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Great graphics and fighting fun for mature audiences

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: October 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you're a fan of the Mortal Kombat series, or fighting games in general, get ready. This mature title has got puzzles, RPG, chess, and yes, lots of bloody Kombat!

The traditional aspects of Mortal Kombat are here. You have different characters to choose from. Different styles of fighting. Key combinations create gorgeous attack moves. You earn coins as you go, to spend on unlocking new characters, levels, and other secrets.

The graphics here are simply gorgeous. The floors and walls have textures from shiny and reflective to grainy matte. The glow of fire, misty mountains and glowing lights are quite impressive. Characters have robes that flow with the action and accessories that sway realistically. If you want to be gory, the blood even flows down your body.

On the other hand, in Dead or Alive the environments are amazingly reactive - fighting in a snowy area leaves tracks in the snow, and autumn leaves blow past you in the forest. In comparison, Mortal Kombat has a desert island fight seem like the ground is made of concrete. So there is still room for improvement.

Body movements are equally as well done. Gone are the days of blocky characters with jerky attacks. You can really feel like you're in a martial arts movie here, with the super smooth blocks and combo kicks. This is great for the audience the game is intended for (mature) - but means that youngsters can easily get upset by some of the very realistic back-breaking moves. There's a reason this game earned that mature rating.

Even the sub-games are so good that they could easily qualify as standalone packages. The Puzzle Kombat is in essence tetris with fighting animations for when you do well. Chess Kombat is chess with little mortal kombat pieces. You can play both of these on XBox Live too! There's also a Konquest Adventure where you wander around talking to characters and taking on quests.

Highly recommended for mature fighting game fans, and with all of the things to unlock you have great incentive to play for weeks and weeks to see everything.

Awsome

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: October 10, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I could best describe this game as Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance done right. Kombat is exactly the same as in Deadly Alliance with a few added features. In this game, the arena can be just as great a factor in the match as the opponent. Opponents can be knocked off the stage to different levels, get caught in traps, and there are even some in game weapons to be picked up. The character roster is great as well. They finally got rid of that stupid Jhonny Cage! Kabal, Baraka, Nightwolf, and Sindel are just some of the old faces making their return. And of course, what mortal kombat game would be complete without Scorpion and Sub-Zero?

The Konquest mode varies from Deadly Alliance in that it is actually an engaging story; rather than just character by character training. You manage a guy named Shujinko who travels the realms learning the ways of kombat. You meet each of the kombat characters in the game and get trained by them, as them. There are also a lot of optional tasks to complete for various villagers to earn koins. This is certainly a much better way of earning kurrncey than in MK5 which was just really boring. Though, I'm still not sure if I even dig this kurrency and krypt thing at all anyways. Oh well, they did it and its improved upon.

There are also two new features: Puzzle Kombat and Kombat chess. A mortal kombat version of chess and a falling piece game. I was skeptical at first, but these are actually a lot of fun, and rather addicting.

All in all, MK6 is really great and way better than the previous.

Extremely fun/gruesome!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 03, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I totally agree that this is definetely the best fighting game of E3. There are over 20 characters that you can choose from, each one inlcluding three different styles, one of the styles using a weapon. (Except for Noob-Smoke which is one of the characters that you unlock, in their case, one of their styles is switching characters between Noob and Smoke-pretty self explanatory). There are two words that describe Mortal Kombat Deception-Mortal Kombat! I will now break down my review in terms of graphics, audio, gameplay and online play.

Graphics: The graphics in Mortal Kombat Deception are alright, not bad but nood great. Lets start with the good then we can drift on to the bad. The good part of the graphics in Mortal Kombat Deception are the character models and the character movements. One other wonderful thing about the graphics is the amount of background detail that the creator of Mortal Kombat Deception took his time to put into it, great job for that! One other great thing is, i know there is really only one goood cutscene in this game, the one before the game actually starts, showing the intro, but i think that the creators of this game really did what they needed to do to make this cutscene actually worth watching. What the cutscene is, is basically an introduction to the sequel of Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance. Basically, the alliance breaks up, but then come back together again. When you watch this cutscene, in some terms, it seems like you are actually watching a real movie which is really fun and entertaining and unlike most cutscenes now a days where they are all just junk and with a cheesy script.

Now on to the bad part of the graphicss. The bad part of the graphics feature is that the blood looks like something you would find out of a Sega Genesis, they really need to work on the violence/blood/gore to make it look much more realistic then it is right now, because right now, it looks really, really g@y and definetely nothing that you would find in an Xbox now a days. I think that instead of making it so that their is an overload of blood pouring out the characters body and face, they should have decreased the amount of blood by a little bit, but should have added a lot more detail/texture into the blood and gore, that would have made this game way better i think. This also includes the fatalities which need much more work as well. But i guess that graphics don't matter that much in a game like Mortal Kombat Deception, just keep in mind guys that we want just a little bit more detail into the "violent" part of the graphics, then the graphics aspect of the game will be perfect!

Audio: The audio in Mortal Kombat is great, from the magnificent music from the cutscene in the beginning before the game actually launches to the different music in each multiplayer map. The classic Mortal Kombat music has returned- Great job in terms of audio! The quality is amazing, and definetely not part of the game that i should rate negatively!

Gameplay: The gameplay aspect of the game is definetely the best out of all the Mortal Kombat Deception games so far in my opinion. There are now three new modes in Mortal Kombat which i will explain below.

Puzzle Kombat: A fun minigame where you have to match up different colors of blocks. As one player gets rid of their blocks, the amount of blocks that dissappeared from the players screen, gets added to the opponents screen making it a fun and strategic game to play both online and off. Each character has their own special moves which make it even more entertaining and strategic when it comes to which character you should choose when facing your opponent online or the CPU.

Chess Kombat: Pretty self explanatory. You basically play chess, getting to choose your team (every MK character moves the same way as in the real Chess game) and when you come into contact with a player you get to fight for whoever takes over the square. An extremely fun game to play once again both online and off, but can get a little dull and boring, considering that if your both good at it it can take a little over 20 minutes to complete the game. One cool feature about this is that you have a spell list where you can cast certain special moves at anytime you want, however once you use one special move, you cant use that same one again making it strategic to know when you want to cast each spell.

Konquest Mode: Basically an adventure mode, you play young Shujinko and you basically are out on a quest to gain honor. The graphics in this mode isn't that great and there are a few little glitches, but nothing to major. You get to do side quests for people which earn you koins which you can go and spend on extra features i.e, making of the game, comentary, characters, extra costumes (etc). Also, as you go through the adventure mode you actually do unlock new puzzle fighters, kombat fighters, new arenas, clothing, music and moves which i found was pretty cool and gave me one other reason to complete this mode besides the fact that its really fun!

The actual gameplay itself is awesome. There are two fatalities per character, but what sucks is that you have to be a certain distance away from your opponent, and its extremely accurate and can be frustrating. Each character also has a new hari-kiri move where they basically kill themselves after they have lost. You do not have to be a certain distance away to perform these suicidal moves. There are many different combos, and for once its not a fighting game that resorts on button mashing, which is very good because thats how most fighting games are now a days, they require no skill.

Another new feature about this game is that their are death traps on some of the maps, for example, brutal spikes, a grinder, and pirhanas which can be a cool and deadly way to kill your opponent considering that if you throw your enemy into one of these traps, its an instant kill.

As a result of the gameplay aspect, it is great, and another reason to buy this hit game!

Online play: Mortal Kombat Deception now allows you to compete head to head on Xbox live which is really great. Your opponents are usually very, very skilled as they most of the time have completed Konquest mode and unlocked every feature of the game, but what can i say, most of the competitive people on Xbox Live are good at what they play. There is a ranking system and you are able to play either Puzzle, Chess or normal Kombat which i thought was really cool seeing that my first reaction to the online play was that you could only fight with your opponents in Kombat mode, but fortunetely i was wrong.

The only problem that i have to say there is with Mortal Kombat Deception on Xbox Live is that if the connections start to fail even a bit you will get a disconnect which shows up on your "profile." This can get really frustrating if your winning for once and then the game disconnects. It usually happens one in every six-seven games that you play, so as you can see it is quite a frequent error, even if you have a good connection.

But overall, Mortal Kombat definetely has a descent online feature and is definetely worth spending $50 on the game for.

One of the problems that i have though with Mortal Kombat is when your playing Kombat Mode, the boss, the dragon, is incredibly cheap as if he grapples you once, almost one quarter of your health is taken away. But thats not that bad is it...

In conclusion, Mortal Kombat can be hard and frustrating at times, and the graphics could need a little work on, but the gameplay itself is amazing with two fatalities per character, new gameplay modes, many characters and by far the best audio in the whole MK series!

the best mortal kombat game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 07, 2005
Author: Amazon User

if you play the mortal kombat series you should definetly pick up this game. In my opinion it is the best Mortal Kombat game that has come out.

MK Strikes Back!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm a big mortal Kombat Fan and when I first got deadly alliance I loved it. It was my favorite mortal Kombat game and still is. When I got news about MK Deception I had to play it or at least see the cover of it. Anyways I now have Mortal Kombat,Mortal Kombat 2,Mortal Kombat 3,Mortal kombat 4,Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance,Mortal Kombat Deception, and I use to have MK Shaolin Monks But I hated it so I got money for it by selling it. MK DA is still my favorite but Deception is a very good game too. You will love the new Konquest mode which I already beat and you sub-zero fans will love to see the bad version of subzero again. The way I can tell is because there is no scar on his face. I'm glad they brought back old characters like one of my favorites Ermac,and the sharp witted Baraka. They have also layed out some new characters like Kobra and Dariou. This game is fun and has crisp sound and graphics. Check out my reviews on any MK games. You will know because my logo will be at the bottom of the review.

(logo) SMK

MORTAL KOMBAT!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: September 19, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is brutal. The graphics and game play excellent and superior to other fighting games currently out for home systems. Mortal Kombat is and always will be the ultimate fighting game. Some of the best characters are here and I was very excited to see the long awaited return of Baraka back nastier than ever. The fatalities are as bloody and brutal as any Kombat fan would come to expect from the first fighting game to get banned from such places as Wal-Mart. The first of the series required blood Kodes for those who remember this meant that the blood had to be turned on with certain codes on certain versions. My brother Michael and I have been big fans of Mortal Kombat growing up and I think its very awesome that this game is still alive and fighting strong. LIVE LONG AND PROSPURE MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!!!

What has Midway done to this franchise?

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: April 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I picked up this game a while back for my Xbox, after not picking up a MK title since the disappointments that were Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat 4. This game also failed horribly to impress me.

First off, one of the things that was great about the early Mortal Kombat games was that you could pick up your controller, choose your favorite character and just kick some serious butt. Now, the Kombat franchise has been so overly saturated with half-assed characters that Deception is almost unrecognizable as a Mortal Kombat game, except for the fact that Baraka, Mileena, Sub-Zero and Scorpion are selectable from the get-go. Kitana was one of my favorite characters in the series, and I found out later, on gamefaqs, that this character had to be unlocked in the "Konquest" mode, with another character that this player really couldn't care less about. This is one way that Midway has messed up this franchise.

Gameplay is also another screw-up. The combo system that was implimented in Mortal Kombat 3 was horrible. This system, on the other hand, with 3 separate fighting styles, and God knows how many combos you have to learn, and not to mention the fact that the combos are almost impossible to pull off, makes this addition to the franchise even worse.

I played my way through the game, up to the final fight against the Dragon King, with Sub-Zero. This boss has the worst case of the SNK boss syndrome that I've ever seen. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, the King of Fighters series has always been well known for end bosses that can beat you in 3 hits or less. The Dragon King in this game can do just that. The only end boss I've seen worse than this thing is the end boss in Dead or Alive 4 on the 360, who can take off 65% of your life bar in 1 hit.

Now, allow me to talk about the additional modes in Deception. Puzzle Kombat is just another "Puzzle Fighter" clone, only with MK characters. Did Midway really need to add this? I don't think so. Kombat Chess just about made me weep for this franchise that revolutionized fighting games, as it's been turned into a cheesy "Battle Chess" clone. "Konquest" Mode was just another quest mode, taking Mortal Kombat and turning it into an RPG.

Midway, you've messed up one of your best franchises. Stick a fork in the Mortal Kombat franchise, people, it's done.

Disappointing Roster, Yet Fun.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: October 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I had high hopes for Deception after playing Deadly Alliance a few years ago. I saved the money for the game and anxiously awaited it. Due to a stockman's mistake, I managed to get the game a few days early and played it pretty hard for a day before deciding that it wasn't worth the money I spent on it. Don't crucify me yet, MK worshipers, as I will tell you why.

The character roster in Deception is by far the most disapointing of any MK game to date. Unless they are found hidden deep within the game, Johnny Cage, Sonya, Kitana, Jax, Kung Lao, (and more) are all absent from the game, after being in nearly every game in the series to date. Of that list, I am especially upset with the exclusion of Cage and Sonya, who are always favorites at dorm parties, where 2 player fighters are favorites. This is the primary reason for the low fun score, though people who dislike all these characters (I'm assuming only die-hard fans of the series' rejected filler characters) should still have a blast with the game. The re-introduction of Liu Kang is a welcome sight in a game that loses it's familiarity with long time series players in an attempt to appease only the most select of fans.

Other than the character roster being very sub-par, the game is as much fun to play as Deadly Alliance. The game is greatly accelerated, with lightning fast responses to your input, which was a major fault of Deadly Alliance with some of the more lengthy combos. A new indicator allows one to train when a move leaves one open for attack, teaching the player how to best utilize each move at his/her disposal. Another welcome sight is a 2nd fatality per character. Another low point, however, is the ability for your opponent to kill his/herself after losing, rather than allowing the victor the gratification of the kill, which, as most know, is usually the point of the whole match. The exclusion of some styles from Deadly Alliance is also a let down, one example being the nunchaku weapon style, which is always a favorite alternative to the usual swords or blades.

There are other modes to enjoy besides the usual arcade mode, of course, though I will not go into great detail about them. One of which is Chess Kombat, allowing you to use MK Characters as "tokens" on a chess board, duking it out for every square, but with many twists to the usual game. Puzzle Kombat is your basic puzzle game, with colored pieces dropping for you to match up and delete before your opponent wins, causing your mini-warrior to be executed in typical MK fashion.

The final component to MK Deception is Konquest mode, which once again trains you to play the game, but this time, tells the story of Sujinko as you guide him through the realms of the MK Universe. It is an RPG style game taht allows for most of the secrets in the game to be unlocked, via the Krypt, making it's return from Deadly Alliance.

Did I mention all modes are playable ONLINE?

All in all, the game is much better this time around, but will not be remaining in my XBOX when friends are over, due simply to the fact that Midway took away all familiarity in the series with a bland, apocalyptical storyline and removed the majority of the series' trademark characters. For some, this will be no problem, and you should rely on instinct to guide your purchase. If you enjoyed Deadly Alliance, you will likely enjoy this game, though maybe, not as long.

A mixed bag, complete with variations on Chess, Puzzle Fighting, RPGs and the traditional fighting modes

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: September 22, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm one of those Mortal Kombat enthusiasts who sees the past through a pair of the ever-popular rose tinted glasses. Even though I'd never fought a single round of 3-D rendered MK prior to purchasing Deception, I unconsciously deemed every game since that switch to be of lesser quality than their vid-captured predecessors. I'd spent far too many quarters on the first three games in the series to see its trademark live-action cheesiness cast aside in favor of the polygonal rendering and three-dimensional environments that had become all the rage in the fighting genre. In a way, I want to stand by my pre existing pompous, know-it-all attitude. A lot of the charm and personality of the series was based around its B-Movie aura and the macabre sense of humor apparent therein. But the series will likely never be returning to that form, and it's probably for the best to wipe the slate clean and give these new-look MKs a chance before I blindly crap all over them.

Deception succumbs to many of the problems I'd feared it might, but it also contains a few successes I couldn't have foreseen. For instance, it's more of a variety pack than a straightforward fighting game. In addition to the standard "fight to the top of the ladder" single player brawl, the package contains a strangely provocative translation of chess, complete with death traps and damage amplifiers. Additionally, it hides a truly challenging and entertaining Puzzle Fighter knock-off, (with a handful of post-match fatalities thrown in for good measure) a sort of hybrid fighting RPG that reminds strangely of Shenmue, and a gift shop-styled "Krypt," where the credits you'll earn throughout your gameplay experience can be used to purchase production art, hidden characters, alternate costumes, movies and the like. As someone who's always shied away from purchasing fighting games in the past, due to the problems with longevity and depth that I instinctively associate with the genre, these additions were a blessing in disguise.

Upon reflection, I probably spent more time working through the Konquest mode than I did actually fighting my way up the ladder in single-player Kombat. Superficially, Konquest is probably among the worst games I've ever played. It's wooden, it's blatantly hurried, it's insultingly elementary in both visuals, audio, controls and motivations. Speaking to the commoners that frequent a city's streets, for instance, is like reading dialog from a story written by a third grade student with a D in English. What's worrying is that this story was evidently supposed to be the backbone of the whole of Deception, with every character's ending sprouting from ideas presented within. Shujinko, the martial artist you control throughout Konquest mode, is the tale's pivotal character. He's obviously meant to be something of a replacement for Liu Kang, which is a nice shift, since the series' reliance on Kang was becoming borderline obsessive.

Yet, despite all the horrors contained within, underneath the surface of Konquest resides some intangible element that just kept me coming back over and over again. I think it was an underlying interest in understanding and mastering the nuances of the game as a whole. Although it's fairly elaborate and large-scale, the meat and potatoes of this RPG mode is a training regimen for every character in the game. Since Shujinko's fighting style is a mix of special moves and combos from each combatant, it makes sense for him to spend time learning each character's fighting style. The end result is not only a close familiarity with Shujinko's story, but also a clear understanding of both basic and advanced attacks with every playable character. I think I can safely say that I've never spent twenty hours working through a tutorial before, but in Konquest mode I scarcely noticed.

As with any long-standing fighting franchise, a new chapter brings new playable characters, and Deception is no exception. Nine fighters are making their debut this time around, including the non-playable final boss, Onaga. Yet, with only one or two exclusions, these new faces can't even compare to the classics, neither in form nor function. They seem much more faceless than the creatures we've come to expect in a Mortal Kombat game. Their fighting styles are much more subtle and martial arts-based, and while there's something to be said for going the way of realism for a change, the new warriors just don't look formidable alongside Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Raiden.

As I've said in my opening paragraphs, I consider myself to be something of an older-minded fan as far as the MK series is concerned. I liked the old games, complete with their goofy projectile attacks and inexplicable teleportations from one side of the screen to the other. It was taken for granted that such silly abilities would still be present with this year's model, and that surely is the case. Unfortunately, in their unyielding quest to constantly top themselves, the special move as a whole has become so far over the top and hard to believe that it's really starting to hurt the gameplay. If I'm fighting an eight foot dragon and he breathes flames over 97% of my body, I can accept the fact that my fighter may have trouble continuing. I'm still totally OK with the idea that a ninja can fire a mystical, freezing blast from the palms of his hands. Where I start to have questions, however, is when my fighter is knocked unconscious by a guy stomping really hard on the ground fifteen feet in front of me. Something tells me it's time for the team at Midway to take a step or two back and think about where they're going with their special attacks, because Deception is really stretching it with some of these things.

In that same vein is the series' infamous cherry-on-the-top fatalities immediately following a fight. These, too, occasionally go too far over the top, but are granted a bit more leeway than the special attacks I mentioned above. For the most part, they're at once hilarious and horrific, with little touches and nuances making them all the more disturbing. Like the way an impaled torso squirms for a moment, after being separated from each of its limbs and its head, before falling into inactivity for the last time. Hilarious, because it's so unabashedly violent, but also sickening, because the layman wouldn't even think of something like that before witnessing it in all of its polygonal glory.

At this stage in the consoles' lives, I think there's very little room to impress with the PS2, Xbox or Gamecube's visual capabilities. As such, MK:D is a strictly average graphical performance. There are some intriguing touches, such as the way fighters begin to display facial damage as the rounds carry on, but for the most part it's by the books. The stage designs and accompanying backgrounds are stellar, which may give the impression that things are looking better than they actually are, but under close scrutiny it's easy to discover a few shortcuts and trimmed corners. Especially bothersome is the endings, tailor-made to each character in typical series fashion. Where there's a lengthy FMV introduction to the game that's close to five minutes in length, the endings are at most three slides of still renderings with half a paragraph of subtitles and a voice-over. I'd have much rather been entertained with an introductory paragraph at the outset and rewarded with a beautiful series of cutscenes after finishing the game with each character, personally.

Of course, the series made its name on its bloodletting, and on this front, Deception certainly doesn't disappoint. Rather than spraying abstractly into the air after each strike, the player's crimson fluids take the shape of thick, rotund blood droplets which slowly roll their way down the player's body after a rough attack. In a way, it's like watching a tree bleed syrup. When those globs hit the floor, you'll notice that a series of intertwining blood trails left behind. After a fight, if you look closely enough at the ground, you'll notice a map of where each major strike occurred during the brawl, as evidenced by the trail of blood splatters and puddles. In a way, it's kind of like a twisted version of the Family Circus maps that followed each child around the neighborhood, just with more broken bones and dislocated spines.

Despite my early concerns, Deception really does retain a lot of that old-school Mortal Kombat personality. The instances are frequent where I find myself laughing at a fatality in the same way I did in '92, upon catching first glimpse of the original arcade machine. However, those instances do appear to be shrinking. It seems to be the right time for this series to reinvent itself, as the initial concept has been stretched to the point of breaking on more than one front and the threat of a descent into complete self-destruction looms on the horizon. I'm really looking for this series to re-establish itself as pushing the envelope, as it seems to have slipped into complacency in the last decade. What made it so special and so unique in the first place was its willingness to do what other games wouldn't. Deception has a lot of good elements - it's still a very challenging game, it provides a lot more variety than many of its peers, and it provides a good blend of comedy and stone-faced sobriety. As a "greatest hit," there's no question I'm happy with my purchase. What it doesn't do, unfortunately, is bode well for the future of the franchise if this path is continued for much longer.

Mortal Kombat is the Bomb

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: December 09, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The moves are orignal the levels are inter active you can play alot of mini games like puzzle combat chess Combat conqest mode the game is all around great it is awsome.

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