Mortal Kombat: Armageddon User Reviews (PS2)

PangTong_Blademaster
from Oxford, , England

Aug 1, 2008

Mortal Kombat is one of those timeless fighting series such as Street Fighter that always comes crashing back to fight over the fighting crown. Armageddon was released in early 2006, it being one of the most recent Mortal Kombat games and it was my first. It takes place in a fantasy universe where opposing factions and clans are always fighting. With many features including Konquest mode, Kreate a fighter and the more unusual; Motor Kombat, Armageddon was most definitely a worthy purchase and it also offers the entire Mortal Kombat roster of roughly 64 characters all with alternate costumes. With the newest Mortal Kombat title: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe I thought I would take some time to fall back on an old Playstation 2 game that puts the jewel in the fighter genre’s crown.

Story

If you want to learn of the great narrative the only way to do so is by playing Konquest mode which triggers the story behind Armageddon. Argus, the most powerful of the Edenian Gods and his wife, Delia foresee the great apocalypse ahead. They assume that it will occur on Earthrealm where hundreds of kombatants flock to win the tournament. So much individual energy in one place could only lead to destruction and so Argus plans for both of his sons; Taven and Daegon to participate in their own competition. He summons them to his chamber and encases them in stone and portals them in the Earthrealm where they are to be awakened just before the apocalypse. The player will play as Taven, the oldest brother who awakens from his case of stone to find a dragon at his side, Orin, a friend of the family. Taven has been sent to prevent the coming events and to do so he must quest to find Blaze, a golem created by his mother, Delia. In defeating Blaze in mortal kombat, Taven will succeed his father as a Edenian God. However, Daegon also has the same quest as his brother. Taven is first told by Orin that he is to find a temple of his father’s and also his mother‘s in order to receive an item that will aid him in his quest. Taven soon finds himself ambushed by many factions of kombatants from afar and at one point is captured by the notorious Sektor. All the kombatants are also looking for Blaze as well as Taven, and if they win a fight with Blaze the world will come to an end and they will be made an Edenian God. Upon meeting his brother Taven is told about what has happened since he was encased in stone. Daegon was prematurely released from his case of stone and went after Argus and Delia and killed them both, he then started up the red dragon clan and tried to make hybrids from his fighters but hadn’t succeeded. He became a lot older that Taven and became corrupted. Other familiar kombatants such as Shao Khan and Shinnok were aiding Daegon so they could hopefully be spared at the time of the apocalypse but in truth they all sought the prize for themselves. As time progressed, Taven had defeated many kombatants and found that the item his mother had left him was gone so took his chances and found Blaze. He also found Daegon too, wielding both the blades their parents had offered to them for the quest ahead. After defeating his brother once and for all, Taven took up his sword and went after Blaze, who now stood atop Argus’s pyramid where all the kombatants from across the realms where desperately trying to reach Blaze. After an intense fight Blaze is defeated and tells Taven why he was sent to defeat him. Before the quest began Argus had made two effects, one attached to each son, upon the defeat of Blaze, depending on which son won, an effect would be triggered. One effect would result in the death of all the kombatants and the other would result in them losing their powers. However the effect Taven triggered was neither and instead a third. This effect resulted in nothing changing, despite he had become a God, Taven was still faced by the rest of the kombatants…

Gameplay

Just like the old Mortal Kombat games, it is still thought in a 2D format despite the option to traverse empty spaces using the up and down buttons on the D-Pad. Also the combat hasn’t changed either really, you just have to hope to get a good combo lined up and mixed with low, medium and high attacks and watch the result. Fatalities are still in place and just as hard to perform and also some arenas have been given specific mechanisms such as death traps and different height levels. Some of the death traps are quite satisfying to use and others a tad bit unreal, my personal favourite being the huge roller that crushed kombatants as they slip underneath.

There are a few primary modes in Armageddon. You have arcade mode in which you fight your way through a set amount of kombatants and upon reaching the end you get a little bonus clip of your character performing a martial arts routine. Think of it as a story mode that lacks narrative, something that is becoming increasingly unpopular in recent fighting games. However there is one mode that redeems the arcade mode and that is Konquest mode. Konquest is played out in two different ways, half of it is fought in a wide arena in which you have total control of your charater to roam in any direction you want, think of it as MK with a action/ platform twist. However some of the traps they add in this mode make it feel a little cheap, such as the occasional spinning blades that just randomly pop up out of no where. Other game modes include a practice mode for charaters to simply experiment with move sets and get a quick feel of some of the arenas which is handy, online is also enabled but I have yet to try it because I doubt anyone still plays 2006 PS2 online games in mid 2008. Kreate a fighter is a nice little add on which gives you a handful of characters and tracks to race on. Each character has their own little ability that they can use in race but even when playing on the hardest difficulty it can still be insultingly easy.

For those of you who dont know what the gameplay is like in Mortal Kombat, it's simple; each character has their own high, low and medium standard kicks and punches mixed in with a grapple/ throw move and also their special abilities. Utilising these special abilities is vital to how far you go within the game, if you can'y manage to tap in the buttons fast enough to perform a certain special move then chances are you need training or need to select another character with a more simplified moveset. The one moveset I'm going to give you as an example belong to Reptile, he has five special moves including the normal L1 grab/throw move which every character has, then he also has a few other moves. Most special moves are carried out through pressing a few directional buttons and then either the triangle, circle, square or cross buttons after. Reptile has a spinning spikes move in which he curls up into a ball and rolls at his enemy at high speed. To perform this you need to input: Down, Right then circle to perform it. Another one is his acid spit which is perform by pressing Left, Right then Square. You will notice a similar trend between characters in terms of which buttons to press to execute these special attacks.

Kreate a Fighter is a good feature to the game, but with so many other characters to choose from, newcomers might opt for some of them instead. When entering this mode you will be given a basic figure to design where you can adjust skin tone and pyhsique etc. then you will have to cloth your fighter, be warned there is plenty of variety that could have you deciding for ages. Some clothing comes for free but others will require you to spend your Koins which can be picked up from playing pretty much any of the game modes, the best way being Konquest. There are other bits of armour as well called the Elder God armour which by far looks like the best items for your fighter but require a keen eye to find all the pieces of armour when playing konquest mode. Once you have designed a fighter your next step is to select a moveset. I warn newcomers not to try and attempt making a moveset straight away, get trained with some other characters to see how the moves play out. You dont get to MAKE your own moves but you can choose pretty much any move you want from the game including freeze balls and bicycle kicks. There is a lot to choose from and again there will be some you need to buy but once you have done you will have to follow the same procedure with the weapon moveset and then your finished.

Design

For a 2006 Playstation 2 release I have to say it looks pretty good but I’ve seen much better but for a fighting game anything goes. Each character is designed nicely, unlike other fighting games there were no kombatants I didn’t want to play as because they looked boring. Each character has their own moveset but tend to borrow some moves from other character’s move sets now and then which is hardly noticeable. The only thing that miffed me off a bit was the fact that some of the characters near enough look exactly the same. Scorpion, Reptile and Subzero for instance; also Sektor, Cyrax and Smoke. However when I started to play as each of them I wasn’t too bothered because as long as they have different move sets, they cant be referred to as clones. Each character has at least two costumes but I barely tend to use them. The stages are designed quite good but you can spot some similarities between a few of them. The music on the other hand was not too satisfying and there wasn’t enough of it played out in the Konquest mode’s narrative. Effect sounds were spot on and voice acting was great.

Summary

It didn’t take long to complete the Konquest mode but I felt satisfied after completing it. I also found you can find relic items lying about which unlocked new features if you gained enough which was another nice feature, Motor Kombat was fun at first but lacked a fair amount of context to keep me interested for long. With a whopping 64 character there isn’t enough time to get skilled with them all.

Graphics: 3.9/ 5.0 -- Fairly good but I have seen a lot better in the same time period.
Gameplay: 4.4/ 5.0 -- Samey yet very addictive. Stunning move sets encourages the use of skill.
Story: 4.8/ 5.0 -- An excellent plot that gives a little background on pretty much all the character.
Sound: 4.0/ 5.0 -- Not too thrilling but redeemed with the good voice acting.
Design: 4.4/5.0 -- A lot to look at but some characters looking too similar.
Lifespan: 4.5/5.0 -- With online kombat, motor kombat and 64 kombatants to play as that’s enough said.

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon

User Reviews

Series

Mortal Kombat Series [43]