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News: Tom Morello stars in Guitar Hero III
Activision has announced that Tom Morello, from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, will guest star as a boss character in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Click here to read the article.
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Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
It has been quite some time since there has been a high quality Mortal Kombat game. Since the series inception back in the early 90’s the series has had a devoted fan base that absolutely love it, and a legion of people who absolutely hated it. Hardcore fighting game fans poked fun at the simplistic fighting and wild story lines that the loyal fans love so much. Does Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance resurrect this failing franchise or does it dig the grave even deeper? Mortal Kombat has risen from the bowels of hell and brought the Mortal Kombat Series back into the fighting game arena!
The story in MK: DA is just as wild as all the previous games. The story revolves around Quan Chi and Shang Tsung’s quest for immortality. Your job is to stop them from taking over the world. In the end the story continues the deep plot lines that have always been synonymous with the MK series. Even if you don’t care about the story this is a wonderfully deep fighting game.
The very first thing you will notice about MK: DA is that this is like no other MK game before it. Mortal Kombat 4 attempted to bring the series into 3D but was nothing more than a 2d fighting engine with 3d graphics. MK: DA fixes that problem in every way possible. MK is now a truly three-dimensional fighting game. It is now more along the lines of Tekken or Virtua Fighter, but it keeps that MK feel that fans of the series love. The most interesting addition is the new fighting system. Each character has three fighting styles that can be changed on the fly by hitting the L trigger. Each fighter has two real life martial arts styles and one weapon based style. This allows for some pretty amazing fighting. Intense combos can be linked together by switching fighting styles on the fly. It really adds a whole new dynamic to fighting games. This is the best in the series, hands down.
The graphics in MK: DA are excellent. The fighters are highly detailed with flowing clothes, hair, and the new fighting game cliché, bouncy breasts. The characters also show damage, bruises, cuts and other signs of abuse such as torn clothes. The arenas are also very well done. There is plenty of animation going on in the backgrounds, things such as waterfalls, weather effects, and lost souls will fly around the arena in a spectacle of eye candy. Ah, this brings me to the staple of the MK series, BLOOD. The blood in Deadly Alliance is fantastic. It still pours out in excessive MK fashion but it looks better than ever. Blood runs down faces and splatters on the ground, and the blood stays on the ground for the duration of the fight. MK: DA has some very slick graphics indeed. They are not DOA level graphics but great regardless.
The sound is also a true joy. All the moans, yells, and cries of pain are still here in full force. The music is in the classic MK style. There are throbbing beats and overall very intense music. The beloved MK announcer is back to blurt out catch phrases such as “FATALITY” and “FLAWLESS VICTORY”. The sound stays true to its MK heritage.
Everything is not hunky-dory in MK land though. MK: DA sticks to what makes MK great, except the fatalities. I want to know who designed these things, because to be honest they are pretty terrible. There are a few that will make you say, “That was pretty cool” but overall most will leave you scratching your head wondering what went wrong. It is truly a testament to the quality of the fighting engine when I can still highly recommend this game when the staple of the series, the beloved fatalities, have fallen victim to lack of creativity. Also before the game was released the new fatalities were touted as being “Brutal”. Sadly they just end up being laughable. There is another shot in the heart as well; each character only has one fatality. After you see the fatalities once or twice you have no incentive to do them again, they are truly that weak. Also there are no pit fatalities. I have no clue why they would leave such a timeless piece of the series out of the game. We will just have to hope that they are an unlockable secret.
Now that I got the worst part out of the way I will bring the mood back up a bit. This game is jam packed with secret stuff. All of these secret goodies can be found in “The Krypt”. As you fight through the game you earn “Kurrency” which can be used to unlock coffins in the krypt and there are coffins aplenty. There are well over 600 coffins to be unlocked. These contain many things, such as characters, outfits, levels, and a lot of random MK related stuff. Nine of the playable characters are also hidden in the krypt. As far as incentive to keep playing goes this game has it. You will spend a lot of time trying to collect all of the goodies.
Overall Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is the best Mortal Kombat game yet. It provides a fantastic fighting engine and the MK atmosphere that fans have come to love. The only real down fall ends up being the lack of good fatalities and limited amount of fatalities. The lack of pit fatalities really hurts as well, although it is possible that they could be secret. Mortal Kombat: Deadly alliance is a pure joy to play, and one of my favorite fighting games EVER!
Report Card:
Gameplay = 9
Graphics = 9.5
Audio = 9
Replay Value = 10
Overall: 9.5/10
Click here for the Mortal Kombat screenshots gallery!
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