Mortal Kombat Deception Review
09-14-04 | 10:07 PM
#1
Thread Starter
DVD Talk Platinum Edition
Mortal Kombat Deception Review
(Credits to Dikkr D for typing this out and giving score)
FLAWLESS VICTORY
Trumping its predecessor with a barbaric decapitation and sending a clear-cut message to the other developers that the bar of excellence of fighting games has officially been raised, Mortal Kombat: Deception emerges as the consummate fighter and one of the most ambitious releases of the year. The gameplay has evolved to a frightening degree, and exacting painful death upon your opponent is only the tip of the bloody iceberg. Ed Boon, and his Midway team have fine-tuned the fray, implemented a legion of amazing new characters, and even turned their game to other genres to expand upon the experience even further.
Building upon the combat formula in Deadly Alliance, the focus of this year's release is to apply balance. If you played a fair bit of the previous entry, you know that success usually revolved around your ability to chain together combo strings. If an opponent was well-versed in these techniques, there really was little you could do to stop his or her assault other than praying that your blocking was on that day. In Deception, when a combo sequence is initiated, the player on the receiving end can now perform a Breaker to stop the chain. This little addition completely changes the fighting dynamic and opens the window for new strategies to be applied. One technique, which I quickly fell in love with, is to use the environment of as a weapon. Not only can you knock your adversary through walls, off ledges, and through the floor, you can quickly dispose of them by launching the enemy into a vat of molten lava, onto a bed of spikes, and even into the mouth of a mechanized monstrosity.
Watching your opponent get diced into tiny bits through a laser grid is a fitting death, but you may feel that it's a bit impersonal. to ensure that your foe truly suffers, each character in the game can now tap into two different Fatalities. In a twist the character on the losing end can input a Hara-Kiri suicide to avoid getting annihilated by their foe. Whoever enters their finisher sequences first gets the satisfaction of either killing their opponent or saving face by offing themselves. Brilliant.
While this is more than enough material to keep rabid fans of the series content, Midway is expanding upon the experience with a wildly addictive puzzle game,a variation of the thinking mans game of chess, and a highly-competitive online component that allows players to compete in all three of these modes. Puzzle Kombat draws obvious inspiration from Dr. Mario. By dropping detonating on the same colored blocks, you will in turn send unwanted blocks to your opponent. By doing this enough, you will build up a special move to unleash upon your adversary. For instance, Scorpion can jumble his foes pieces . The chess game plays as you would expect, but you'll have to fight to occupy squares, traps can be set, and you can tap into spells ranging from resurrect to imprison.
Kicking it up another notch, Konquest mode now features an extensive story and a sprawling open world with people to interact with and secrets to unearth. At its core, however, this is still a glorified training mode that teaches you how to fight with each of the characters. The Krypt is also loaded with new material.
Through its razor-sharp fighting, array fo playing options, and unyielding desire to please fans of the series, Deception is easily the most-accomplished fighter to date. Mortal Kombat is once again the game to beat.......
Score: 9.5, Second opinion: 9.0
FLAWLESS VICTORY
Trumping its predecessor with a barbaric decapitation and sending a clear-cut message to the other developers that the bar of excellence of fighting games has officially been raised, Mortal Kombat: Deception emerges as the consummate fighter and one of the most ambitious releases of the year. The gameplay has evolved to a frightening degree, and exacting painful death upon your opponent is only the tip of the bloody iceberg. Ed Boon, and his Midway team have fine-tuned the fray, implemented a legion of amazing new characters, and even turned their game to other genres to expand upon the experience even further.
Building upon the combat formula in Deadly Alliance, the focus of this year's release is to apply balance. If you played a fair bit of the previous entry, you know that success usually revolved around your ability to chain together combo strings. If an opponent was well-versed in these techniques, there really was little you could do to stop his or her assault other than praying that your blocking was on that day. In Deception, when a combo sequence is initiated, the player on the receiving end can now perform a Breaker to stop the chain. This little addition completely changes the fighting dynamic and opens the window for new strategies to be applied. One technique, which I quickly fell in love with, is to use the environment of as a weapon. Not only can you knock your adversary through walls, off ledges, and through the floor, you can quickly dispose of them by launching the enemy into a vat of molten lava, onto a bed of spikes, and even into the mouth of a mechanized monstrosity.
Watching your opponent get diced into tiny bits through a laser grid is a fitting death, but you may feel that it's a bit impersonal. to ensure that your foe truly suffers, each character in the game can now tap into two different Fatalities. In a twist the character on the losing end can input a Hara-Kiri suicide to avoid getting annihilated by their foe. Whoever enters their finisher sequences first gets the satisfaction of either killing their opponent or saving face by offing themselves. Brilliant.
While this is more than enough material to keep rabid fans of the series content, Midway is expanding upon the experience with a wildly addictive puzzle game,a variation of the thinking mans game of chess, and a highly-competitive online component that allows players to compete in all three of these modes. Puzzle Kombat draws obvious inspiration from Dr. Mario. By dropping detonating on the same colored blocks, you will in turn send unwanted blocks to your opponent. By doing this enough, you will build up a special move to unleash upon your adversary. For instance, Scorpion can jumble his foes pieces . The chess game plays as you would expect, but you'll have to fight to occupy squares, traps can be set, and you can tap into spells ranging from resurrect to imprison.
Kicking it up another notch, Konquest mode now features an extensive story and a sprawling open world with people to interact with and secrets to unearth. At its core, however, this is still a glorified training mode that teaches you how to fight with each of the characters. The Krypt is also loaded with new material.
Through its razor-sharp fighting, array fo playing options, and unyielding desire to please fans of the series, Deception is easily the most-accomplished fighter to date. Mortal Kombat is once again the game to beat.......
Score: 9.5, Second opinion: 9.0
09-15-04 | 08:04 AM
#2
DVD Talk Legend
I can't wait for this release. The one move I hope they took out which I hated in DA was when you stabbed your opponent with you weapon. You lost the weapon for the round, but the person you hit loses life constanty until they die. This made matches way to cheap.
