Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
Seeing as how the sequel to this game has already been released, it seems kinda odd to be doing a review of it at this time. But as the saying goes, it's better late than never. For all I know, the majority of you out there may have never even played this game. Well, I'm here to give you plenty of reasons why you SHOULD be playing this game, whether or not it's a few years old. Continue reading, and perhaps by the end you'll feel the urge to buy the game.

Graphics:

The graphics in Deadly Alliance are fairly good. While the characters have a glossy look to them, the overall presentation of the game rocks. Level design is great, and the blood looks more realistic than ever before. You'll tend to notice this quite often, as the amount of blood is unrealistic, over the top, and probably more than any human could even hold in their body. That's not necessarily a bad thing though, because this is Mortal Kombat after all. As for the fatalities, for the most part they are pretty lame. There's a fair share of good ones, but the majority of them are weak and not worthy of a Mortal Kombat game. But overall, Midway did a pretty good job with drawing us back into the Mortal Kombat realm.

Sound and Music:

Deadly Alliance does pretty well in this category as well. The music definitely helps set the tone of the game, and is probably one of the best features. As for the sound effects, they are mediocre at best. The vocals are the same as you'd expect from any fighting game, with the same old grunts and groans we've heard over and over. One nice feature I did like was that the rock band Adema sung the theme song for the game. "Immortal" is a great rock song that represents the feeling of a Mortal Kombat game and helps introduce this really kick-butt mood that will stick with you through the rest of the game.

Storyline:

Deadly Alliance tries really hard right from the start to create a awesome atmosphere for the rest of the game. The game starts off with an opening cutscene that tells the tale of how the Deadly Alliance is formed. The biggest shocker of the entire game is that the famous hero Lui Kang is killed right in that opening sequence I spoke of. I was definitely surprised by this, but was actually pretty happy that he was finally gone. After all, you kinda get sick of the same person winning the Mortal Kombat tournament over and over. The premise of the game is that the Deadly Alliance of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi want to revive the army of the evil Dragon King by taking people's souls and placing them into the deceased warriors' bodies. It is now your job to defeat the Deadly Alliance and prevent them from reviving the army before it's too late.

Gameplay:

This is where Deadly Alliance succeeds the best. The fighting system has been beefed up, and the introduction of three fighting styles for each character works really well. As for the fighting styles themselves, each character has two hand-to-hand combat modes and one weapon based combat style. Unlike Mortal Kombat 4, the weapons in Deadly Alliance can't be knocked out of your hands and will always be with you. The game itself follows the same setup as all the other Mortal Kombat games. In arcade mode, you'll move through bad guys one by one until you reach the end boss, which will randomly be chosen as either Shang Tsung or Quan Chi. The second game mode is of course the multiplayer. This is where you'll be able to challenge your friends to a one-on-one duel to the death. The last mode is Konquest, which allows you to go through each character with a sort of tutorial mode that gives you step by step lessons on how to become efficient with them. Midway presented a lot of variety with this entry of the series, which is definitely why it succeeds so well.

Controls:

The controls for the Gamecube were a bit odd. This is because you're not able to use the analog stick. Instead, you'll be using the tiny little D-Pad to move your character around. While it doesn't take very long to get used to it, it makes me wonder why they set it up this way. Once you get past this, you'll start realizing how easy the controls are to use. Combos can be pulled off well if you take the time to learn them, and pressing the L Button allows you to switch to another fighting mode within a heartbeat.

Replayability:

Midway went all out in trying to give this game a lot of replay value. In doing this, the Krypt was created. As you go through the game, you'll earn different color coins that serve as money to buy unlockables. This money can be used inside the Krypt, which contains 676 different unlockable things. These include concept art, videos from previous games, alternate character costumes, new characters, mock advertisements for fake products, and much more. Unlocking everything will definitely take awhile, especially since certain coins are harder to obtain than others. Trust me; you'll be playing this one for a long time before you finally decide to call it quits.

For a long time, I always regarded Mortal Kombat II as the best in the series. However, once Deadly Alliance was released, I felt that it truly surpassed my expectations and knocked Mortal Kombat II right out of that prestigious position of Best Mortal Kombat Game.
Graphics: 8.5/10
Sound and Music: 9.0/10
Storyline: 8.0/10
Gameplay: 9.5/10
Controls: 9.0/10
Replayability: 9.5/10
8.5
Out of 10