"Mortal Kombat: Armageddon" is probably the greatest "Mortal Kombat" fighting game - ever. I reserved a copy back in March and received it the first day - I paid the extra 10 dollars for the Premium Edition, which has the extra DVD with bonus content.
With this latest entry, it is a culmination of all "Mortal Kombat" games to this day, with a slight whiff of "Mortal Kombat Trilogy" and "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3," the latter which is one of many extra add-ons included with the Premium Edition. As envisioned by ko-kreators Ed Boon and John Tobias and unleashed on the general public in 1992, "Mortal Kombat" revolutionized martial arts fighting on video game consoles. Fans of the game were able to take "Mortal Kombat" in a direction far from what Boon and Tobias envisioned.
In that first entry, we were introduced to the following: Shaolin monk Liu Kang, movie star Johnny Cage, Special Forces Agent Sonya Blade, ninja specter Scorpion (my personal favorite fighter), cryo-mancer Sub-Zero, lightning god Raiden, terrorist Kano, the four-armed Goro, Reptile, and shape-shifting sorcerer Shang Tsung.
While praised by critics for its realistic martial arts and innovative storyline, it was embraced by fans for its gratuitous bloodshed and violence; simultaneously, Jack Thompson and most moral-minded politicians condemned it. It's been followed by several spin-offs, two movies (Paul W.S. Anderson directed the first 1995 film) and fans have been quick to denounce its horrible sequel.
With "Mortal Kombat: Armageddon," nothing's changed. The game features a revamped fighting engine, with 60+ characters who are masters of one fighting style and one weapon style. Also, there's the addition of ground kombat; if you don't like things on the ground, you can take it to the sky in air kombat, and dismember your opponent that way. We also have two brand-new characters (that can only be unlocked through the Konquest mode) and Motor Kombat, a "Mario Cart"-style racing side-project.
Then, there are the healthy, long-awaited additions of kreate-a-fighter and kreate-a-fatality. In kreate-a-fighter, you can actually customize your own Mortal Kombat character, give him/her their own appearance, fighting styles, weapon style, special moves and biography, if you like. Kreate-a-fatality - it is just what it sounds like - you can dismember your opponent when the screen says, "Finish him/her" in any number of grisly fashions.
Objections? Of course. While this game is a significant improvement over past entries such as "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance" and "Mortal Kombat: Deception," it's definitely not short of its problems. I have some great issues with how some fighters have different fighting styles or weapons than they have in past games. While the kreators suggest it's only to adopt new strategies, it can be very trying for those who have been accustomed to a certain character.
With the added features of kreate-a-fighter and kreate-a-fatality, some things are lacking or have been shorted completely. In kreate-a-fighter, you can only kreate one fighter per profile. Of course, if you want to take up memory card space, you can have up to eight profiles, which means eight kreated fighters. In kreate-a-fatality, you can still brutalize your opponent, which is cool, but the fatalities that we have come to love from our favorite characters have been completely removed. (What was Ed Boon thinking?)
The Konquest story mode, while quite linear and short, is also quite demanding and requires some patience to master. It's still interesting, and has been significantly refurbished since "Deadly Alliance" and "Deception" (while also staying in tune with last year's popular spin-off "Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks"), and a lot of thought went into the mythology, but it can be tedious especially when you don't have a proper strategy guide at your disposal. And because it's linear, you cannot backtrack if you miss something (i.e., like the Konquest Relics) and this is especially nerve-wracking because you have to continue on, finish Konquest mode, and play through the game again to get that forgotten item (I had to do it twice). And lastly, you sort of get a cheap reward for completing the game in either Konquest or arcade.
Other than these short little squabbles, "Mortal Kombat: Armageddon" is a proper conclusion to "Mortal Kombat" on this generation of consoles. Only time will tell what the kreators have in store for us on Playstation 3.
9/10
