"Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance" is perhaps the most thorough and complex fighting game that this long-running series has seen yet. The Playstation 2 video game console has some of the most impressive titles of any actively popular system today, and I am glad that "Deadly Alliance" has been allowed to grace it.
Fighting games, "Mortal Kombat" in particular, have come a long way since the days of 2D platform combat, where the two combatants are confined to a narrow stretch of area on the screen and fight to the death. Now, most games today have expanded to all-out arena fighting and with "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance," the fifth installment in this incredibly bloody and successful series of games, "Kombat" has been taken to an all new level of gameplay.
As an avid player of "Mortal Kombat" since 1993, I am pleased to see that this title takes full advantage of a revamped fighting engine, but still manages to remain faithful to the old school way of kombat. But like any of the previous titles, this "Kombat" doesn't skimp on the blood and brutal, yet spectacular displays of outlandish martial arts chain-combos.
But in this level of joy, I've neglected to inform about how +deadly+ this title is. Along with the massively improved fighting system, there is also the introduction of the "Konquest" mode, which is a sort of story mode within "Deadly Alliance." Like any low-budget kung-fu flick that we have ever seen, it has a worthless plot and you assume the identity of any of the fighters available and you complete a quest.
And like the plot of the general game (which is equally thoughtless), where the sorcerers Shang Tsung and Quan Chi have entered into a +deadly alliance+, you, the player, has to stop them before they can reanimate the Dragon King's undead army. So you can choose any one of the available characters, including some familiars like Scorpion (my favorite), Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade or Jax, or play as any of the newcomers like Bo' Rai Cho, Mavado, Li Mei, or Hsu Hao.
As with any previous "Kombat" game, the difficulty reaches ridiculous heights as you embark on your "Game of Death"-style quest to the top in regular arcade mode. Much of the difficulty is brought on with the introduction of style-branching combos or "chain" combos, where a single deft move against you can cross three different fighting styles - two fighting styles and one weapon style - and if timed correctly, could deplete you of about half your health. (Just as a random example, I could be my #1 fighter Scorpion and be kombating against Johnny Cage, who would hit me up with a style-branching combo, which would cover Cage's three styles of Karate, Jeet Kune Do, and Nunchaku, and I'd be half-dead in one single movement.) This intense level of uneven difficulty is just ridiculous to me, as it might make it impossible to complete the arcade mode.
This deadly new enhancement in "Kombat" is also indicative of the game's greatest flaw, which could require the manual dexterity of someone with the quickest hand-eye coordination, which many of us in the game-playing community have yet to be graced with through our human evolution. (This would also prove to be an even bigger b**ch on the "Deadly Alliance" sequel, "Mortal Kombat: Deception," which was released in 2004.) In addition to that, mini-games are also scattered throughout the arcade portion of the game, which serve as a way to achieve rarer "kurrency" and provide a welcome break to the kombat-related carnage.
Alongside that main criticism, not many of the new characters are that interesting, particularly my personal displeasure with the fighter known as "Drahmin," an Oni that is a walking, rotting corpse in this game, or Nitara, who's a female vampire. And let's not forget the end boss, Moloch - let's just say that neither Goro, Motaro, or Kintaro had anything on him - Moloch would later be outmatched by the ridiculously hard Dragon King in "Deception."
Aside from these grievances, "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance" is a worthy addition to the series and is an excellent display of progress over the years.
7/10
