Game Stars Live, a 5-day event which ran from Sept. 1 through Sept. 5, is now officially over.
Midway was there, and they had
Mortal Kombat: Deception on display there (on 6 TV's, no less!) The build they had running appears to be very similar to the one at
Midway Summer Gamer's Day - it was even
an NTSC build, and not a PAL one. It was estimated to be 80% complete. It was contained in a special designated area where only people 18 and over were allowed in. They were strict on enforcing this, as people were even carded and turned away (although one youngster, photographed below, managed to get in.)
Besides the FMV intro, which is excellent, there's another cool video that shows in 4 different windows the various modes of play (Arcade, Chess, Puzzle, and Konquest). It's a change from the Katas that Deadly Alliance ran.
The coolest stage has to be the
Dark Prison stage. Here is a list of all the prisoners (at least, the ones that they
had enabled in this build):
Cyrax,
Sektor,
Kai,
Kung Lao,
Stryker,
Mokap,
Jax,
Sonya,
Drahmin,
Quan Chi,
Shang Tsung,
Frost,
Kano,
Hsu Hao,
Mavado,
Johnny Cage,
Kung Lao,
Kitana,
Goro,
Kintaro,
Nitara,
Rain,
Reiko,
Shao Kahn,
Shinnok,
Fujin,
Sareena, and get this:
Reptile is in the Prison, in both his
MKII and
MK4 costume.
As far as the game's engine is concerned: It is well documented that it's very similar to
MK: Deadly Alliance. The main engine tweaks are well documented (speed increase, deathtraps, stage weapons, display lights, etc.) One key difference, though, is that there are no longer
Taunts,
Reversals, or
Neijins. In their place are
Breakers, which prove to be much easier to actually use in battle. These are not
Killer Instinct-type Combo
Breakers, where you need to perform a special move to escape a player performing a combo on you. Instead, you can block
during the middle of the combo, and that will break you out of it. At this point in time, you could also hold down the block button and if the player attempts to combo you, you will break out of it. Important to note, is that it does not actually damage the other player if you perform one.
Another difference is that right now, if your characters wins while in his weapon stance, his weapon suddenly disappears. This has changed since Deadly Alliance, where they would still hold their weapon in their hands for their victory pose. This, along with many other details pointed out here, could change by the game's final release date.
A really cool detail (as you may have seen from some of the
MSGD videos) is that every character has their own unique animation for getting up after they have lost a battle.
Scorpion pulls himself up using his spear,
Ermac uses telekenesis and levitates himself up (with green energy),
Mileena crawls around before getting up and then growls,
Baraka gets up by sticking his blades into the ground and using those to support his weight,
Sub-Zero leaves
a trail of ice behind him to get up, and
Bo Rai Cho... farts his way up.
The backgrounds are one of the coolest things about the game. Obviously, with backgrounds being multi-tiered and having death traps as well as stage weapons, they can affect the outcome of the fight for the first time in an MK game. Old school
backgrounds that were exclusive to Chess Kombat in previous builds of the game (such as The Portal, The Pit, The Courtyard, The Living Forest, and The Dead Pool) are now available in Arcade Mode as well. They're also extremely detailed, as there several backgrounds that have flying birds or a flock of albatrosses in the background. In the Yin/Yang stage - which is known for flickering from night to day - there are other changes as well. In daytime, there is a boat in the background, but at night it's a more sinister looking ship (resembling Shang Tsung's old ship, but presumably not the same one). The cocunut trees in that background become giant snakes at night, as well. The cocunuts (which fall on your head if you get slammed into one!) become human skulls at night. The coolest feature in any background is in one stage where the floor is made almost entirely out of glass. When someone is knocked onto the floor, it leaves a big crack in it, for the rest of the match. This level of realism is unbelievable, and certainly raises the bar for any future
Mortal Kombat games.
This level of detail is present in Chess Kombat as well. In the Pit background, if you rotate the camera around the chessboard, you can actually see Dead Bodies lying down in the spikes underneath. Very cool, and staying true to the Pit design from MK1. The Portal (which is a mixture of various portal backgrounds from previous MK games) has Shadow Priests like in the previous games. The Shadow Priest in front of the altar is wearing darker robes than the two guarding the portal - suggesting that he may be their leader.
Noob-Smoke is the sub-boss right now. As you can see from the videos, he actually functions as a tag team. When he switches styles, he switches from
Noob Saibot to
Smoke - their styles change as well, as Noob always uses Monkey, and Smoke always uses
Mi Tzu. They do not appear to have a weapon.
As is well known by now,
The Dragon King (also known as
Onaga) is the final boss. He no longer is the narrator, apparantly; when we wins he doesn't say "I Win" anymore. The text says "Onaga Wins" but the audio says "Dragon King wins". In his stage (exclusive to him only) there are about 8 giant dragon claws that stick out of the ground. Each one is of a different color and holds a different icon (like a yin yang, or a skull). If you walk into one, you will shatter it, and this hurts the Dragon King. It's as if the claws hold the secret to the Dragon King's power. This doesn't actually take any damage off his life meter, but it leaves him stunned for a few seconds. This is the most opportune time to attack him - but be careful, because some attacks (like high fireballs) might miss him, and then your opportunity is lost. Better to wait a few seconds before using some moves, to make sure you that you time it so that it hits him. You don't have to ruin any of the claws in order to win, but it does make it easier. But be careful - each of these claws is set precariously close to a death trap and you will lose the round instantly if hit into of them. (Of course, with the Dragon King's size, he cannot be knocked into these traps himself). There doesn't appear to be any sort of reward for destroying all the Claws in the stage, although perhaps there may be, if they were destroyed in the proper order?
Because of his massive size, he doesn't get knocked down completely in a fight. Some moves, like Sub-Zero's freeze, have
no effect on him. Scorpion's Spear actually does get stuck in him, but it won't pull him over to you. Instead, he fights for a few seconds with the Spear still in him until it eventually disappears. When you've beaten him completely he dies in a fiery explosion - a mess of claws and unrecognizable body parts are all that remain, until his head comes down a few seconds later. The game says you did a Fatality when this happens, too.
There's a couple other noticeable changes in this build, such as the Sky Tower glitch at E3 (where both players walked on thei air) has been fixed. Also, if both players fall victim to the death trap in that stage, the person who had more energy is now the winner. Nightwolf's arrow still impales you, but it doesn't actually reduce your health as Impale moves in Deadly Alliance did. Certain special moves being used in 2 specific stages did lock up the game, however, and there were several people on staff to reset the game when this occured. Rest assured that this will be fixed in the final release.
Some other cool details are that there's an
Area 51 demo accessible right from the main menu. Another cool feature is that you can listen to the various to the different tracks from the game. Each one contains information (such as who composed it) as well as their comments on what went into making that particular tune. There are also bonus tracks, songs they felt were really cool but just didn't fit in with any particular stage.
Puzzle Kombat - a truly addictive little puzzle game, this is really progressing nicely. For starters, the old Random Select (Up + Start) trick works in here, as well as in Chess Kombat. There is no longer a Fatality after every round, like at E3. Now, they only do Fatalities on the final round, as a true MK game. They are still done automatically for you (at least for now). There's still some tweaking to be done, as the "Time Playing" always displays 00:00 no matter how long you've played. Now, there is a battle plan, complete with MKII style mountain, and you actually fight different characters. The computer gets much smarter as you progress, and the pieces fall faster, too - a double challenge.
Puzzle Kombat has a lot of cool (funny) details, too - in their version of the Slaughterhouse stage, there is a little piece of meat thrown into the meat grinders on the side before every round. Another stage has a bird flying around that gets smushed by one of the pillars.
One of the better aspects of Puzzle Kombat, and one that sets it apart from Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, is the Super Moves. After doing enough combos and building up your super meter, doing another large combo will result in your character performing a Super Move on your opponent, which is different for each player. The coolest is easily Sub-Zero's
(no pun intended!) - his "Freeze" Super turns all of the blocks on your screen into Ice Blocks, and you can't use any of them until they thaw out after a few seconds. Baraka's "Edger" Super fits him quite well, as 2 long blades pop up and remove the left and right columns of blocks on his screen. This changes your strategy when playing as Baraka, as you would not want to put any Dragon Koins into the 2 corners. Sindel has a "Rearrange" Super, in which all of the blocks in her screen are sorted by color (making it super easy if she gets a dragon koin). Nightwolf has a nasty one that makes all of your Dragon Koins disappear, which can ruin it for you if you were planning any intricate combos. Mileena's "Driller" is kind of like Baraka's, only it removes the blocks in the middle of her screen as opposed to the corners.
Overall, the reaction from the British crowd was very positive. Many of the people I spoke with hadn't played Mortal Kombat in years, indicating that they missed Deadly Alliance. However they seemed very excited about the game, particularly with the Death Traps. The release date in the U.K. (but not
all PAL countries) is
November 14, 2004. (Other countries may take longer as the game has to be translated into different languages.) This is for both the
PlayStation 2 and
X-Box, as there is currently no
GameCube version being worked on in Europe.
Check out a battle between Noob/Smoke
here.
A huge thanks to several staffers at the show, including
Matt Scott and
Tammy Petroff, as well as Project Manager
Mike Eggington.
