Mortal Kombat: Deception

Puzzles and Chess and Xbox Live. Oh My!

In addition to the standard fighting modes, MK: Deception offers up a couple of extras that you wouldn’t really expect from a game like this. Puzzle mode is a puzzle game similar to Capcom’s Super Puzzle Fighter where you stack up similar colored blocks and then destroy them with special icons that fall from time to time. As you play, your character and their opponent fight on the bottom of the screen. In chess kombat mode, you play a variation of chess where you move your pieces around the board and have to actually enter a fight when you try to take an opponent’s piece. You can use spells and set traps and a bunch of other stuff that makes it different. All in all, the chess and puzzle modes are actually pretty good and are arguably better than the main fighting game itself.

A big attraction in MK: Deception is that you can fight online via Xbox Live. The fighting as well as the puzzle and chess modes are available and they all function pretty much flawlessly. When you find a similarly skilled opponent, the game is very enjoyable and it is easy to overlook the less than stellar combat. If you have Xbox Live, Deception is recommended because fighting games are always, always fun multiplayer games.

Konquest and The Krypt

The biggest of the extra modes is the Konquest mode. You play as a character named Shujinko and travel across the realms to find artifacts to please the Elder Gods. Along the way you come across other MK characters and learn their moves and combos which you can then use in your travels. You collect koins and keys that you can use in the krypt to unlock stuff. Konquest is actually pretty fun since you can run around and punch the NPCs whenever you feel like it, and visiting all of the different realms of the MK universe is pretty thrilling. It all ultimately boils down to simple fetch quests and combat training, but it is enjoyable and worth it since it is the only way to unlock all of the games hidden secrets.

Just like in Deadly Alliance, the way you unlock the secret characters, arenas, and developer photos (‘cuz that is really what you’re after) is through the Krypt. You earn different colored koins in the puzzle, chess, and arcade modes but you get most of your cash in Konquest. Konquest is also the only way to find keys that unlock a majority of the secret characters. There is a lot of stuff to unlock and most of it is worth the trouble and it takes quite a while to open it all up.

Graphics and Sound

Graphically, Deception looks really great. The characters are all very smooth and detailed and well animated and are just fantastic looking. The arenas you fight in are also all really detailed and nice looking. Even the puzzle and chess modes look good. The only area of the game that isn’t gorgeous to look at is the Konquest mode. It is just bland and boring and is really a stark contrast to how great everything else in the game looks.

The sound is also fairly good, but suffers from occasional hiccups as well. The sounds of combat and the music are very well done and fit the series perfectly. The problem with the sound arises once again with the Konquest mode. There is a ton of spoken dialogue in Konquest mode but 90% of it sounds absolutely horrible. Some of the main characters sound all right, but all of the NPCs and the MK universe characters that appear in Konquest but not in the rest of the game just sound terrible.

Bottom Line

Overall, Mortal Kombat: Deception is filled to the brim with features and modes and extras and is a great entry in the Mortal Kombat series. Hardcore fighting fans need not apply because the MK series has never been known for its great fighting engine and Deception is no different, but fans of the series will absolutely adore Deception. It is hard to deny the appeal of the great cast of characters and that satisfying, blood-soaked combat. However, underneath it all is still a sad, by-the-numbers fighting engine that really drags the whole experience down. MK: Deception is a fun game, especially if you are an MK fan, but it is impossible not to see that it wouldn’t be 100% better with a different fighting engine. Fans can buy it without a second thought, but if you aren’t a big MK fan I would suggest renting it first.

For those that are interested. MK: Deception is also available in a collector’s edition. There are a number of different covers but they all offer the same content which includes the full MK: Deception game along with character bios, documentaries, and a full version of the original Mortal Kombat. The collector’s edition costs a little bit more, but it is worth it if you are a fan of MK.