WIth the release of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon for the Nintendo Wii coming next week, it's coming close to time for the first reviews of the game to appear. Today, IGN posted what we believe to be the first review of MK: Armageddon for the Wii! The two-page review spends equal time discussing aspects of the game that is common to both the Wii version and the previous version released for Playstation 2 and Xbox. However, they do go into detail about the differences seen in the Wii version. For example, they do describe how they found the Wii remote/nunchuk-based control system to work with the game; overall they found it worked well, with a couple of downsides. From the review:
The mechanics are responsive and the gameplay fun when you're playing with the classic controller or alternatively with the GameCube controller. Both are fully compatible with the Wii iterations and you can plug them in at any time and compete against friends who are using the Wii remote and nunchuk. For that reason alone, we could recommend Armageddon to Wii owners even if the remote controls were absolute junk. As it turns out, they're not.
The new gesture-simplified fights are for many going to be the main draw to this incarnation of the project and when they are working as you'd like them to they do indeed effectively make playing Mortal Kombat much easier. To perform special character moves with the Wii remote all you have to do is hold down the B trigger, make a left to right, or up and down, or half circle motion, and then release. Liu Kang will fly across the screen kicking. Raiden will dive at opponents. Bo' Rai Cho will vomit at their feet. The list goes on. We were somewhat surprised to find that the gesture system does feel good and is responsive. Using very minimal movements, you can flick out left/right motions and carve half circles into the air even as the Wii remote dangles from your lap. It is in a way refreshing to play Mortal Kombat this way and it is on some level intuitive, too. We're positive that gamers who didn't grow up with the franchise would prefer this method of play to the traditional one. And yet, there are some quirks. The game seems to understand and translate our motions 95% of the time, but occasionally our movements go unregistered, which is problematic given the nature of such high-speed battles where every move counts. The bigger problem is that standard high/low punches and kicks are performed with the D-Pad on the Wii remote, which is uncomfortable, to say the least.
The reviewer also laments the loss of online play, stating that Khameleon's inclusion does not make up for it. On the other hand, he points out that Midway is not to blame for the lack of online play. He also talks about the video quality, praising it save for one very minor detail. From the review:
It's too bad that - and this omission is sorely missed - Armageddon for Wii lacks an online mode altogether due almost certainly to Nintendo's slow start in readying an infrastructure and providing developers like Midway with the proper tools and documentation to utilize it. It's a good excuse, of course, but that makes little difference to consumers who want it and we have therefore been forced to ding the final score of the game because of its absence.
Armageddon on Wii looks about the same as its predecessors. Models are acceptably detailed and animation is quick and fluid; environments are pleasingly varied in design and they are also fairly interactive, which means you can toss opponents out of arenas and they'll crash through walls and windows, revealing other fight areas below. The particle effects, particularly for blood, are too spectacularly over the top for our tastes, but we're sure fatality seekers will love them. The whole experience runs at a constant 60 frames per second in both 480p and 16:9 modes on Wii, although Midway's version of widescreen is slightly faked; it cuts off the far sides of the screen.
In the end, IGN gave MK Armageddon for the Wii a score of 7.8, stating that the only reason it scored less than its PS2 and Xbox counterparts was the lack of online play. They also make a point to say that in their opinion, MK Armageddon is currently the Wii's best fighting game.
To read the review in its entirety, click here.
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