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Dom Robinson reviews
Midway
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1-2
- Widescreen: No
- 60Hz: Yes
- DTS sound: No
There are some games that don’t require a great deal of explanation and Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is one of them.
You know the drill. Choose to be one of a few elite warriors, such as Shang Tsung, Quan Chi, Li Mei, Sonya Blade, Scorpion, Johnny Cage and Sub-Zero, with more to become available later on, then play the “beat them one by one” Arcade mode, the 2-player Versus, a Practice and a Konquest mode, which I was expecting to be more like Soul Calibur’s “Edge Master” section, yet seems more like an extended training mode during which, like the Arcade mode, you can win bonus coins that come in handy later on in The Krypt.
The Krypt allows you to spend the collected coins of various descriptions on opening up to 676 coffins, each containing character sketches, new arenas and more. The coffins are laid out in a huge 26-by-26 square, ranging from AA to ZZ and all combinations inbetween. Anything bought here can be viewed in the Kontent section.
Having got the ability to do this requires you to have a profile – easily done: just put in a few details, choose a name and you’re all set. However, what’s the point of having to set and then enter a special code just to access it? It’s not exactly highly sensitive information and if you forget the 6-button code that you’ve programmed in…
Fans of the series will know that MK is usually a 2D affair, but this takes it into the realms of 3D a la Tekken, Virtua Fighter and Dead or Alive 3.
There’s no widescreen option which is a shame, but it doesn’t suffer by being stretched across a widescreen TV set and any such geometric distortion won’t be noticed as you marvel at the large amount of blood splattering across the screen, plus the general excellence of the graphics including rain and dust effects, the latter as it drifts across the plains.
Music and sound FX are reasonable, but nothing to get too excited about. A DTS soundtrack could’ve been something special.
There’s not just fisticuffs in this game. I played with Sonya (ahem!), practiced Tae Kwon Do and Kendo and then moved on to brandishing Kali Sticks, although they don’t seem to match up too well to Kung Lao’s Broadsword.
However, each way of fighting contains around 15-20 moves apiece, and when it comes to finish someone off (oo-er, missus!), these include ‘Fatality’, such as by ripping a spine out. No wonder the characters get more bloodied and beaten as you go
It’s fun to attempt to master the various moves, but you’ll also find like most of these types of game, a lot of button thrashing often does the trick.
Finally, nothing can beat the incredible Soul Calibur, but this comes very close indeed.
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ENJOYMENT
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.