Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
Developer(s)	Midway Games
Publisher(s)	Midway Games
Director(s)	Ed Boon
Producer(s)	John Podlasek Paulo Garcia Brian LeBaron
Designer(s)	Ed Boon
Programmer(s)	Michael Boon Jon Greenberg Jay Biondo
Artist(s)	Tony Goskie Steve Beran Herman Sanchez
Writer(s)	John Vogel Alexander Barrentine
Composer(s)	Dan Forden Rich Carle Vince Pontarelli Eric Huffman
Series	Mortal Kombat
Engine	RenderWare
Platform(s)	GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Game Boy Advance
Release date(s)	PlayStation 2 NA: November 16, 2002 PAL: February 14, 2003 GameCube NA: November 17, 2002 PAL: February 14, 2003 Xbox NA: November 18, 2002 PAL: February 14, 2003 Game Boy Advance NA: November 20, 2002 PAL: February 14, 2003 NA: August 25, 2003 (TE)
Genre(s)	Fighting
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is a fighting video game developed and published by Midway for the Xbox (not compatible with Xbox 360), PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Game Boy Advance. It was the first all-new Mortal Kombat fighting game produced exclusively for home consoles, with no preceding arcade release. Deadly Alliance is chronologically the fifth main game in the Mortal Kombat series. Its story focuses on the titular alliance between sorcerers Quan Chi and Shang Tsung and their schemes to revive an ancient army to conquer Outworld and Earthrealm.

Two different Game Boy Advance games based on Deadly Alliance were released. The first version, also titled Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was released on November 2002, during the same week as the home console versions, while the second GBA version, Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition (originally titled Mortal Kombat: Deadly Revenge, which was printed in the manual), was released on August 25, 2003.

Gameplay

Gameplay screenshot of a fight between Scorpion and Sub-Zero

Like all of the Mortal Kombat games, Deadly Alliance focuses heavily on its fighting modes. The gameplay is completely different from that of previous entries in the franchise. Each character now possesses three individual fighting styles,^[1] generally two hand-to-hand styles and one weapon style (excepting Blaze and Mokap, who received three hand-to hand styles and no weapon style) which players can switch between with the push of a button. In previous games, aside from "dial-a-combos" all the characters fought virtually identically, with only special moves to differentiate them. The number of special moves per character (usable in any fighting style) has also been reduced, varying only from two to four for most, thus forcing the player to make use of the improved fighting system. The characters can no longer run, and there is no run meter. However, while still limited to only moving into the background and foreground, movement in the third dimension is much easier and can be used continuously (in Mortal Kombat 4, sidestepping was mapped to two different buttons and could be performed at a rate of about one a second). To prevent fighters from leaving the arena, boundaries that are otherwise invisible appear when a fighter is knocked against the edge.

Characters models became more realistic. Flesh will move or jiggle on a character as he or she moves around. Environmental interaction is present, but infrequent. Several levels include obstacles —- such as pillars or statues — that can be shattered to damage an opponent standing near one. There is just one Fatality per character, while the previous games included many ways to finish the opponent. Along with Mortal Kombat X (until the MKXL patch added them to Mortal Kombat X), it is the only other Mortal Kombat game that does not include Stage Fatalities, although the Acid Bath level still possesses special acid-vomiting statues called Acid Buddhas that do damage directly to fighters that stray too close to them.

Deadly Alliance introduces the Konquest mode, which expands on the storyline and acts as a tutorial for each character. The Konquest mode consists of a series of missions to complete with each of the characters. In between each sequence, a video of a monk moving between various locations on the path of Konquest is shown, but this has no actual bearing on the gameplay itself other than to simulate the sense of a journey. After completing eight initial "kombat tasks" with Sub-Zero, the player is instructed to complete a specific set of tasks with each character, which vary from performing difficult combos to defeating opponents. Each series comes with text instructions that include a basic storyline that delves further into each character's backgrounds and motives. The characters Blaze and Mokap can only be unlocked by completing all stages of Konquest. Upon completing each mission (of a starting difficulty for each character that increases per mission), the player is rewarded with a number of "koins" that act as the in-game currency to open Koffins in the Krypt and unlock secrets in the game.

The Krypt is a feature in which the player can buy extras with koins earned in regular play and in Konquest mode. The Krypt consists of 676 "koffins" arranged in a square format with each designated alphabetically by a two-letter designation (AA–ZZ). The koffins are filled with a vast number of secrets and unlockables. Each koffin has a different designated price, listed in a number (anywhere from 1 up to the thousands) and type (Gold, Ruby, Sapphire, Jade, Onyx, and Platinum) of koins that it would cost to open the koffin. The Krypt includes unlockable characters, arenas, and alternative costumes. Also included among the koffins are various videos, images, concept sketches, and the entire Mortal Kombat Collector's Edition comic book. Some koffins contained koins that could be used towards other koffins, others contained hints as to where other items were located, and others were even empty.

Test Your Might, the original minigame of the Mortal Kombat series, returns for the first time since the original game, and a variation, Test Your Sight, is also included. In Test Your Sight, the character stands in front of a set of cups, and the game shows the player which cup contains the Mortal Kombat logo icon. The cups then begin to move in a random order, and by the end one has to select the cup containing the icon. As the player progresses through the minigame, the number of cups increases, as does the speed at which the cups move. At higher levels, the camera would even move in order to make it more difficult for the player to keep track of the movement of the icon. Succeeding at both Test Your Might and Test Your Sight rewards the player with koins.

Game Boy Advance-only Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition adds three modes: Survival, Tag Team and Practice, as well as weapon Fatalities. Although both of the GBA versions feature 2D sprites, Tournament Edition was the first portable Mortal Kombat games to feature 3D style gameplay.

Plot

At the end of Mortal Kombat 4 (which is Scorpion's canon ending), Quan Chi revealed himself to be the murderer of Scorpion's family and clan, before attempting to send him back to the Netherrealm. Scorpion, fueled with homicidal rage, grabbed Quan Chi at the last minute, taking the sorcerer with him. In the intro to Deadly Alliance, it is revealed that Quan Chi was able to escape the Netherrealm, using the amulet he had stolen from Shinnok. He appears in a tomb containing several mummified remains and an ancient runestone, which reveals that the remains are the "undefeatable" army of the long forgotten ruler of Outworld, known simply as the "Dragon King". Learning that it can be revived, Quan Chi forms an alliance with Shang Tsung, offering him an endless supply of souls in return for him transplanting the souls of defeated warriors into the army. The two work together to defeat, and kill, Shao Kahn and Liu Kang, the two greatest threats to their plans. Unable to interfere as an Elder God, Raiden surrenders his status after realizing that, should the alliance be victorious, Earthrealm is doomed.

In Deadly Alliance, the player receives information concerning the backstories of the characters and their relationships with one another mainly during Konquest mode, but also in way of biographies that can be obtained in the Krypt. The game takes place in a science fantasy setting, with most of the game's events occurring in the fictional realms of the Mortal Kombat series. The story begins in the Netherealm (although this is not a playable level), and later switches to Outworld, Edenia and eventually Earthrealm. To fully understand the plot of Deadly Alliance, the player must not only complete the Konquest mode but the Arcade mode as well. As usual, completing the Arcade mode unlocks endings for each character, but only a few endings or a part of them are considered canon to the Mortal Kombat storyline. Some endings even contradict one another. What really happened to the characters was only revealed in the sequel Mortal Kombat: Deception, making Deadly Alliance the first game in the series to have a canonical ending that involves the heroes losing and the villains emerging victorious.

Characters

New characters:

• Blaze — Massive fire elemental who has the task of guarding the egg of the Dragon King.
• Bo' Rai Cho — Jovial Outworld native and former trainer of Liu Kang.
• Drahmin — a Netherrealm Oni seeking revenge against Quan Chi for abandoning him in the realm after helping the sorcerer escape.
• Frost — Sub-Zero's first Lin Kuei trainee who lacks humility.
• Hsu Hao — Red Dragon operative sent to infiltrate and destroy the OIA.
• Kenshi — a blind swordsman who was employed briefly by the OIA before the portal was destroyed, stranding him in Outworld.
• Li Mei — Outworld native whose people are enslaved by the Deadly Alliance. She enters a tournament sponsored by the sorcerers hoping to win their freedom.
• Mavado — Red Dragon mastermind who ordered Hsu Hao to infiltrate the OIA.
• Mokap — Secret joke character said to have done motion capture work for Cage's films. Included in the game as a homage to Midway graphic artist Carlos Pesina, who portrayed several characters in the digitized Mortal Kombat games and performed motion capture work for Deadly Alliance.
• Moloch — Drahmin's partner and the game's sub-boss.
• Nitara — a manipulative vampire seeking to separate her home realm from Outworld.

Returning characters:

• Cyrax — a former Lin Kuei cyborg rescued by Jax and Sonya and recruited for the OIA, he is stranded in Outworld and manipulated by Nitara.
• Jax — Established the Outerworld Investigation Agency with Sonya who was betrayed by an OIA operative who destroyed the agency's portal.
• Johnny Cage — Hollywood actor whose career is now marked with mockery and who hopes to restore his image.
• Kano — Black dragon leader and longtime enemy of Sonya and Jax.
• Kitana — Edenian princess who allied with Goro to wage war against Shao Kahn, and eventually the Deadly Alliance.
• Kung Lao — Shaolin monk who seeks vengeance for his friend Liu Kang's death.
• Quan Chi — Nefarious self-serving sorcerer who struck up the deal with Shang Tsung.
• Raiden — the thunder god who resumes his lesser-god status to help against the Deadly Alliance.
• Reptile — the remaining member of the Zaterrian race, and an expert infiltrator.
• Scorpion — Quan Chi's tormentor who has left the Netherealm to pursue the sorcerer.
• Shang Tsung — the sorcerer who seeks immortality.
• Sonya Blade — partner with Jax who feels responsible for the disappearance of the two agents of the OIA lost in Outworld when the portal was destroyed.
• Sub-Zero — cryokinetic warrior who reestablishes the Lin Kuei as a force for good and solicits new members.

Deadly Alliance is notable for being the only game in the main series that does not feature Liu Kang as a playable character, as he and Shao Kahn only appear on the introduction video. Also mentioned in Konquest are the deaths of Goro, Kabal, Motaro and Sheeva, but they would later appear in sequels. The Dragon King mentioned in the game would later appear as Onaga in the sequel Mortal Kombat: Deception.

The original character roster of Deadly Alliance was split for the two GBA titles: Shang Tsung, Quan Chi and Scorpion were included in both versions. Frost, Jax, Sub-Zero, Kano, Kung Lao, Kenshi, Kitana, Li Mei, and Sonya Blade are included only in the first Deadly Alliance port. Bo' Rai Cho, Cyrax, Drahmin, Hsu Hao, Johnny Cage, Mavado, Nitara, Raiden and Reptile are included only in Tournament Edition. Blaze, Mokap and Moloch are excluded in both versions. Tournament Edition adds three extra characters that were not present in the other versions: Sektor, Noob Saibot and Sareena. Sektor and Noob Saibot are palette swaps of Cyrax and Scorpion, respectively, while Sareena returns from the action-adventure game Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero. Tournament Edition is also the only Mortal Kombat fighting game that does not feature Sub-Zero in any form. Noob Saibot, the original Sub-Zero, is playable, although his identity was not revealed to players until Mortal Kombat: Deception.

Development

Despite the success of Mortal Kombat 4, the series had begun to suffer from overexposure by the late '90s, while spawning mostly failed or mediocre projects. The 1996 animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm lasted only one season, and in November 1997, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, the sequel to the successful 1995 original, underperformed in theaters. The live-action series Mortal Kombat: Konquest lasted for only one season in 1998 despite strong ratings. On the game front, the side-scrolling Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero was met with limited interest, as was the Dreamcast port of Mortal Kombat 4 titled Mortal Kombat Gold; among critics, both games were considered mediocre at best and received less than favorable reviews.^[2][3] The final straw was the negative reception and poor sales of 2000's Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, which led to Midway putting the franchise on hold in order to focus on the development of Deadly Alliance.

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was originally known as Mortal Kombat V: Vengeance or simply Mortal Kombat 5. Starting late 1999 and for a few years afterward, only a vague, cryptic hint at the game's development lingered on co-creator Ed Boon's now-defunct website noob.de. The site was blank, except for a gif file on the site which consisted of a flashing "5" that featured an image of Scorpion inside it. Later in 2002, a teaser trailer featuring the series' flagship character Scorpion in a solo kata, utilizing the in-game engine appeared on the same site. Though it generated much interest and excitement, it was also largely criticized by fans due to Scorpion's unusual appearance, depicting him in a hyper-masculine state with an enormous, bulky torso, enormous hands and over-muscled arms. The head on the character model was tiny, with the legs short, stick-like and comically disproportionate to the character's enormous torso. The initial teaser trailer also depicted several items that did not make it into the final game, such as destructable environments and a fireball attack performed by Scorpion. Though the trailer reflected a game that was very early in development and character models ultimately improved upon release, character models retained some aspects of the disproportionate, bulky bodies, enlarged hands and "stiff" animation for the majority of the series' 3D entries.

Release

To help promote the game, American rock band Adema recorded a song for the game titled "Immortal" and made a music video for it that featured Scorpion. The song was used in many of the game's commercials and the music video is included in the game's extras, as well as a short live video taken from Adema's performance at the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo. Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was released in the United Kingdom on Valentine's Day 2003. One special ad had a girlfriend hugging her boyfriend and as she pulled away, there were bloody hand-prints where her hands had been on his back.^[4]

Reception

Reception for Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was generally favorable as it both resuscitated a series that had been waning since the late 1990s and brought many new innovations to it. Jeremy Dunham of IGN praised the game for reinventing the Mortal Kombat formula, pointing specifically to Ed Boon's implementation of "true three-dimensional fighting, entirely different fighting styles, and a deeper, more intuitive combo system."^[14] Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot commended Deadly Alliance for its fluid animation and graphics, and stated that the roster was a "good mix of old and new faces."^[11] Likewise, Benjamin Turner of GameSpy welcomed the addition of new characters to the roster, and was complimentary of the new fighting system: "You can just sit back, turn your brain off, and beat people to bloody pulps."^[13] IGN's Craig Harris lauded the Game Boy Advance version for its polish and content, stating that "a lot of attention was poured into this project, from the fighting and graphics engine, to establishing enough presentation and extras to make the game an excellent single-player title."^[15]

GameSpot awarded Deadly Alliance the titles of 2002's Best Fighting Game on the Xbox and Best Fighting Game on the GameCube.^[16][17] It also won the Best Brawl award at G-Phoria in 2003,^[18] and later would also be included on the PlayStation 2 Greatest Hits. By 2003, according to IGN, Deadly Alliance had sold 2 million copies.^[19] In April 2011, Ed Boon said the game had sold 3.5 million units.^[20]

References

External links

• Official website
• Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance at MobyGames
• Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition at MobyGames