Platform: PlayStation 2

Developer: Midway Games

Publisher: Midway Games

Release Date (NA): October , 2006

Genre: Fighting,  Hack and Slash

Nerd Rating: 9.4 out of 10

Reviewed by Dovahkyle

There are three categories of classic fighting game people: Tekken, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, I am in the MK category, of course you have your less famous fighters like Clay Fighter and WWF, but who really plays those? Luckily most of my friends are MK fans as well, I loved playing MK III in the arcades as a kid, but Deadly Alliance and Deception were the games that really got me into the series. When Armageddon came out there was not even a hesitation on my part to make the purchase, I even bought it a second time when the first one became unplayable do to the scratches.

Yes the movies were cheesy, with terrible acting, but come on, who didn’t want to see them, I still own both films and enjoy a good laugh now and then. As a kid my favorite character was Sub Zero, I don’t know if this was a real choice or if it was just because my brother laid claim to Scorpion first, either way I became a die hard Sub Zero fan and in learning the back stories of the characters, I became equally a big fan of Noob Saibot, if your not familiar with MK characters, Sub Zero was a ninja in MK I and was killed by his arch nemesis Scorpion being subsequently replaced by his younger brother, whilst the original Sub Zero became Noob Saibot (his name is the game creator’s names spelled backwards, Tobias and Boon).

I could literally bore you to death with the back stories of these characters as I became deeply entrenched with their behind the scenes lives, they are in fact good enough to make movies out of, if they had the budget and good actors, but that hasn’t been the case as of yet. The MK universe consists of seven realms: Earthrealm, the world we humans know, and highly coveted by evil rulers of other realms; Outworld, ruled by Shao Kahn who intends to consume and control the other realms, home to the crossbred Tarkatans (Baracka); Netherrealm, which is essentially hell and was temporarily controlled by the fallen Elder God, Shinnok, in a ploy to take over Edenia; Orderrealm (Seido), a place of civilization and law, ruled by a Republic and a military led by Hatoru (my other favorite character); Chaosrealm, the polar opposite of Saiden, complete anarchy rules here and is the native homeland to Havic; Edenia, a land that closely resembles the Garden of Eden, this beautiful place is ruled by the cold hearted witch Queen Sindel and her daughter Princess Katana; and lastly Heavon, this is the realm, opposite of the Netherrealm, where the Elder Gods reside, such as Raiden, Fujin and Shinnok.

Gameplay: The campaign, or Konquest,  is a third person hack and slash, where the player controls Taven, a demi-god. Throughout the campaign mode, the player will encounter and conquer many famous characters in “Mortal Kombat”, in the traditional fighting game style. The campaign mode allows the player to unlock alternate costumes, rare armors and additional characters, but most importantly it allows the player to earn gold that can be spent on costumes and special moves in Kreate-a-fighter.

Kreate-a-fighter is by far the main reason, besides the 60+ character choices, that I love this game. Not only can I create a fighter that looks however I want, more importantly the fighting moves (kicks, punches, upper cuts, etc..), fighting styles (mantis, drunken monkey, etc...), weapons (swords, axes, hammers, etc…) and specials can be fully customized to create the ultimate fighting machine. I have two memory cards jam packed with custom fighters and just to make sure no one messed up my characters, each fighter is password protected. My friends, wife and kids all have their own custom fighters too, so this has become a great party game.

I will admit with most fighting games i was a button masher, luck of the draw if I won a match, but I still loved it. This game changed all that for me, with the ability to choose what each button and button combination do, I could actually learn how to successfully fight with my custom character, and win. There is an amazing amount of customization, from the way the characters look (I have literally spent hours on this) to the fighting moves, styles, weapons and specials (another few hours), no two characters will be the same.

Some examples of specials: Hell Fire Kick, the character launches into a back flip of death with feet of fury; Ice Clone, this creates a statue of ice that will freeze the opponent when touched; Tele-kinetic Slam, this one grabs the opponent with his mind and slams him violently into the ground; and Black Hole, the opponent is dragged into the abyss and slapped around a little, there are many more this doesn’t even scratch the surface but it gives you an idea of some really cool specials that can be associated with a custom character. There are also a great number of weapons available such as: Autumn Dao, Kick Axe, Demon Fang, Hook Swords, Sai, Troll Hammer and Kriss, these again are just a few of so many.

No more character specific fatalities! I never knew more than one or two of those anyways, that is over with Kreate-a-Fatality. The player has the option to enter combos of buttons to create his/her own fatality, these can last a long time if the player is fast enough, finally ending with a Bloody Fatality, Mortal Fatality or even Brutal Fatality, the kind of fatality earned depends of how long the player was able to carry it out, here is a list of moves just for Kreate-a-Fatality just to have an idea of how many combinations can be done.

Story: The story revolves around two demi-god brothers Taven and Daegon, Taven must travel the realms to stop Daegon from becoming a full god. The number of fighters has become so numerous and they have become so powerful that the realms themselves are in danger of being ripped apart, so Blaze, a fire spawn created by the twins mother, Delia (a powerful sorceress from Edenia) was sent to kill the last remaining fighter as they would all kill each other in the battle to get to the top of the mysterious pyramid, and become all powerful. Killing Blaze will be the fight that ends the game, and allows the player to read an ending.

Controls: As I stated earlier, usually I am a button masher, this game is allot easier to get the controls down, even for the stock MK characters. During any fight at any time, the player can pause the game and read all the moves for the specific character, including, weapon moves, fighting style moves and specials. I learned to pause allot, until I became familiar with a specific character. Overall the controls are very learn-able even for the noobs.

Replayability: I say this game has unending replayability, I have personally been playing this game since it was released (over 7 years) and I still love it. This is one of the only games my wife will still play with me, and can actually put up a heck of a fight in, and she is not a gamer (except for Dr. Mario and Bejeweled, she will kick anyone’s butt on those titles).

Overall this is the best Mortal Kombat game I have ever played, including the newest releases for the Xbox 360. And my mind will not change on that opinion until they bring Kreate-a-fighter to a new title, that is the single most amazing aspect of this game by far. This game is super cheap now and was released on the Wii with a new fighter, so give it a shot, if you like fighting games, you will love Mortal Kombat Armageddon.

Written by Nerd Bacon