Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Sony PlayStation 2, 2005)

Mortal Kombat Kollection brings gamers the last three games in the Mortal Kombat series. Starting with Mortal Kombat: Deception and adding the story-based adventure Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks and finally returning to its arcade-styled fighting roots with Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. Each of the three games in the collection brings its own style and content to the table so while all three games include familiar faces such as Sub-Zero, it doesn’t mean that each of the games will play alike and that‘s a very good thing. Plus, both Deception and Armageddon also included interesting mini-games … a first for the series.

The art of Deception

Personally speaking, ask me what Mortal Kombat game still spins in my PS2 and I’ll cheerfully bring up Mortal Kombat: Deception. While Deadly Alliance was not a bad entry in the MK franchise, it was Deception that took the series to a new level on the PS2. For one thing, Konquest mode was far deeper and involving in Deception and the free-roaming story mode was actually really entertaining enough to give the game’s arcade mode a run for its money. The roster was also better than Deadly Alliance and it was good to see some returning favorites such as Frost and Bo’ Ra Cho make the cut.

Aside from an amazing roster of fighters and a deep Konquest mode, the action felt more diverse thanks to interactive environments and the solid controls. Deadly Alliance introduced the concept that each fighter would have two different fighting styles and Deception is no different. This gives fighting fans a chance to pull off unarmed and armed combat moves to mix up the action. This game also introduced fun mini-games such as Chess Kombat (basically chess with MK characters as chess pieces) and Puzzle Kombat (an MK version of Capcom’s Super Puzzle Fighter). This is also the game that brought online multiplayer to the series.

The Shaolin way

While Deception brings arcade fun, Shaolin Monks is more of a story-based adventure rather than a traditional fighter. The game follows the interesting pairing of Liu Kang and Kung Lao who have been summoned by the powerful God Raiden. They go on a quest through Outworld to find and defeat Shang Tsung once and for all. Shaolin Monks was not only an interesting concept to take familiar Mortal Kombat characters out of the ring but it actually worked.
While you can play the game on your own, the real fun comes in playing the game with a friend in Co-op mode that has the second player taking up the role of the powerful Liu Kang and his powerful fists or Kung Lao and his cool bladed hat. The game also contained Fatalities and cool move, combos and acrobatics such as wall running and swinging. You also earn experience points to level up your characters … which come in handy seeing as the game is actually very challenging.

Let's armaged-it-on

Ask me what other Mortal Kombat game also spins in my PS2 and I’ll immediately tell you that it’s Armageddon. A direct sequel to Deception, Armageddon not only brought back fighters from the all MK games even early ones such as the return of Night Hawk but it also introduced a very deep character creation feature that allowed you to come up with your own fighters. You can also create your own Fatality, which was a major plus seeing as you can be as gruesome as you want.

While Konquest mode in this game wasn’t as open or as good as Konquest mode in Deception, the story found in this one isn’t so bad.

This is a 3D action fighting game from Mortal Kombat. Gone is the one on one fighting style but you are now emersed in a 3D environment similar to that of Double Dragon and Streets of Rage.... but better, cooler and you get to use Mortal Kombat signature moves!



The Good:

* Painstaking recreation of fighting areas

* Seemless fighting with complex moves combined into a button push or two

* Yes there are fatalities

* Use experience to unlock move list

* Faithful Mortal Kombat prior exprience is NOT needed

* Fantastick two player co-op mode

* Hours upon hours of fun unlocking hidden characters and features (like Mortal Kombat II)



The Bad:

* Once you are playing in single mode or co-op mode, you can't change from one to the other.

* Lots of backtracking where you play areas over and over again in order to gain access to areas restricted till future moves are learned.



Overall, this is a great beat them up game that stayed true to Mortal Kombat fans past and future.

The game plays really well, the graphix are great and the fighting is awesome. The story is pretty good and I like how you recieve "upgrades" such as special moves and fatalities as you advance in the story, this is pretty cool. However, that being said the lack of being able to play with different characters really disapointed me. I mean, Liu Kang and Kung Lao are great characters, but after a while you kinda' miss the others. I found myself reverting back to Armaggedon where I have SO much characters to choose from.

oh man it plays great, i think its just with the whole mortal kombat mortal combat 2 was my favorite for a long time and since i've been play Shaolin Monks that one has be come my favorite. I like the format style of fighting and the way you can earn moves by purchasing with the points you get for deffeating other people. And its not one of those 3rd person fighters where you have to fight this guy or that guy to go on and not go back you can go back to sections to earn more points for better moves to unlock. ANd you can play the way as Liu Kang and Kung Lau, i haven't tried it as kung lau, yet but i'm having a blast as Liu Kang, and the moves from mortal kombats are in in from upper cut to quick or powerful jabs, the layout of the game is amazing! But i ran around for quite some time in the game, finding out what to do, how to unlock climbing and breaking the statues that blocked your way from new spots sure it was alittle overplay trying to find out these things but once i got the idea of what i have to do to find and achieve all these things it was great again.

Loads of fun is back with this version of Mortal Kombat! Hours of gory fun lol! Not for the faint of heart...but its just a game right? So get your game on! Create your own characters or choose from many new and old. Fighting areas are beautiful and entertaining! There is blood and gore but its fun and keeps yu on your toes.