Ultimate Mortal Kombat (Nintendo DS) - Review by Chris

Introduction

Midway's Mortal Kombat series has been making sparing appearances on Nintendo's console as of late. Having been a big game on the SNES, it's a wonder why it has only had fleeting moments on some of Nintendo's other consoles or skipped them altogether. Luckily, Midway has teamed up with Other Ocean Interactive to bring the brutal, fighting experience to Nintendo's DS, with a veritable 'two games in one' package to satisfy the needs of fans wanting some Mortal Kombat action on the go. But does this pack a punch or does it strike a fatality?

Gameplay

Ultimate Mortal Kombat comprises solely of two games on one cartridge; these games being both Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Puzzle Kombat. Both of the games have been ported over from their respective platforms and prior titles, with Ultimate Mortal Kombat having been a hit on both the SNES and in the Arcades while Puzzle Kombat was originally an extra in Mortal Kombat Deception. One provides the staple Mortal Kombat experience while the other provides and interesting take on that formula by doing away with the fighting altogether. For those not in the know, the Mortal Kombat series of fighting games are visceral and brutal pitting two characters together in a series of rounds to determine the winner, with the loser always suffering a genre defining 'Fatality' whereby they are gutted in a way that is specific to the winning character's moveset and left to lie in a pool of their own blood. This established gameplay mechanic is reproduced here for gaming on the go on Nintendo's handheld console.

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 comprises of a faithful remake of the Arcade game of the same name. Here, you'll find the standard Mortal Kombat fare with a large roster of characters to fight as, along with several to be unlocked, through a succession of matches against the game's capable AI, which puts up such a challenge that newcomers will definitely struggle to get to grips with the game and its difficulty. As is with most fighting games, the creation of combos is the quickest way to defeating an opponent and the game provides ample opportunity for that with a plethora of possibilities for all available characters and spending some time with each character to learn the ropes, if you're a newcomer, or refresh your memory is definitely a good idea because, as stated, the game can be very unforgiving. The available options for Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, though, are severely lacking as the game has a standard single player mode, where you'll fight a succession of AI controlled characters with the difficulty increasing as you progress, and that's it in terms of options on that front.

Puzzle Kombat takes the idea of Mortal Kombat and puts it into a block based puzzler, with the clearing of groups of 3 or more blocks of the same colour correlating to the attacking of your opponent on the top screen. This is certainly an interesting game, as you'll pick a character and then play through the same progressive gameplay as in the other game until you clear all opponents or get defeated. While the first game relies heavily on memorising combos, this comes more down to luck with the blocks you'll get and is definitely the more forgiving of the games on offer but it does pick up in its difficulty as you progress. But like Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, this is the only available mode for single player play and apart from a bit of statistics tracking between the games, there's little else. The games, however, do support single and multi card play for up to two players and both games are entirely online compatible, which is a fantastic inclusion as both play seamlessly with little in the way of lag to disrupt them. While the game does lack the options and modes, what is here is so challenging yet addictive that you'll constantly come back to it time and again as if you have something to prove and the online certainly gives you an alternative platform to do that from.

Controls

A game such as this needs button based controls and thankfully, they've been given. You'll use a mixture of the face and shoulder buttons to pull off attacks, with inputs on the d-pad changing up combos by changing the respective moves attached to one of the buttons. Due to the close proximity of the buttons on the console, pulling off combos is easy enough and once you learn the ins and outs of the attacks of the numerous characters on offer, you'll soon have no trouble pulling off any combination of attacks. But movement of your character isn't quite as easy, feeling as though they weight as much as a tank. They feel very heavy and thus their movement feels sluggish, even when in the air and for those inexperienced with the series, it can lead to a rather steep learning curve while you try to compensate for this. In Puzzle Kombat, the controls work well as all you need to do is slot the blocks into place to set off groups of 3 or more and the game takes care of everything else.

Graphics

The graphics for Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 have seen little in the way of improvement from their days of gracing the arcade cabinets. All the characters are done in that live action style that the series is best known for but they come across and muddy and a bit of a mess on the DS' screen and the arenas in which you'll fight look rather bare in their presentation, again looking a bit of a mess. Puzzle Kombat fares slightly better, with accentuated 3d character models that look decent enough and are animated well while the arenas are of a similar standard as the models and generally look good. The puzzle element on the touch screen look good but it looks as though it could have been ripped from any number of standard block based puzzle game. The same visceral and brutal gameplay returns with fatalities and hit causing blood to fly in the same over the top fashion that many of the other games in the franchise have provided. Again, Puzzle Kombat comes off the better in here with it looking more the part than that in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

Sound

The same voice work, music and sound effects are carried over from the previous iterations of these games, and they all sound good if only a little dated. This specifically applies to sound effects from the characters as they fight each other, with it sounding rather strange. The announcer retains his boisterous vocals and like the sound effects feels rather strange and dated but it all goes to replicating the experiences of these games that occurred when you played them in any of their prior iterations.

Dual screen

The two screen are put to good use in both games with the top screen showing most of the action, but in Puzzle Kombat the puzzle element itself is played out on the touch screen. In Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, the touch screen isn't well used, with it displaying combos you can pull off for certain things, but it is helpful.

Final comments

Ultimate Mortal Kombat isn't really the ultimate edition of the game but what you get is certainly worth you attention if you enjoy the series or if you're a fan of fighting games. The two games contained on the cartridge provide enough difference and depth to make you come back time and again to two very robust games and the addition of making everything online compatible is definitely the icing on the cake as it works brilliantly. For fighting fans on the DS, this is definitely something you should try.

Pro: 2 games for the price of 1, superb online settings, Puzzle Kombat is a brilliant addition, challenging but addictive gameplay
Con: Visuals and sound haven't ages well, movement of the characters is sluggish, lack of gameplay settings
Final score: 7.6

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