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Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks Review

by Erin on November 2nd, 2005

I was a huge fan of the Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter style games in my youth, with their gory fatalities and hot-shot characters. I liked Rayden from the original, or if I wanted to cheese off my brother, I would beat him up using Sonya Blade. I saw Shaolin Monks on the shelf while I was renting movies, and picked it up to give it a try.

Developed by Paradox and published by Midway, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks was released in September of this year and boasts some pretty nifty features. Play as either Liu Kang, or Kung Lao, and battle to protect Earth from the (still) evil Shao Kahn. According to Midway,

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is an Action/Adventure title driven by both intense single and multi-player action. Similar to “Mortal Kombat: Deception,” background interactions (i.e., acid pits, living trees, spiked ceilings, etc.), multiple new fatalities, and action-based puzzles also play an important role in the player’s quest for an “outstanding” victory. Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks features an impressive line-up of Mortal Kombat characters, as well, that make frequent appearances as enemies, in boss battles and during several additional in-game interactions. For the first time ever, Mortal Kombat fanatics can explore all the mythos and rumors of the Mortal Kombat universe from an entirely new perspective. Action/Adventure fans will be blown away by the intuitive kombat system, puzzle solving and epic storyline that can be experienced in either the single player mode or through co-op play.

I played the whole game through in co-op (or as the game calls it ‘ko-op’) mode, so I had a pretty good look at the gameplay, story line, and other bits and bobs that were supposedly of interest. Below are my thoughts on the game, listing good point, bad points, and a quick little two line overall impression.

Pros:

I can’t vouch for the single player mode, but the ko-op experience was plainly and simply a ton of fun. You’ve never seen a sight more fixating than two women huddled on a couch cackling madly as they rip the spines out of Oni, or dismember gigantic anthropomorphic tigers. My game partner and I had an absolute blast playing together and having both played MK in the olden days, we felt like adolescents again.

The ability to learn skills, unlock new and more gruesome fatalities, and to purchase upgraded moves was gravy. I really have a thing for games that allow me to get new stuff, and reward me for my perseverence with more than just the satisfaction of completing a level.

The non-linear gameplay/linear storyline combination made for an interesting overall experience. Although you’ll see the non-linearity noted as a con because of the amount of back play that it necessitated, I can see that Paradox was trying to expand the rather flat humdrum of linearity into something more exciting. I give them credit for attempting it, and would love to see any future installments to have multiple play paths available.

I did like the expansion of the Mortal Kombat story, with a little more of the whys, whos and whens behind the original games uncovered for fans. It’s not a complex story per se, certainly no Divine Comedy, but it at least gave us a taste of what all the fuss was about. I appreciated being more in the know.

Cons:

It required a lot of tedious back play required to take advantage of new skills in order to collect all the in-game goodies. I had neither the drive, nor the the interest in returning to little groves in the forest in order to collect concept art and even fatalities. I weighed the benefits of travelling through an awful lot of old areas, with just getting on with things, and moving on invariably won.

There was very poor delineation of what the next step was supposed to be. You could stand in a room for hours trying to figure out what to do, when the solution was a startlingly specific but utterly unobvious thing such as: throw three guys out the fourth of five windows within three seconds, then cartwheel merrily around the room singing Kumbaya. I embellish, but the basic fact of the matter is that I found it very frustrating to try and decipher what the game required of me. Eventually I figured it out, but not before I was a seething, controller-throwing maniac. I love puzzle games very dearly, but when they’re illogical and pointless puzzles, I tend to get a little cranky.

While not a constant bother, I found that there were occasionally irritating camera angles in ko-op mode made for some tense “curses partner! curses!” moments where I couldn’t reach the enemy I had been pummeling because my playing partner had reached the other end of the screen’s boundary capacity. Also a problem for timing team jumps across large, spike-filled pits.

The cut scenes were interesting if you wanted to know about the whole Mortal Kombat mythology, butsome of them weren’t necessary to game play and if forced to watch them several times, were actually really aggravating. Only some cut scenes were skippable.

A minor note was a bit of sluggishness with regards to player responses. Not a huge problem, but occasionally Kung Lao just wouldn’t do what I told him to.

Overall:

Fans of the MK series should enjoy a deeper immersion into the MK world, while new MK players will not feel out of the loop. Recommended to anyone who isn’t offended by a little blood and is looking for something a little more robust than typical Mortal Kombat Vs. fare. The ko-op mode is a guaranteed great time.

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