I’ve always been somewhat darkly amused by the fact that the ‘Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter’ war of old was finally won by Midway. By far the biggest seller, the most famous and the longest-running of the two franchises, MK is always a difficult series to review - with feelings of nostalgia battling for dominance with the indignancy the series’ continuing success heaps upon any ‘real’ fighting game fan.

It’s hard to accurately express my kontradictory (sorry, it’s compulsory) feelings for these games. I’ve always really liked them, but at the same time am well aware of their critical failings in the most crucial areas. I hope I can find that balance that avoids both sneeringly offended elitism and nostalgia-fevered apologism. But if not then I can always talk about tits.

As the advertising is overjoyed to inform us, Mortal Kombat Deception - the direct sequel to last years’ surprising, pleasing, if not entirely successful Deadly Alliance is actually four games in one. There’s the fighting game itself, there’s the ‘MK chess’ game, the ‘MK Puzzle Fighter’ game and the ‘MK adventure game’. Throw in a huge stack of secrets and the usual high-quality presentation and elaborate fantasy storyline and you’re looking at a package that cannot fail to impress.

That said, for some time now I have bemoaned the current trend of fighting games that focus more on the secrets, the missions and the features than they do on the actual fighting and this really is a prime example. While I am amazed at the sheer volume of supplementary material, at the same time I can’t help but feel that this is little less than an admission that the fighting game content is not enough to release on its own. Ungrateful this may seem, but after playing the thing for a while now it is also entirely feasible.

The fighting portion is much like that of Deadly Alliance’s. Free-walking three dimensional combat between single characters in a best-of-three rounds competition. Each character has a small selection of special moves, activated by the traditional direction-tap + button method, plus button-sequence combos and the choice of three different fighting styles (one being a meleé weapon) - each with their own moves, advantages and disadvantages to chose from.

The controls have been streamlined slightly, doing away with the ’special move’ button from the previous game. With it go taunting, the ‘power up’ function, the bloody impalings (something I enjoyed greatly at the time, but don’t really miss now they’re gone) as well as the confusion that arose from the random assignation of specials to either the normal or special buttons.

Despite this, the game still needs a full eight buttons to be played, which is unfortunate if you’re planning on using one of the several six-button arcade sticks out there. Thankfully the simple commands and generally un-taxing combat mean that the default PS2 controller is more than adequate, if not actually superior - especially when it comes to those multi-direction fatality commands.

Personally I would have preferred the SNK/Capcom method of executing additional techniques with combination button presses - ABC, or Fierce + Roundhouse, but it’s easy enough to adapt to.

Features new to Deception are ‘breakers’ - a way to interrupt any combo, blocked or successful with a knockdown counterattack strike. Easy to perform (hold block, tap towards) and with none of the required memorisation of the similar function in Rare’s Killer Instinct, breakers are a good idea, and rationed at three per fight, precious enough to only be used in emergencies.

There are also ‘death traps’ - danger areas in which a well-placed uppercut sees the victim hurled to a terribly messy death, instantly ending the round. These range from spiked crushing walls, the molds of an enormous steelworks, acid pools, grids of laser beams (!) jagged rocks, gigantic drops and more, each as violently amusing and satisfying as the last. While I find their presence (the zone itself indicated by a red line on the ground) does interrupt the flow of the game a little - going from a regular fight to a manic rush to uppercut at all costs whenever I approached them, and the inevitable frustration at being knocked into one, again by a wily player, especially on the ever-shrinking ‘collapsing cliffs’ stage is an all too frequent feeling - they’re still an interesting and welcome addition, and ample recompense for the bizarre overlooking of any sort of stage fatality in the previous game.

As well as fatal falls, several of the games’ stages feature areas that can be smashed into and fallen off of in the name of spectacular, sadistic amusement. These tiered stages and breakable objects add welcome variety to the environments and never fail to satisfy when it comes to watching your hapless opponent land, neck-first from a three-storey drop. My favourite moment of interactivity being the hanging corpses in the hold of Shang Tsung’s Nethership - that trail along and react to both your presence and your punches. It’s fun!

On a similar theme, Several of the stages also contain weapons that can be picked up and used as replacement for the characters’ existing weapon. Their acquisition a simple button-press, unlike the pointless pick-ups of MK4, the weapons in Deception are both useful and well-implemented.

But despite these new features and fun diversions, the actual fighting remains annoyingly limited. The prominent lag on all commands is frustrating and likewise the unresponsive command interface Everything feels so stiff and awkward - leaving little room for grace or style, nor need for speed or accuracy.

And while much has been made of the multiple combat styles, there really is so little difference between the vast majority of them - aside from Kenshi’s throw-based Judo and a couple of kick-only arts - that they’re all practically the same thing, just with different combo orders, reach and sweep/uppercut placings. As you train with characters in Konquest mode, you soon realise how frequently the hateful phrase “power and pop-up attacks” appears.

Now few fighting games manage to do even the remotest justice to the martial arts they frequently represent, but still, in the best of them, there is still some ‘feeling’, a vague mindset to get into when using a specific character in a specific way. Here it’s all so meaningless, so graceless and unsatisfying - whether it’s an up-close brawling style, an exotic weapons-based martial art, kickboxing or whatever it still ends up exactly the same - punch, punch, punch, launcher, special, and then the combo limiter kicks in to prevent any further hits, a feature just as stupid and lazy as MK4’s immortal “MAXIMUM DAMAGE” system of control. And with so few specials for most of the characters and fewer of those still being of any use, the importance of these endless chain combos is equalled only by their depressing dullness. Even the weapon styles don’t really add much. True the clang of steel is always (a)rousing, and the sparks are nice - but there’s none of the sense of real, weighted weapon and sword interplay, as found in the Soul Calibur and Samurai Shodown games - the weapons nothing more than longer-ranged punches and kicks.

And aside from the by-rote memorisation of the lengthy style-branching button combos there literally is nothing to learn in this game, whatsoever. No advanced techniques or abilities anywhere. When I think of the millions of obscure and mind-bogglingly difficult tricks, tactics and techniques in Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution, a game that I will most likely die before being able to perform everything it contains, that such a stark and direct opposite can exist is just astounding.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for .60 second frame counting, just something, anything to keep me interested. As it stands the combat boils down to the most unappetising HIT? YES/NO > REPEAT tedium imaginable. Without cancellable moves and strengths of specials, nor any degree of flexibility or subtlety to the engine and collision mechanics, nor anything that is even moderately challenging to perform - it really is quite the most drab, clumsy and vision-lacking fighter I’ve played for ages.

This is where somebody out there shouts “what were you expecting? It’s Mortal Kombat!” and that person is sadly quite correct.

As a one-player game it is slightly above traditional MK fare, the outrageous cheating of the past games being fortunately absent. Difficulty ramps up acceptably as fights progress, and the CPU uses all the moves, styles, combos and options the player can. By the sub-boss (”Noob-Smoke”) even on the default difficulty combat is tense and battles won or lost closely.

The final boss, and newest ruler of the Outworld, Onaga, the Dragon King is a typical MK boss - immune to many of the physics of the rest of the game, a huge, heavy-hitter with incredibly stupid patterns needed to beat him. The combination of poor design (he’s a big winged, well, dragon-y guy) and horrendous AI make for a distinctly anti-climatic final battle. Only the admittedly novel feature of six sculptures arranged around the circular arena, which when touched both stun Onaga for a second, and lower his defence add any variety to a battle that really just comes down to endless chain combos. He’s not as bad as Shinnock (who is?) but still well below all the other MK bosses.

It is worth mentioning that MKD is the first fully online 3D fighting game, although sadly my location denies me the opportunity to test it. Still, reports have been largely positive, and despite its often-questionable content this is still a great achievement and probably one of the games’ high points.

Of course as ever, MKD certainly looks and sounds the part. A great CG intro (although nowhere near as shocking and dramatic as the one in Deadly Alliance) sets the scene perfectly, and the ever present grim, grey moody atmosphere, with that hint of Chinese mysticism is as strong as ever. The menus, select and loading screens all look great (the huge collection of ‘now loading’ CG stills are fantastic) benefiting the game a strong, consistent theme throughout.

That said, it does suffer from being somewhat over-presented. Yes, the renders are lovely, yes the mountain displaying the fights to come and the music that accompanies it are very nice, and the stage intros ever so dramatic, but it would be nice to skip them after the hundred and fiftieth time. The same goes for the rest of the game - too many menus (something that is getting to be a pet hate of mine, and not just in fighters) too much loading and waiting and not nearly enough action.

Another annoyance with the game is the all-too frequent memory card access. Because the amount of koins the player has in their profile is constantly, dynamically updated whenever you earn or spend them - in a way specifically designed to stop people spending, then quitting and reloading - the game seems to be saving constantly. It saves when you open a coffin, when you win a fight, a puzzle match or a chess match, and it noticeably slows proceedings down. It seems that the whole system was designed for a system with far faster storage abilities - the XBox, perhaps?

The in-game graphics are largely very good. The backgrounds are great, exceptionally well-rendered and full of detail and with some interesting ideas - certainly a lot more memorable than DA’s rather dull levels. The menace of the death traps and the interaction of the multi-tiered environments create a vivid, exciting and it must be said rather threatening world in which to fight in.

Highlights for me were the aforementioned Nethership, the steel works and the Chamber of Artifacts. Also worth mentioning is the bizarre tropical island stage, a small island half in Earthrealm and half in the Netherrealm - switching as the fight progresses between being a sunny island (complete with Carribbean steel band music) and a rainy, doom-laden mound of earth - the palm trees becoming huge snakes!

There are also a couple of classic stages from past games. The courtyard from the first Mortal Kombat is here, complete with Old Man Shang Tsung on his throne, as is the Dead Pool and Living Forest from MKII - original music intact. There is also a ‘portal’ stage - a mix of the stage of the same name from MKII, and, on one side in the distance, the Towers of Destiny from MK3! That those huge stone towers with character portraits on them were actually a REAL PLACE is a hilarious, wonderful idea.

Admittedly the classic stages do seem somewhat empty in comparison with both the new ones and their original versions, but it is still great to have them in there. And while there are occasional moments where things look scrappy (the bubbles in the Dead Pool acid are 2D, some of the walls textures are kind of crappy) in general this area of the game is a huge success.

The effects in the game are impressive - projectiles lighting the ground beneath them and sparks coming from clashing weapons are especially pleasing. The blood is the same as DA’s, as unrealistic as ever and the exploded body chunks just as silly. It seems it’ll be a while before processor power advances to the stage where a game such as this can simulate actual liquid in convincing fashion to create the blood effect.

The character models are detailed and solid (barring some questionable faces) and even up close, despite the lack of facial animation look well-constructed and realistic, with almost no polygon clipping or glitching. The ever-ridiculous ‘breathing’ animations when a character strikes a supposedly still pose that plague so many 3D fighters are thankfully absent here.

However many of the characters stances are either absolutely pathetic-looking or incredibly banal and generic - certainly nothing like a crowd of deadly, steel-bodied, hyper-aware martial artists. Li Mei sticking her arms out at a 90° angle to her body is probably the worst, but Ashrah, Tanya and Sindel also have their moments.

The horrible shared winposes from DA have been vanquished, now everyone has their own win animation, plus different ones after a fatality. Some are nice, most are average, it’s that they’re there at all that is the important thing. And I’m sure I’m not the only person who has leapt face-first at the screen in time with Scorpion’s camera-hitting spear & drag win sequence. I am? Oh dear.

Another nifty little touch - if after the first round the losing character is knocked on their back, many of them get up in some funky way. Scorpion throws his spear at the ceiling and drags himself to standing, Sub-Zero uses his ice projectile to propel himself upright, Ermac and Kenshi levitate and Sindel flies, scarily (she’s never done it any other way) It’s just one of those little touches that add to the overall feel. In fact I think if we consider the poses, the animations, the bios and the interactivity of Konquest mode, this is easily the most personality-filled MK game yet, something I’ve always complained about in the past.

From a sonic standpoint the game is no less successful. Typical MK music abounds - doom-laden orchestrations, faux-Oriental sounds and spiteful, scratchy techno rhythms combine and separate to give MKD a brooding, atmospheric soundtrack. The classic stages are all accompanied by their classic theme songs for added nostalgia, and there are a couple of remixes of old tracks as well.

The fight announcer is the same one that has been used since MK4 - and I still don’t like it. It just tries too hard, and is almost comedically booming and overbearing. For me the best announcer will always be that used in MKII and 3 - when it was Shao Kahn speaking. His was the perfect mix of menace and style, and the gleeful cackle he unleashed when the lifebars went into ‘danger’ status yet to be topped.

The rest of the noises are similarly familiar. The ‘grunts, screams and gibberish’ (”Ooh I’m going to throw you up high!”) are the ones it seems we’ve been hearing since 1998. Certain characters share ‘pain’ noises (both Raiden and Sub-Zero share the one that sounds like they’re saying “gayyyy!”) and there are plenty of generic yelps and squeals from everyone else, plus some wonderful squishy dismemberment sounds.

Of course a huge part of the MK experience is the ‘fatality’ moves - the classic, shlocky, rub-your-opponents-face-in-it lethal match finishers that assured the series immortality, through the censorial outrage they invoked.

Last years’ MKDA was criticised for not only totally omitting any stage fatalities (as seen this has now also been rectified) but for having just one fatality per character - somewhat poor when you consider previous games had two or three each - plus the comical alternates such as ‘Friendships’, ‘Babalities’ and ‘Animalities’ don’t exist.

Deception soothes these troubles with two murdersome fatality moves per character. As always these are of mixed quality. A couple of really quite dark, quite brutal ones (both of Sub-Zero’s spring to mind) a couple of funny ones and plenty of inane ‘head kicked off’ or ‘explode’ finishers. Again they lack the shocking, perfect orchestration of those in MKII, the game I have always benchmarked the series on, but as a rule they’re better than the silly ones of the third game, the nonsensical ones of the fourth and the majority of those in the fifth. It is unfortunate that so many of them still resort to the usual dicing of characters into preformed chunks, as I’m a firm believer that all the greatest fatalities from MK history have been the ones where new art, new animation and new objects are created just for them. Think Kung Lao’s ‘hat split’ Reptile’s ‘head eat’ or Liu Kang’s ‘dragon morph’ from MK2; Sub-Zero’s head rip from the first one; or Sektor’s clamp crusher from MK3. They’re the ones that stick in the mind, not ‘generic chunks explode #246′

One interesting twist is the addition of the ‘Hara-Kiri’ moves. As the defeated character sways, awaiting the killing blow, they have to opportunity to enter a button combination of their own, which if successful sees the beaten character kill themselves in an amusing or gruesome fashion. It is quite satisfying, robbing the victor of their chance to finish you off, and frustrating when it happens to you, but a worthy addition all the same. It’s worth it just to see Sindel leap up and then fall headfirst into the ground, and there just aren’t enough videogame characters around today who will willingly pull their own heads off.

The second of MKD’s games is ‘Chess Kombat’ - a slightly misleading title given that although the action takes place on the traditional board, with pieces of various ability, and with the aim of defeating your opponent by capturing their leader - its similarity to chess is sketchy at best. Here, when one piece attempts to ‘take’ another, the action shifts to the fighting game - the life bar of the pieces translating to the life bars of the characters, plus small health bonuses for attacking, for being on certain squares etc. The big difference here is that you can be ‘taken’ and actually come out victorious by winning the fight. On the board there are pawns, warriors and also ’sorcerer’ classes which can heal, as well as kill enemies, teleport and paralyse. It is fun, although very involved - not something that can be played for a couple of minutes.

Puzzle Kombat is an almost identical copy of Capcom’s almost identical copy of a million other block-matching puzzle games. The premise remains the same - select a super-deformed MK character from a small roster (more players can be unlocked) and attempt to rid yourself of the ever-falling coloured bricks by matching and thus dispatching them over to the other players’ side. Each character has a ’super’ move, performable when the bar in the middle of the screen is full - moves which all have some effect on the tide, layout or frequency of the blocks on your side of the screen. When a character is defeated 2/3 times, the screen darkens and their squat little characters at the bottom, who has spent the rounds attacking the other guy is subjected to a humorous ‘fatality’ - a weight squashes them, a giant snake eats them, they’re struck by lightning, that sort of thing. Like the chess game, PK is an amusing, yet time-consuming diversion that is perfect to wind down after a few hours’ fighting in arcade mode.

Konquest mode is probably the most interesting addition to the game. Spanning a large portion of the life of an Earthrealm inhabitant named Shujinko, Konquest mode is an interactive backstory for Deception - the player controlling the character initially as a small boy, through his life and ending it as an old man.

While the actual game is somewhat simplistic - never rising above “go here, get that, go there, do that”, your goal always visible as a huge green column of light in the sky - the novelty of actually inhabiting the MK universe is what I feel gives it true appeal. Shujinko, a hilariously compliant soul if ever there was one (family motto: “I will do as you ask”) travels from realm to realm in the quest to unite six artefacts of universe-shaping power, and on the way he meets, fights and trains with pretty much everyone who was ever in a Mortal Kombat game. The training portions are instantly recognisable as exactly the same format as those in Deadly Alliance, and no less (or indeed more) helpful.

The action itself takes place throughout six realms. Earthrealm, where it all begins; the Netherrealm (aka Hell); Chaosrealm, a surreal and nightmarish place where order is against the law; the Outworld (sorry I refuse to use the post-MK3 and film name of just “Outworld”); the Orderrealm (the opposite of the Chaosrealm) and Kitana’s home, Edenia.

The Outworld is definitely where the cool dudes hang out - and my personal favourite part. Running through the Living Forest, coming across Baraka’s camp, talking to Shao Kahn (he gave me 500 Ruby Koins!) is all so much fun for an MK fan of olde, and as the story progresses, you become aware of events in the Mortal Kombat games going on in the background, with plenty of nice cross-over touches and appearances.

This mode strikes the perfect balance of involvement vs. patience. Any deeper and the thrill of hunting unlockables and seeing cameos would have been lost as disenchantment with the game grows, any shallower and it would have played itself. I’m a fairly impatient person, and no lover of fetch quest-oriented games, but I still enjoyed playing it and do consider it another of the games’ selling points. To finish it (and unlock old man Shujinko for use in regular play) it probably takes about 10 hours, and there are a lot of non-compulsory side-quests that extend it even further. Some of the characters you fight later on are ‘mission’ fights - with added handicaps such as decreasing health, or disabled moves to contend with.

The whole thing looks pretty good - and while the character models are hugely reduced in detail (looking like high resolution versions of characters from a PSOne 3D game) and the backgrounds are nothing special, it still creates convincing worlds for these to characters inhabit. The voice acting is horrendous, but somehow fitting, and the ‘twist’ ending obvious but still entertaining.

I did feel that on rare occasions Konquest mode slightly trivialised some of the classic MK concepts. The Lin Kuei, that feared, hated secret ninja organisation is now a bunch of jerks in a courtyard, who you can join just by doing Sub-Zero’s moves and combos in training mode. The Living Forest is neither living, nor much of a forest, and some of the characters have been slightly diminished by their appearances as well - Moloch, Shao Kahn and other bosses are tiny and wimpy.

Konquest is also an opportunity to grab a hell of a lot of Koins, and pick up precious keys to unlock secret characters and other exciting objects. Returning from the previous game is the ‘Krypt’ - a graveyard with a huge collection of tombstones, each one concealing a secret to be unlocked — for a price. Artwork, film footage, music, and more importantly secret characters, backgrounds and costumes are found here, and unlike Deadly Alliance, getting at the secrets isn’t merely about money - several of the Koffins are locked, the keys found hidden around the realms of Konquest mode.

Just as it was in DA, the Krypt is an excellent idea for (admittedly artificially) extending the lifespan of the game. And while the selection of goodies isn’t quite as appealing as before - most of the classic MK stuff having been used in the last game, and therefore much more focus on DA, D and MK4 - it is still rewarding to finally find that one key, or earn that much money, and a treat to look through.

It’s interesting to see the discarded concept artwork that went into the creation of this game, what certain characters could have looked like, compared to what they actually do. Indeed the character designs mix good and bad in equal measures. Many of the returning combatants are very well done, while the new characters are near-unanimous failures. There’s also the distinct sense that a lot of second-string characters have been added this time round, that all the interesting ones were used up in Deadly Alliance. I mean, was anyone out there really looking forward to the return of Nightwolf? Kabal? Sindel? Ermac? Didn’t think so.

That said, the jump to 3D has benefited several of these misfits, and it’s nice to see a number of once-palette swaps finally given their individuality.

Little needs to be said about Sub-Zero that hasn’t been done to death already, but needless to say he’s never looked more frightening. Raiden as well is distinctly evil (it’s the red eyes that do it) - understandable given his role in the game. Ermac is pretty nifty in his headscarf/turban and buttoned-up coat, while Kabal, Sindel and Nightwolf are largely unchanged.

Mileena is exotic and pneumatic, Jade, Tanya and Li Mei are requisitely sexy and rubbered-up and Ashrah is wearing white knee-length boots. I happen to think the girls of MKD are all pretty sexy, really. It’s not quite what usually gets served up in this sort of thing - there are no shy whimpering schoolgirls, no cheerfully upbeat warrior maidens - it’s very ‘comics sexy’, very heavy metal porn star - huge breasts, tiny waists, corsets, spandex, thigh-high boots, pouting lips, massive jawbones and bad attitude, not quite as blatant nor indeed as embarrassing as the girls of TAO FENG, but still way overdone. And while some of the renders, and indeed a couple of the in-game facial models are decidedly non-feminine (non-human?) in all it works well. It’s not like I’m fussy.

Kira’s bio tells how she disguised herself as a man in order to infiltrate the Black Dragon organisation - and with those … there … and then … and there’s just no fucking way! (Unless she strapped one of those fake pregnancy cushions on underneath her voluminous breasts and passed herself off as Harry Knowles, that is).

Mileena is worth a second mention here, as she really is excellent. It’s the first time that her ’sexy-but-ugly’ shtick has been truly successful, being too plain in past games to really be as polarised as her concept demands - but here, with the increase of both detail and sexualisation of the female characters, it works great! Just watch her winpose - where she writhes and runs her hands up and down her body (even hotter in her near-naked ‘pink dental floss’ alternate outfit) and while it’s all good for a few seconds, when she laughs, the viewer suddenly shifts their gaze to her veil, through which you realise you can see this huge, awful beartrap of a mouth scissoring away. It’s disturbing, alluring and kind of confusing, they way she should be. And don’t get me started on her ‘eats your head off’ fatality!

MKD poster boy Baraka returns, and he looks just like … Baraka (I’ve never understood the love for him … and didn’t he used to have metal teeth?)

Slightly more interesting fare exists in the forms of ‘Noob-Smoke’. The shadow ninja and smokey robo ninja from past games have joined forces, playing as a tag team, each with their own moves and fatality (and, I’m sure, nothing to do with not being able to mention the word ‘Saibot’ — ‘Tobias’ backwards any more) It has to be said that Noob-Smoke’s ending is particularly awesome, too.

Finally there’s the bizarre, some would say disappointing inclusion of Liu Kang, who despite dying at the hands of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi (both of whom now also seemingly dead) at the start of the previous game is back. Well, he’s sort of back - his first ‘outfit’ presents him as a rotting zombie, and his second as a translucent spirit. Both forms look excellent, and he’s a welcome enough addition, even if it does make the whole shock of his death in DA something of a cop-out.

And finally, it has to be said that I love the current Scorpion, who made his debut in Deadly Alliance. The added armour, detail, and the swords on his back just elevate him beyond awesome. It is said that his ‘Mugai-Ryu’ sword stance turned the entire Lin Kuei gay in under ten minutes. But I reckon it was closer to five.

In fact, everyone who has a sword looks good when holding it, but as previously mentioned it’s unfortunate that so many of the other stances are decidedly poor, awkward and unnatural.

The all-new characters aren’t up to much, really either. There’s Ashrah - who despite her holy looks is actually a demon with a sacred sword; Dariou, a warrior monk and contestant for least interesting character in the world; Kobra, a Ken Masters lookalike; Darrius, a black freedom fighter from the Realm of Order with a 70’s themed karate alternate outfit; Havik, a comedy zombie soldier, Hotaru a warrior again from the Orderrealm and Kira, the aforementioned busty she-Kano (typing that turned me on like you wouldn’t believe).

Shujinko becomes available after beating Konquest mode, although his moves (taken from other characters) and fatalities are scattered around the realms and need to be hunted down before they can be used.

All in all, MKD has a lot going for it. It looks and sounds great, has a tonne of unlockables, lots of stuff to do and is a fine addition to the MK canon. As a Mortal Kombat fan, I had a great time spotting the references to the old games, and running around classic MK locations talking to classic MK characters in Konquest mode is immense fun …

… however, judged as a fighting game (because that’s what it is, no matter how much it tries to hide it) and examined from the perspective of a fighting game fan, it just doesn’t have what it takes. With ultra-generic combat, sluggish controls and a skill ceiling so low it’s almost touching the floor - there really is incredibly little to recommend it.

I’ve been playing it for a week and a half now, and see no real reason to continue. I’ve got the characters, the costumes and the arenas. I’ve seen the fatalities, I’ve beaten Konquest and gotten everything I want to see from the Krypt - what else is there to do in the game? With no complex techniques to practise, no obscure fighting styles to learn and no ultra-fine timings to perfect - this is not a fighting game I’ll be coming back to over and over again, the minimal variety in the actual fighting (despite the much-heralded ‘depth’-giving multiple styles) and lack of true challenges to overcome or goals to achieve sees to that. Other than memorising all of the branching combos, an ultimately pointless and tedious goal, the game has little to offer in the way of long-lasting satisfaction. It all seems so pointless, once the shallow thrills and initial appeal have worn off. I find myself asking what the point of playing it any further would be, and am yet to come up with an answer.

As I said at the start, MKD is a difficult game to review. I do actually like it, quite a lot - but, as with the other games in the series the fun lies solely in the aesthetics, the extras, the shock value, and the story and characters, the things that have been unarguably the best part of the franchise since it began. As ever, the fighting part itself is of little interest - to use and abuse a cliché, it’s a great Mortal Kombat, but a crummy fighter.

By far the game’s greatest successes are in the areas that refer back to the old games, nostalgia is a powerful tool in the right hands and the games’ creators would be wise to capitalise on this. The new characters are universal failures, but the old ones are great - most likely great because they’re old. Without wanting to encourage the continuing self-cannibalism of the industry, I would personally far rather see the next game in the series be a remake of either (both?) of the first two games than I would another round of horrible and stupid new characters, scenarios and concepts.

I would say that any fan of the series should at least give it a look, but those of you out there who totally lack that warm and fuzzy decapitation haze, consider this a stern warning. This is not a fighting game you will treasure, nor one that will rest comfortably on the same shelf as the Namco and Sega 3D efforts. The extras and secrets only last so long and when the game itself is finally revealed, it, much like Mileena’s gaping maw, is really fucking ugly.

• Publisher/Developer: Midway
• Score: 68%