by
Ted Kritsonis
Faze Video Game Editor

Now that we’re in a new generation of consoles (and heading for an even newer one in the next two years), Mortal Kombat: Deception is the latest rendition of the classic series, as Midway tries to reassert its place in the fighting genre among diehard MK fans and younger gamers who may be newbies to the MK world. The attempt is a valiant one, but ultimately it comes up short.



Since the name of the game is fighting, a great deal of effort was put into making the game easy to play considering all the button combinations involved. It’s true that fighting games these days are filled with crazy combos that require you to press five or six buttons in rapid succession, and MK: Deception has plenty of that, but some of it doesn’t make sense.

Each fighter has three fighting styles that they can switch in and out of during a fight, and some combos allow you to integrate them. It looks cool, but how can a guy pull out a sword at the end of a combo that literally lasts less than two seconds? And even better, what can you do when you screw up what is already a difficult combo to pull off? The latter scenario leaves you wide open to an easy attack from your opponent, while the former scenario illustrates what’s wrong with the fighting mechanics in the game. Pulling off combos comes with practice, just like anything else, but you can’t help but feel cheated when you keep trying to execute them and they don’t work. That’s where an aura of frustration really starts to set in.

Although things sort of fall flat in the actual fighting, MK: Deception boasts a very interesting Konquest mode that will place you in an immersive world where you do just about everything from fight training to unlocking the game’s bonus content through all the trials and tribulations you go through in this third-person adventure. The idea works quite well most of the time, if you can ignore the brutal voice acting, which sounds like a bunch of people who should really stick to their day jobs.

Konquest will take plenty of time to go through and you’ll encounter some classic characters from earlier MK games along the way. The way in which the worlds have been produced here will remind you of other third-person adventure games, but you won’t really feel like they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. Sometimes, however, you will feel like the fighting and training get in the way of your exploration.

The other game modes to note here are Puzzle Kombat, which is sort of like Tetris, and Chess Kombat, which is a humourous interpretation of chess using MK fighters. MK Online offers the best outlet for the fighting part of the game because it runs smoothly and MK diehards and newbies can fight to the death over and over again online. There isn’t much depth in terms of stats, but playing online often will no doubt enhance your skills.

Playing MK: Deception made me wonder if this franchise has anything left in the tank because while some aspects work, most don’t work well enough. There’s no doubt that MK fans will check this out, and interested newcomers might give it a try, but to suggest that both sides will really get a lot out of this one is a bit of a stretch.

Publisher:
Midway
Developer:
Midway

Platform:
PS2

Rating: 6/10