GAME
Mortal Kombat
Deception

Format: PS2
Midway Games
£39.99

5 037930 071775
Age Restrictions: 18+
Available
26 November 2004


Shocking and evil, Mortal Kombat: Deception pushes martial arts-style fighting and the Mortal Kombat franchise to new heights with an innovative fighting system, unparalleled depth and brutally intense action that will appeal to long-time Mortal Kombat fans as well as next-generation gamers. The game features lightning-fast hand-to-hand and special weapons combat, secret and returning characters, moves and combinations with new death-dealing battles and fatalities. It also features a host of new features including multiple fatalities per character, multi-tiered interactive backgrounds and extensive new game modes...

When I was younger (Now this was a while ago), I used to take swimming lessons down the local Health Centre. Just outside of the mentally damaging open planned changing rooms was an arcade cabinet. This only ever changed once in the two years I went to the leisure centre (I was very slow at learning to swim). So imagine my surprise when I arrived there to see a brand new Mortal Kombat cabinet just sitting there. I walked up to it and saw the demos playing. I couldn't believe it. The characters looked human. They had human facial features and did really nasty things to the losers by ripping their heads off. Now this was my sort of game, blood, guts and violence. I loved it. The worst mistake I ever made was to play the game. I found it to be slow and unresponsive and crap to play (I loved Street fighter 2 so you can see why,) but it still looked pretty good.

Fortunately Midway made great leaps and bound with the playability of the game over the next few incantations and made it into something of a cult classic. Then just as the latest version came out on the PlayStation, everything went quiet. They were building up to what would be the ultimate Mortal Kombat game for the 'next gen' consoles; PS2, Xbox and GameCube. After spending a very long time in development it finally arrives.

And it's good It's really good But not perfect But I like it Anyway. This is a very playable and fun game. Combining characters from the older games and mixing in some new people to play, this is fast and fun and quite addictive. As well as having the usual features of a beat 'em up, you have a very brave attempt at online play (this works better on the Xbox rather than the PS2 version that I tested). You also have the usual team play and two player options and a curious addition called Mortal Kombat Chess. If you like chess and Mortal Kombat and cant see a problem with mixing the two then this is the game for you.

Playability is very good and the characters are very responsive. And of course the fatalities are still there to provide amusement for the kids and shock for the parents (Who should not let their children play this game because it has an eighteen certificate. So if your kid rips someone's head off then it's your fault, not the games).

All in all I like this game and its perfect for late night mate bashing after the pub. Top one Midway, you have saved the franchise and made it cool again (just don't make any more films, please!)

Simon Lee

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£29.99 (Amazon.co.uk)

   
£36.99 (MVC.co.uk)
   
£23.99 (Powerplaydirect.com)

All prices correct at time of going to press.