Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox)

...library includes franchises such as Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and Gauntlet. Mortal Kombat is not only one of the most controversial fighters in history, but it's also one of the best. Since it exploded onto the arcades in the 90's, Mortal Kombat has been known as one of the most gruesome games around, seeing as it's has massive amounts of blood on it.

-(The Story)-
The story starts at a somewhat peculiar position in the Mortal ...
...and the sorcerer Shang Tsung is trying to escape after his defeat at the tournament. Things start to lose control when the island starts to fall apart. As the 'kombatants' escape the island, Liu Kang and Kung Lao are unlucky and fall into the giant Goro's lair. This is when the game begins.

-(The Controls)-
The controls are responsive, yet simple to learn. Before i go any further a problem i found in previous MK games was that ... more

-(Game Information)-
Name:Mortal Kombat:Shaolin Monks
Publisher:Midway
Developer:Midway Studios LA
Genre:Beat-Em Up
Release Date:Sep, 30 2005
Age Rating:18+ for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence and Language
Number Of Players:1-2
Xbox Live:No
Custom Soundtracks:No
In-Game Dolby Digital:Yes
Developer Site:www.midway.com
Product Site:www.mkmonks.com
Memory Unit:No

-(History)-
Midway Games are a Chicago-based game manufacturer and have been making video games since it introduced Pong in the late '70s. Their action-based game library includes franchises such as Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and Gauntlet. Mortal Kombat is not only one of the most controversial fighters in history, but it's also one of the best. Since it exploded onto the arcades in the 90's, Mortal Kombat has been known as one of the most gruesome games around, seeing as it's has massive amounts of blood on it.

-(The Story)-
The story starts at a somewhat peculiar position in the Mortal Kombat saga. The game starts just after the first tournament and the sorcerer Shang Tsung is trying to escape after his defeat at the tournament. Things start to lose control when the island starts to fall apart. As the 'kombatants' escape the island, Liu Kang and Kung Lao are unlucky and fall into the giant Goro's lair. This is when the game begins.

-(The Controls)-
The controls are responsive, yet simple to learn. Before i go any further a problem i found in previous MK games was that it was extremely hard to pull of Fatalities as you had no clues on how to perform these moves. In this case, the problem has been fixed as once you've unlocked a fatality you can see how to perform it. The main controls are fairly simple, you have your standard jump, punch, kick and block buttons. There are also a few combos to learn as well, and trust me you'll need these combos to survive. You can also unlock moves and combos as you play through the game. They are very responsive and easy to learn as well.

-(The Gameplay)-
The core game is different from the previous games. Instead of being a one on one fighter, the game has taken a massive change into free-roaming style gameplay. Now in Deception there was a konquest mode where you explore a bit, but most of this was fighting. Now Shaolin Monks is all about free-roaming and melee fighting. This new style of gameplay is pretty fantastic. Liu Kang and Kung Lao both have their own unique moves and combos, and both can be upgraded with your gained experience points. You earn experience by killing enemies, but only if you do so yourself. If you use any of the numerous environmental hazards, you get squat. Experience points can be used to purchase new special moves and combos, and there are a pretty good number of them available throughout the game. There are even a few team moves you can pull off when playing in co-op.

Even with the upgrades and combos, the basic combat is pretty simplistic. Apart from the tougher boss fights near the end, all you really need to do is smash your way through enemies, sometimes stopping to block or uppercut a bad guy into a puzzle-based trap from time to time. This doesn't make boss fights bad, just more challenging. Shaolin Monks is a fairly simple beat-'em-up that turns MK moves into one-to-two-button mashes.

Most of the basic attacks and combos can be strung together by simple button pressing but there are several moves that require timing and some combinations to succeed. Most of these aren't the typical Liu Kang and Kung Lao special moves, as you need only hold down the right trigger button and press one of the main attack buttons to do any of these, like Kang's fireballs or Lao's tornado hat slice. Fatalities have been simplified as well. You need only build up a meter to its peak point and then hit a single button to pull off a fatality stun move. Once that's done, a series of button presses will appear onscreen. And if you hit the right combo quickly enough, you can pull off those ever-famous fatalities. If you continue building up the meter, you can pull off two higher tiers of fatalities (called multalities, for killing multiple foes and brutalities, to destroy your enemy even harder). All these fatalites are fantastic to watch, easy to pull off and extremely satifsfying.

Unfortunately, at times you'll feel like you're replaying a lot of the same stuff over and over again. The level design in Shaolin Monks involves a lot of backtracking through the same worlds. Most of it makes sense, since so many of the unlockables and areas often can't be accessed until you gain new abilities, but even when you're just trying to go to a new mission, there's an awful lot of backtracking through the same hub worlds and stages.

As for other content beyond the story mode, there is a versus fighting mode available, but it is a waste of space, seeing as you only have a handful of fighters to use. There are two basic ways to play Shaolin Monks-in single-player or in co-op. Either option presents you with two initially unlocked characters in Liu Kang and Kung Lao. You have to be careful what you choose, because you'll never get to change your character once you start playing, and you'll never have the option of turning a single-player game into a cooperative one, or the other way around.

The two modes are entirely different from each other, which is unfortunate, as a good bit of the game's unlockables comes from the cooperative mode. Unless you've got someone that you can play with for extended periods of time, you might find yourself a bit annoyed at how much of the secret content is hidden in the co-op mode. But if you do have someone else to play with, you'll have the ideal experience the game has to offer. In my opinion the co-op was more fun to play, not only because a chunk of the extras are in the co-op mode, but also because it's was just more intense, exciting and fun too have a friend with you as you kick Tarkatan...

-(The Graphics)-
Graphically, Shaolin Monks isn't that impressive. If you look closely at the character models, you will notice some fairly low-resolution faces and costumes, and the animations are occasionally choppy slow. Pretty much every fighting arena from MKII has been re-created here. You'll find yourself wandering through the living forest, uppercutting bad guys into the pit, and navigating the pitfalls of the barren wasteland and that's one of the best things about the graphics as the environment looks fantastic. The character designs are a mix between new and old MK, updating the looks from the old games but without changing too much of the original concepts but unfortunately the designs for the characters that aren't exactly from an MK game aren't nearly as good. Apart from a couple of great looking masked soldiers and the evil shadow priests that just float around in the background, most of the enemies rarely are different from awkward corpses, generic-looking troll creatures, and a lot of faceless agents of the outworld. But they all die fantastically, and cutting and beating them up can be quite satisfying.

-(The Sound)-
Unfortunately the sounds are just as bad as the graphics. The voice acting is exceptionally bad and sometimes absolutely awful. Luckily the rest of the sound is better, but only marginally. Most of the music and many of the sound effects seem to have been taken right out of MKII. With effects like Liu Kang's ridiculous martial arts shrieks the insidious-sounding announcer who says "Excellent" and "Fatality" at the appropriate times and even Dan "Toasty" Forden's voice returns once again to utter the famous line at all the right times. It's strange that the developer would dig the MK vault to actually use so many of these old sound effects and musical tracks, and even many of the new sound effects and tracks still sound like the older stuff. This builds up a lot of atmosphere.

-(Replay Value)-
Though the story is quite short, lasting about 6 hours, There's tons and tons to unlock. This game oozes MK. There's a big array of characters featured in this game, with characters from MK 1 and 2, with characters from MK 3 and 4 also showing appearances in the game. Though most of these characters, like Johnny Cage and Sub-Zero, are artificial Intelligence controlled allies in the story mode, many of these characters serve as boss fights and secrets. Even outside of characters, there are so many references to MK all over this game that any serious fan will probably go nuts trying to find them all. There's also the unlockable bonus of the arcade version of MK2 in the game, which is great for MK fans, but not for anyone else as it's so damn hard.

-(Score)-
Controls=10
Gameplay=9
Graphics=7
Sound=7
Replay Value=8
Overall Score=8.2=Great

-(Ending Comments)-
Shaolin Monks is a great game. Though the game's graphics and sound are a little flawed, the game is just so fun and incredibly addictive that you'll have plenty of fun with it, whether you're a MK fan or a Fan of Beat-Em Ups. Unfortunately the game is fairly short but there's a ton of things to unlock. If you like MK then you'll love Shaolin Monks and if you like beat-em ups then you'll also like this.

-(If You Like This I'd Suggest)-
The Warriors
Lord Of The Rings
Spiderman
The Hulk
Batman Begins

-(Where You Can Buy It)-
Amazon:Used and new from £6.98 

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