Who would have thought that so long after veering off the road into territories both tedious and shallow Midway could steer the Mortal Kombat series back onto the road to greatness? Though some stuck with the MK line through even the toughest of times, as the game drudged through a string of uninspiring sequels and a few truly awful spin-offs, the majority of the gaming public wrote it off shortly after it peaked with Mortal Kombat II… and with good reason. Now, with the release of Deadly Alliance, it finally seems that Midway has put together an effective formula that manages to reinvigorate the franchise while retaining enough of its classic flavor to satisfy those who stuck with it.

While the graphics, sound, control, and details of what level of gore to expect are all important to make the game a complete package, the area to begin with concerns what has been missing for so long from the series: gameplay. Granted, based on the last few entries, it helps that expectations have been lowered significantly. Even without taking that into consideration though, Deadly Alliance brings a competent and relatively deep fighting system to the table. Each fighter has three distinctive fighting styles at their disposal, two generally falling into unique hand-to-hand styles with a third that makes use of a specific weapon. Each style then has its own particular weak and strong moves, its own combos, and its own special moves. Even better, the special moves in each style will vary a bit from fighter to fighter. In some cases you’ll be able to do a power-up move, in some cases a reversal, and best of all, some fighters, while in their weapon style, are able to impale their opponent. This can be a disadvantage since it makes you unable to use your weapon style for the rest of the round, but the fact that it slowly drains their life away as they continue to fight can still make it quite effective. In the end, you not only have characters who vary greatly in control from one to the other, but you often have the ability to switch between very different styles and tactics even with the same fighter. The additional strategy this can bring to matches is a pleasant improvement for the title and hopefully something Midway can retain, if not expand, in the future.

One weakness the game does display, even with all of this variety, is a definite advantage given to the aggressor. Even with some effective blocking, once you’ve gotten cornered by an aggressive opponent it can be very difficult to counter and get yourself out of a jam. Unfortunately this trend tends to become painfully obvious when you play against the computer, which probably displays the most innately aggressive AI seen to date. Even on easier settings it is rare to see the computer let up for long once you’ve gotten through a few matches. Couple that with the fact that the computer seems to adapt well to repetitive patterns in your fighting and you’ll find yourself challenged to mix things up regularly, going from one style to another in order to find a weakness to exploit. While this does make for good preparation against human competitors, some may get frustrated by the ass-whoopings they’ll undoubtedly receive.

The good news for those in search of pointers though is that the game has a very extensive Konquest mode that will basically lay out just about anything a budding fighter will need to know about a character. Through a series of 10 challenges per character, you’ll be forced to learn all of their basic moves in each fighting style, their special moves, their simple combos, and their chain combos (combos that span fighting styles and that can require some dexterous fingers) at a minimum. Depending on the character some special challenges can be thrown in as well, the most entertaining of which will require you to drain a specific amount of blood from your opponent, challenging you to come up with the best way to get your opponent flowing a river of red in a hurry. The additional benefits of learning all of the characters’ moves through Konquest mode are that you’ll accumulate koins (used to unlock various goodies in the Krypt) for each challenge you complete, you’ll get to see back stories for each character, and you’ll unlock two additional characters once you’ve completed it with everyone.

Moving on to the visual goodness of the game, there is luckily quite a bit that keeps improvements in gameplay from being made in vain. While it may not be the prettiest game on the system, Deadly Alliance does look darned purty, especially if you consider blood spraying/squirting/oozing/collecting everywhere attractive. Not only does the blood flow in copious amounts, but additionally fighters’ faces will get cut and bruised over the course of a tough match. Of course none of this would matter if the game stuttered or struggled to keep everything flowing nicely which, fortunately, Alliance shows no signs of. In the end it is the details that help give the graphics an extra bit of oomph. Boob jiggle-age, though downright humorous to watch, adds something to the experience as does well-executed head movement as your fighter will keep their eyes locked on their opponent’s head, even when they’re busy eating some asphalt. Fatalities, though not as abundant, are generally entertaining as well. While some have complained about only having one Fatality per fighter or that Midway may have lost some of its flair, it was good to see that they may have finally realized that what began as a gimmick had quickly become all that was worth seeing in the game. Stepping back in this area to invest more effort in making a solid fighting game was a smart move.

In terms of audio perhaps the best news is that not much has changed, though to some this could be considered a weakness. The evil announcer voice still spouts its classic lines. The classic “Get over here” is still Scorpion’s distinctive speaking contribution to go with his ever-popular spear throw, and fighters still grunt and scream as they’re pummeled into submission. In the end it all just works out, but doesn’t do much more than that.

At the end of the day, Midway has something to be quite proud of. While Mortal Kombat isn’t anywhere near as old as some of the other franchises it has tried to re-imagine lately, the franchise was in need of a similar rejuvenating. While the end result still may not convince the hardcore gamers who have their time and interests involved in one particular series like Virtua Figher or Tekken, more casual gamers should have a blast with Deadly Alliance… and finally it’s not just for the gory thrills.