The last Mortal Kombat game I bought was Mortal Kombat: Trilogy for the Nintendo 64. From then on existed a tragic tale of wasted rental after wasted rental with the newest entry to this terrible tome being Mortal Kombat: Deception. Now to say that this game is irredeemable would be a bit harsh, however it really doesn’t have too much going for it. At this point, please feel free to doubt me. I mean, the commercials looked really good, and the tv is always truthful, so how bad can this be?

First off, the plot is terrible. Not that fighting games really revolved around their plot, but in an effort to be revolutionary (writ ironic), the designers at Midway decided to include a first player mode. You play as Shinjinko, a mortal man from Earth realm, who was contacted by a nameless mysterious emissary of the elder gods for the purposes of collecting the lost Komidogu. Meanwhile the Dragon King, Onaga, expressed a pointed interest in collecting these same items. I wonder if these two events are connected? I wonder if Shujinko is being lied to? I wonder if this is why they call the game Deception? I wondered for all of three seconds.

For the most part, Konquest Mode consists of senselessly running around the various Mortal Kombat Realms and completing boring tasks, most of which involve finding some object and bringing it back to some character. And if you happen to forget what you needed to accomplish on any said mission you can always refer to… oh yeah, the programmers decided that there was no need to keep a list of all your active missions. That’s okay though, you have a good memory, right? To boot, certain missions can only be completed at certain times of the day, on certain days, or at certain times of the month. Luckily you have the meditation button, which once pushed, speeds up the clock, helping you to waste time.

Occasionally you run into a Mortal Kombat: Deception character who offers to train you, whether you like it or not. Yep, unless you train with near every Deception Character you bump into you can’t progress. And there really are no words to describe how frustrating it is to be half way into the first player mode only to have to be retrained again. Not only do you have to waste time going over what each button does, but once you train under that character you fight as that character until some other generous soul decides to waste your time again. And the training sessions wouldn’t be so bad if the move and combo timing were half decent. I can near guarantee that you will spend at least 15 minutes cursing the God who let this creation come into being while you painfully try and smash out a juggling combo.

However if you want to unlock most of the special characters, you must struggle through this mode. Konquest is also the fastest means of collecting Koins, which allow you to unlock features. And if the main story line is really beginning to grate on you, scattered throughout the realms are characters who won’t waste your life in training and will put up a good fight with interesting starting conditions. These hardly compensate though, and overall Konquest mode is just a burden you must bear.

Two player mode is a bit more fun. The game play is still a bit awkward, and after a week of play, my roommate and I still hadn’t been able to master any real interesting combos. The game allows you to switch between two unarmed fighting styles and one weapon style, which I have to admit was a real interesting touch. But some of the moves have no logic, so you really have to memorize where each one hits. As wacky as some of the moves in Soul Calibur 2 were, nine out of ten times if you hit down as part of the move, it hit low. Thankfully the levels kick ass. There are all sorts of weapons and various traps that will help you in achieving your blood-soaked, violent desires. Unfortunately, in order to unlock some of the better levels you must trudge through Konquest mode.

Sadly the best parts of this Mortal Kombat are the two sub games. Included in this otherwise less than mediocre game is a clone of Puzzle Fighter (Puzzle Kombat) and an interesting chess variant (Chess Kombat). While a fellow Puzzle fighter addict and I agreed that Puzzle Kombat wasn’t as good as Puzzle Fighter, we still had a good time, though she complained when the large groups didn’t turn into pretty gems. Chess Kombat combines all the skill of the classic strategy game with the senseless violence of Mortal Kombat. Instead of simply taking pieces, you must fight for your position, winner taking the loser regardless of who the aggressor was. There are also a slew of other spells and special squares to keep things interesting.

Overall I have to poo-poo this game. I honestly felt that Midway robbed me of a week of my life as I desperately hoped the game would improve. I still feel that the last good Mortal Kombat game was the trilogy. Midway really has yet to grasp the intricacies of the 3-D fighter and should really stick to their side scrolling mastery. But if you are looking for a Puzzle Fighter solution for your respective system you may want to give this game a rental. Oh, by the way, you have to still play that crappy Konquest Mode to unlock most of the Puzzle Kombat characters. Enjoy.

- Puzzle Kombat and Chess Kombat were fun (when played with some blonde babes). Everything else… well… wasn’t.