$20 Game of the Week: Mortal Kombat Armageddon (PS2, Xbox)

In 1996, Midway released Mortal Kombat Trilogy, a “special edition” version of Mortal Kombat 3 for Playstation and Nintendo 64 which included all the characters and most of the backgrounds from all of the games up to that point. It was to serve as the final chapter of the current storyline before the series received an overhaul of sorts with MK 4. Since then, the series experienced a fair share of ups and downs, until 2002’s MK Deadly Alliance completely revitalized the series. The franchise continued right along with 2004’s MK Deception, which included a plethora of new gaming modes, including an expanded version of conquest, puzzle kombat, and what was a first for 3-d fighting games, online play. Last fall, Midway re-upped again with Armageddon, which serves as the last game of the current storyline and the last game on current generation systems.

Just like Trilogy a decade prior, Armageddon featured every single character from every MK game (except one) in an effort to clean up the series’ plot line. However, it tends to fall flat, due to the lack of coherent storyline which was pointed out when Sindra reviewed the game a few months ago. However, the amount of features in this game go a long way to make up for what the story line lacks. Armageddon features a fully expanded Konquest mode (which uses the engine from 2005’s Shaolin Monks), Motor Kombat (a kart-racing minigame that’s playable online), and what’s probably the coolest feature for the whole series, Kreate-a-Kombatant. Lots of unlockable pieces are available, and you can create a whole new character from the ground up, or re-create re-existing characters from other games. The best part is that you can take your avatar online against other players. This mode is unfortunately held back by the fact that you can only create one character per profile, so to create more, you need to make new profiles.

Even though some portions of this game seem rushed, (particularly the endings) there are worse ways to close out a saga like this, and the shortcomings here only make players more eager to see what’s coming next.

BTW, this is coming to Wii this summer with new motion sensing features and a new character.