Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks

PRE-E3 2005: Hands On 

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, feel the power of the finely tuned combatants as they deliver feats of amazing dexterity and power …

Wait a second, this isn’t a carnival with Midway barkers (pardon the pun) – this is a game that moves smoothly and has some intuitive and entertaining combat elements. That said, let’s try that lead again …

A kick drives the enemy up into the air. That looked like it will hurt, but the pain won’t simply end there. The lithe martial artist jumps up, delivers a series of wincing blows and lightly lands. The punching bag – for that is what the monster has become – lands a little heavier, crunching back into the ground.

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is the first MK title to offer a storyline and multi-directional “kombat” system in the franchise’s history. Midway showed off the game and allowed for a little hands-on during a Pre-E3 event held in San Francisco recently. One level was available, but the challenges were varied, the combat entertaining and the graphical quality was impressive. 

MK: Shaolin Monks has the feel of a dungeon crawl (or would that be “krawl”), and while the direction of path seems somewhat linear, there are multiple ways to achieve the goals. The game will allow for single player or two-player co-op gaming, with the gamers taking on the roles of Lui Kang or Kung Lao, and there is room for some character customization as you level up. There will be 10 fatalities per character (fatalities are the devastating final moves that guarantee you will defeat your foe), including one that sends “a wave of destruction destroying multiple enemies at once.”

Weapons are dropped during the dungeon romp, and players can pick them up and pull off some amazing and rather deadly attacks, including completely slicing an enemy in two – which was a bit of a surprise, a little gruesome visually and rather effective.  

The level that was playable also was a bit of a tutorial to the movement styles and combinations, and the controls were quite easy to get comfortable with.

The game is set in the world of the Mortal Kombat Tournament, with interactive environments in the Outworld, and it even offers up classic stages from MK 1 and MK 2, though this time in glorious 3D. And yes, some of the classic MK characters will be here as well – like Scorpion, Kitana, Goro and Sub-Zero.

The combat stylings moved fluidly and while some of the game required loading as the character cleared a room in single-player mode and rushed through the doorway, or down the hallway, to the next section, the load times were incidental. This is a game that plays very well and delights with dynamic texturing and lighting effects, augmented with some very nice spells animations.

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks looks like another addictive MK experience, and gamers who like the series, or those simply looking for a robust combat fighting game, filled with plenty of oohs and aahs, would do well to check it out when it ships this fall. Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks will release on both the Xbox and PlayStation 2 console systems.