When I first played Mortal Kombat back in 1994, I immediately grew to love the game. The complex moves system, the innovative Motion Capture animations, and the graphic violence made for one heck of a great fighting game. Its latest incarnation, Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance, follows the same recipe for success.

The characters in MK1 were dark and vicious, a stark contrast to the hokey cartoon-like characters in its main rival Street Fighter. Whereas Street Fighter won most of the acclaim of the Neanderthal button masher audience, Mortal Kombat appealed to more of a sophisticated audience. Although, Street Fighter has almost all but vanished from the gaming scene, Mortal Kombat and its franchise of movies, comics, and games, still rank near the top of the video game market.

Deadly Alliance picks up the current story line with the formation of an alliance between Shang Tsung and Quan Chi. I don’t want to give away any spoilers for the game, but they kill Liu Kang at the beginning. If you’re planning on picking up MK:DA and doing that gay flying sidekick of Liu Kang’s, you might want to blow the dust off the N64 and try out MK Gold, because he’s not available in this version. The major innovation in MK:DA is the new fighting system. Each character has 3 fighting styles, 2 hand-to-hand styles plus 1 weapon style. This serves as a sort of paper-rock-scissors game mechanic. Weapons do more damage but are slower and lower your defenses, whereas the hand to hand styles are faster but do less damage; some fighting styles requiring long distance attacks, while others are close fighting.The game’s graphics are great, while not as good as the elder Dead or Alive 3, MK:DA certainly doesn’t disappoint. The levels are very well designed, especially Shang Tsung’s temple, which features flying spirits that zoom about as your fighting. All the fatalities have been updated for the cast of 20 characters, so don’t play this game if you have a weak stomach.Even though NateDogg and Daegod kick my butt regularly, I really like playing this game. I wouldn’t say its better than Dead or Alive 3, but it is as good.