remains terrible just as it has always been in every, single edition in the MK series. Where it starts off incredibly easy and suddenly becomes incredibly annoying. While, like a lot in this game, they may have tried to make it challenging, it falls short and only appears annoying. Almost parallel to Tekken 4, where the AI would poke and counter all your moves or evade all your throws, in MK the AI ducks all your moves and evades all your throws, normally leaving you open to abuse you in the blink of an eye.

The arenas are breath taking. They really hit hard in this one. I was really taken by the old school stages too. Especially the Portal stage. The nostalgic feeling is awesome. The deathtraps are really nice too. Although they can get annoying. Especially when fighting the AI on the Max difficulty, where they will do whatever it takes to get you set up for the traps. All in all the stages are excellent.

The unlockables are ok this time, better than MKDA, but honestly, not by that much. I was glad to see that they scaled down the krypt, but disappointed to find that they loaded with uninteresting stuff once again. Like pictures of the developers and such. Ok, I know you all work very hard to make this game, and the did a good job, but making me play for a few hours to get enough koins to clear the krypt to find a whole bunch of pictures of people I don’t even know is really a bore. Its unnecessary, so is the concept art and such. Really uninteresting. I do like the movies they added, nice touch.

The characters are a mixed bag this time around; I’ll start with this. Since playing the conquest mode and coming across a lot of the characters from the series you find that you can train or fight with most of them. Which means that the character models are made and functional in the game engine, they have assigned moves and such. While not all are open for you to train with a lot are. Why didn’t they delay the game for another six months and added these original characters. I’m sure this would have pleased a lot of people, I for one will like to play with stryker again. Which brings me to another question. What is up with the character changes, and costume changes? They make this drastic change on Sub Zero to show his Chinese lineage and to separate him from scorpion a little more, but they went a little too far with his alternate costume. I mean come on now. Its terrible. And I am in no way a Sub Zero fan.

And the characters with the similar moves, and those with moves that are just dumb. Namely Kenshin and Ermac sharing moves, or Kabal’s move where you an him slam into each other. One word comes to mind; senseless. Why retain a worthless character like Bo Rai Cho and drop Frost, why bring in Dairu and drop Kung Lao, why Bring in Kobra and drop Johhny Cage. Why? Why? Why? While some of the costumes are pretty well done, Sub Zero’s original, Scorpion’s both, Raiden’s both, and a few others, some are just lame, like Ermac’s and Dairu. Wow, a lot of variation on Kobra’s, hmmm… I can change home from a Hwoarang look-a-like to a Jin look-a-like. It’s abundantly obvious they tried to step up the originality for the most-case, but failed.

In summary, this is where it’s at:

The sound is good.

Graphics are all right.

The gameplay is the same.

The arenas were very well done.

The unlockables are not that much better than Deadly alliance.


All in all this game is a buyer, but I would look for a used copy.

Peace!


*ONLINE REVIEW – XBOX LIVE*
I played a few hundred rounds of this game on Xbox live and I would say with total confidence that this is the best online engine ever made for online play. Absolutely no lag! You can talk in the lobby, you can talk while you choosing your characters, and you can talk while the game is loading! It is superb (no pun intended Shao Kahn). The game runs smooth as smooth can be. You will feel like you are in the same room with your challenger. Really impressive conding in here. The boys at Midway should be nothing less than proud! I don’t know why asked this cause it seems obvious, but when you’re loading to go to the fight, you and your challenger see different loading screens. Though that was funny.


*New, Fatality review*
After seeing and doing all the fatalities in the game one thing comes to mind; Mortal Kombat 4. This was the point in the series where it was all about “change” and “graphical power” and it stopped being about Mortal Kombat. The fatalities in MK Deception feel like nothing less than MK4, they even look like the ones from MK4. I personally don’t like them, as they are for the most part, BORING!

After all the controversy over MK I then MK II, Ed Boon and the boys over at the MK house decided to make the fatalities a lot more comical as to avoid the heat from various politicians and censors. (Little known fact is MK II actually caused the ESRB rating) Hence in MK3 we witnessed fatalities like Kabal taking his mask off to reveal his super hideous face that scared the life out of you, which was represented by a ghost figure of your character. But at the same time they were trying to bring back a little seriousness to the title as we are in a new era of video gaming where we have games based on uber-sexy lesbians and the like. Which is why they un-edited Sub-Zero’s head rip in MKDA (it was edited when Classic Sub-Zero, a.k.a Sub-Zero 5 did it in MKT). They finally found themselves with a mix, where someone could get smashed to peaces and the fragments of flesh would glow green of look like chewed popcorn.

This so called balance combined with the total lack of originality has led to the disgusting excuse for fatalities, the one thing that made MK what it is, to what it is today. The MK developers seem to be stuck between what they really want to do, and what they have the budget or time to invest in doing. We have stupid fatalities like scorpion harpooning your legs off or the one fatality that has been used to death, the spine rip. Didn’t both Sub-zeros do this before? Hmmmm…

All in all the fatalities are super-lame and boring, the little slack I enjoyed in MKDA was the ability to perform a fatality from anywhere on the screen (this is what the fatality stance was for) has been taken out completely. Which makes it a little more difficult to perform these moves to begin with. You can input the commands as fast as you like, which isn’t a problem because of the length of time you actually have to do the moves, but if you an inch out of the designated area, forget about it, and what makes it worse. If you do the button commands and you don’t get the fatality, the character moves and will more than likely hit the victim. So all that work for nothing, which is why I love the Hara-Kiris. You can’t move and the commands are generally shorter and easier.


I have found something very interesting; a lot of the changes in these titles are actually story driven, and not the other way around. Frost is gone because she stole Sub-Zero’s ice medallion and couldn’t control the power and it froze her to death, hence she’s not around anymore. Sub-Zero seemed to have an affinity for her due to her command on ice as he has, although not to his degree, and he wanted to find a proper burial ground for his once, most impressive apprentice, after scouring around in Outworld he found these grounds which bore evidence that him and Frost belonged to this race of people. After burying her he found this armor that he now wears. On his way back home he was ambushed by a group of killers. Even the great Sub-Zero knew he was outnumbered until the began to speak to him and helped him defeat his attackers.

The new Raiden is not about him being burnt or charred from the explosion, it’s not even about him being undead, as Liu Kang is, but about showing his dark side. Hence is dark kostume. He’s sick of the incompetence of the Humans (especially the genius work of the ‘Champion of the Gods’ Shunjinko). Raiden is pissed and he’s whooping ass and taking names. Guess whos number one on his list. I personally think it’s time they made Raiden a little more exciting. He has always been a favorite of mine, and I like the change. This one is in the game but I’m not sure if anyone came across it yet, Noob Saibot is the original Sub-Zero. The one from MK I who Scopriong thought he killed; he is also the same dude from MK Mythologies (which I might add is a superb game, a true unfound treasure in its time). Being exposed to the Neatherealm changed him to the dark ego, Noob Saibot, which is why; if anyone remembers Noob had Sub-Zero’s ice fatality in MK4.

Another fact, I’m sure everyone knows this from MKDA. Sketor and Cyrax were called Ketchup and Mustard, for obvious reasons, before they were officially named. A little known fact, Cyrax was originally meant to be the cybernetic alter ego of Scorpion. Thank god that this idea was scratched, it may have single handedly destroyed the MK franchise. We all saw what happened when they left Scorpion out of MK3 right, not long after came Ultimate MK3 bearing the well-love Scorpion.

For the non-believers and confused, we all know Reptile was in MK I, not playable but for story purposes, just as the movie depicted, he was Shang Tsung’s bodyguard. But we have all heard of Ermac, but none of us saw him. Well he did exist, but he didn’t. the explanation is, if, in a one in a million chance they game glitched while displaying one of te two ninjas, sorry, the ninja or the Lin Kuei, the combatant would have appeared red (which would have been the debug mode) and his name would have read Ermac which is actually ERROR MACRO (just as Codec is actually ‘code-decode’ and Modem is “modulate-demodulate’) so Ermac was around. But not as we want him to be.

Another one is, Shang Tsung is a Takartan, just like Baraka, its his true form, but he looks human thanks to Shao Kahn.

In development Kobra was code-named or tentatively named Ken Masters due to his resemblence of the street fighter. One german magazine heard his code name and saw the character and published an article confirming Ken to be in Mortal Kombat Deception!!

**POSSIBLE SPOILER**
 A cool little feature of MKD I neglected (not purposely) to leave out was the recovery moves. They are awesome, little features like this really get to me and this one is great. When the characters are recovering between rounds they do little trademark moves to get back to their feet.

Ermac uses his telekinesis ability, Raiden does his teleport, complete with the old skool sound effect, and get to his feet, does a quick kata and returns to his fighting stance, Sub-Zero shoots a mist of ice from his hands and propels his body up.                    

[Bourbon_Ghost]

Um... i believe there is a post for this about somwhere?
I'll check back in  2 days                    

[DeadEyes]

i just wish they would kill the damn thing, it's annoying man, geeeeeeeeeez howm many times can u rehash the same sh!t?                    

[Imperial_X]

You forgot to comment on the most important thing.  THE FATALITIES!!!!!!!!

Almost ALL OF THEM SUCK.

Raiden's fatalities got me more pissed off than anything.  This is the basis of Mortal Kombat.  The LOSS OF LIFE IN A CRUEL AND TORTUROUS MANNER.

They could have put more originality into most of them.                      

[PsiVal]

This game itself needs a fatality                    

[unforgiven]

?? i find the fatalities thati saw so far were very good!!!...i really like this game its a total improvement over a good game (MKDA)                    

[PsiVal]

its an improvement yes but they didnt improve on the things that really matter like d player movement i never like d unrealistic kinda movement style(tank like movement 4 a game thats supposed 2 b a little more real                    

[cereal_killer]

i played and thought it was a pretty good game
nice to play some of the old characters like night wolf and baraka
too this seems like an add on to deceptions
is de same game but with different characters and arenas
                     

[DeadEyes]

what can i say, to each his own, i guess it has it's fan base and i can respect that, even if i can't respect the game                    

[PsiVal]

U dont have 2 like something 2 respect it...respect d game 4 what it iz, not what it iz not                      

[hardknocks]

hmmm i have to think about getting it

 would'nt it be good if they had a mortal kombat with all the old games but with kinda better graphics but must be 2D
hmmmmmmmmmmmm mortal kombat 2  with better graphics  sounds good                    

[AngryBastard]

damn...and i was really looking forward to this game, i thought it would have been different to DA but it is cool to see ole characters like mileena and baraka as cereal said... Sub zero looking dred in the new costume and they bring back Ermac....  
He have the same power as kenshi...
but kenshi still badder than him anyday  
but all in all, i think the game looks good.... but i won't buy it original...                      

[New Era Outlaw]

Bo Rai Cho does NOT suck, buddy boy. That man was one of the top-tier characters in the game. Frost, on the other hand, was just a cheap version of Sub-Zero. All the person had to do was know how to keep away, freeze the ground, and stab relentlessly with her Daggers to win. Good riddance.

Thanks for placing up this review, by the way.
I'm sure a lot of people appreciate it.
However, I think I'll take a little opportunity to review the game myself once I get my copy, just so people can get a little more variety in what people have to say about the game, so they could base it on a more general consensus.
Hang tight for that one....                    

[Chaos]

i just wish they would kill the damn thing, it's annoying man, geeeeeeeeeez howm many times can u rehash the same sh!t?

For real....the next title in the series should be called
"Mortal Kombat : Please make it Stop"                    

[Imperial_X]

I thought this dude was dead!!!!!!!!

We had an unsettled CvS2 challenge or something didn't we?                    

[QDizzle]

New Era make a thread bout this already and btw i lost touch with MK since MK3 they stop makin good oness after ah mean come on look @ MK4 they really milking this game fuh wha it worth                    

[New Era Outlaw]

...and they'll keep on doing it. Contrary to what you may believe, the Mortal Kombat franchise is a very popular one. Deception's already beaten out Deadly Alliance in the first week of sales, and it looks like the game's heading for 'Greatest Hits' status, just like MK: DA. Ed Boon said it himself....he's going to keep churning out Kombat after Kombat, and, quite simply put, the success of the frachise to date has yet to prove that he should do otherwise.

And yes, Q Dizzle, I did start a topic like this, but on the OLD forum. It's fair game here now that we have a new forum and a clean slate to work with.                    

[camrE]

NEO posted a preveiw, this is a hands on REveiw                    

[unforgiven]

ah yes finally bring out all de characters ...lui kany back again in the story...                    

[Imperial_X]

Why couldn't he just STAY DEAD!!!!!!!!  Oh wait, he is!!!!!  UMMM.............

Why couldn't he just stay out of the GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!