MortalKombat: Deception has already been available for thePS2 and the Xbox for months now. The core of the Cubeversion remains identical although there are a fewnew features that try to make up for the lack of onlineplay. We all know that nothing can make up for lackof online play but Cube players are resigned to theirfate. The good news is that Mortal Kombat: Deceptionis still a great without the online modes. It's intense,frenetic, strategic, violent and bloody.MKis infamous for its graphic display of violence. Bonescrack and shatter, appendages fly and blood squirts.That tradition has not softened one bit in Deception,a game that picks up where the last one left off.Tryas they might, there's always some kind of story forcedinto each game in this series.
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Kombat Kolumns: Mortal Kombat: Deception Review. After the success of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Midway decided to keep the engine of the game and its design for the next installment of the Mortal Kombat franchise - Mortal Kombat: Deception, which was released back in 2004 for PlayStation 2, XBox and Nintendo GameCube.The game featured tons of extra stuff, including a Collectors Edition. Konquest or Bust Luckily for MK fiends, Mortal Kombat: Deception adds a whole lot more to the storyline than just character bios and two-minute endings. It also boasts a clever and involving way.
It's really nothingmore than a set up for a good fight. Nobody givesa rat about the story, they just want to get downand dirty and start breaking some necks. And who canblame them? The fighting system is one of the best.I can't say that it's been improved much since thelast game but for what it offers doesn't need muchimprovement.MortalKombat has always looked and played like an arcadegame. The fighters are kind of stiff and the animationcan be choppy in places. It's got a long way to goto rival the fluidity of Tekken 5. But MK's styleis original and those that are loyal to the serieswouldn't have it any other way, although I doubt theywould complain about an animation upgrade.TheCube version offers two new characters and a few mini-gamestyle modes.
Not enough to compensate for the onlinemode but it's better than nothing. I enjoyed theseodd modes a lot more than I thought I would. Moreon those later.Anotherfeature of the Cube version is that many of the charactersare unlocked right from the start.
You don't haveto slog away in the Konquest mode to unlock them.There are 20 fighters available at the beginning ofthe game including Shao Kahn, one of the two new fightersexclusive to the Cube. He wields a Thor-style hammerwhich can do a lot of damage.
Kahn himself is powerfulalthough he lacks agility. Such are the tradeoffs.Allof the fighters are well balanced. They each havedifferent attacks, chains and combos not to mentionthree different sets of martial arts moves which canbe changed on the fly, even in mid combo. The factthat most of the moves correspond to the same buttonscheme is a godsend.
You can go from fighter to fighterwith relative ease. You will get to use weapons withat least one of the of martial art sets. What's MortalKombat without a deadly, razor sharp blade?Theattacks can be absolutely brutal. You or your opponentcan look forward to being punched, kicked, thrown,twisted, cut, sliced, hammered, stomped, torn, peeled,contorted, distorted, dismembered, beheaded, impaledand ultimately killed. These animations are so over-the-topyou just can't help but laugh. It's so sick, dude.Even when you do get killed you only lose the roundand not the match.Pitfallsoffer another way to die.
Edge your opponent towardsa spike-filled hole and drop him in for an instantend to the round. These pitfalls are purely optionalthough they do add another element of strategy tothe game. Speaking of strategy, combo breaks are anew feature that allow you to block a combo attackwhen you're on the receiving end of one.
There areonly a few of these for each match so you have touse them strategically.Eachcharacter is allowed two fatalities instead of one.Every single fatality is horrifying. I imagine there'sgoing to be a number of parental concerns and complaintsover these, as if there weren't already. If you don'tlike to die at the hands of your conqueror you havethe option of committing hara-kiri which is a formof suicide favored in the East when one loses face.It involves jabbing a sword into one's stomach. Eitherway you're going to get killed so you might as welldo it yourself and rob your enemy of the satisfaction.It's especially annoying when you're the winner andyou get robbed of finishing your opponent off.Achess and Tetris-style mini-game modes may seem alittle out of place in a game such as MK but theyoffer diversion. In the Chess Kombat mode you willmove characters on a grid in turn-based fashion. Opposingcharacters that come face-to-face will have to fightit out. It shares more in common with checkers thanchess.
The Puzzle Kombat mode is a fun puzzle gamewhere the object is to match colored blocks with similarcolored icons as they slowly descend in your bin.When you match them up they will explode and sendstray blocks into your enemy's bin.Themusic is thunderous and really sets the stage forsuch barbarous behavior. The sound effects take frontand center stage with a variety of screams, shouts,grunts, smacks, thuds, clangs, cracks and splats.Thelonger you play the better you get. There's plentyof depth to the combat system which will keep youreturning to the fighting long after you've exploitedthe additional modes. PreviewBy ChrisWhileMidway has already shipped over 1 million copies ofthe game for the Xbox and PS2 GC owners have not hada chance to play the game yet.Nowthe game had several special things added for boththe Xbox and PS2 versions. There was the Kollector'sEdition for the Xbox and the Premium Edition for thePS2. Both versions contained a special tin collectorscard and the original version of Mortal Kombat ona special disc. Of course the biggest draw for mostplayers was the online mode.
Due to the fact the GChas no online mode and the game is shipping severalmonths after the Xbox and PS2 versions what will Midwaydo to entice GC owners to buy this one? Glad you askedlet me tell you a few new features that are goingto be exclusive to the GC version only!Ifyou're a fan of the MK series you know the charactersGoro and Shao Kahn.
Both characters will be exclusiveplayable characters to the GC version. Now they appearedin other versions of the MK series however, this timethey will be more life-like. They also look prettycool so far if you look at the screen shots. Alsothe GC version will only have 6 characters lockedat the beginning of the game. So GC players will have14 characters to choose from right from the start.This also means that in the Krypt the same amountof coffins will be available however, again sincea few characters are going to be unlocked alreadythere will be some special content exclusive onlyto the GC version.Whileit sounds like Midway is trying to make up for thelack of an online mode and the GC short comings. Onehas to wonder will the new characters and contentbe enough to get GC owners to buy the game?
The GCversion is scheduled to ship in March. Midway alreadyhas shipped a million copies for the other 2 systems.Now with the 2 new characters for the GC system itlooks like Midway might be shipping more of the fastestselling fighting game of last year.
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