Along with the other big media sites, IGN has wasted no time in putting up their review of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon! Their four-page review is actually remarkably in-depth, going over each mode with a fine-tooth comb. For example, when discussing Konquest mode, the reviewer gives the background to the story of Konquest, and also discusses the gameplay in detail. He also talks about item collecting in that mode, and how it relates to the game as a whole. From the review:

Similar to Deception's Konquest mode, players will come across various items scattered around each level. Some of these are music tracks that will be unlocked in the Krypt, while other chests will hold alternate costumes for characters or fighter specific items, such as Kira's Knife or Hotaru's Flag. It may seem somewhat strange to see these items around without their owners, but there's a very specific reason to search out and collect these items: each one fits on a grid that unlocks secrets within the game, such as new characters for the Kombat mode. Players will need to be extremely thorough if they want to find every single item, because you'll often discover that many of them happen to be hidden or invisible until you get near them. However, because some sections of the game emphasize battles much more than exploration, you may find yourself exposing yourself to attacks as you search each inch of a stage for hidden chests or items. You'll also find that after clearing some battles, you'll immediately be pushed forward, so if you haven't spent the time exploring a place, you'll lose that opportunity until you play through the entire mode all over again (or unless you reload your game from your previous checkpoint).

In addition, the reviewer goes into a discussion about Motor Kombat, but comes away feeling that it didn't impress him as much as Mortal Kombat: Deception's side games. From the review:

When you think Armageddon, you think death and devastation. Ancient prophecies coming true, with mountains crumbling and seas boiling. Kart racing around tracks with super-deformed characters. Wait, what? Yep, Midway has included a new mini-game for Armageddon in the form of Motor Kombat., a kart racer. Players choose from one of ten characters, including Jax, Scorpion and Cyrax, and take their unique karts around one of five tracks, all of which have individual "fatality"-inducing traps. These include scalding lava, bottomless pits and being crushed by rolling boulders. As players fly around these tracks, they'll be keeping an eye out for red Koins (which they can use to unlock items in the Krypt) or green lightning bolts, which provides a speed boost to the karts. You'll also want to ride over the gold stars, which let you fire off kart-specific weapons such as Scorpion's spear or Sub-Zero's freeze ball to cause havoc to your opponents. It's decent, but not as fun as Chess Kombat or Puzzle Kombat, the two previous diversions included in Deception. In fact, you may wind up going through each track once or twice with your favorite racer and never look at this feature again.

The third and fourth page of the review take an in-depth look at the Kombat mode. The reviewer goes in-depth concerning several of the changes in the engine from Mortal Kombat: Deception, from the changes to the health bars and the AI improvements to the addition of air kombat and removal of a fighting style for each character. Again, from the review:

Regardless of the character you choose, each one has eight fights to win before they can claim victory over the other warriors. Veterans of Deadly Alliance and Deception will notice a number of new fighting mechanics within Armageddon that will make them rethink their in-game strategies. For one, the defense meter from Deception (which was relatively useless in that game) has thankfully been removed entirely. Second, along with the three combo breakers that return from Deception, players have the opportunity to parry incoming blows by hitting block and the back direction at the same time. This will spin your opponent around, giving you a second or two to unload a quick throw or combo on the defenseless fighter, even potentially juggling them in the air.

Juggling is actually an important tactic, because aerial combat, which hasn't really played a significant role in the game since MK II, makes a return in Armageddon. Not only will you find some fighters landing multiple punches or kicks on an opponent in mid-air, but you can also throw some enemies down and bounce them right back up to you to continue your weightless battle. While you won't be able to fight an entire battle in the skies, it does make those players who rely solely on jump kicks have to learn new tactics, because they will easily get sent crashing down to earth. Unlike Deadly Alliance and Deception, characters have had their fighting styles paired down from two hand to hand and one weapon style due to the sheer size of the fighters involved -- it would've been a nightmare to come up with 120 fighting styles and accurately model all of them. In Armageddon, most characters have one martial art style and a weapon, although some of the larger "monster" characters have only one available to them (Onaga and Moloch in particular are "restricted" in this manor).

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Fortunately, many of the cheap AI issues that plagued Deception and Deadly Alliance have been fixed in Armageddon. In some ways, Onaga and Moloch are no longer the cheap behemoths that they once were now that they're playable characters, and it's much easier to go through classic cheap fighters like Goro and Kintaro. The game still isn't a cakewalk, and Blaze will still give you a headache until you figure out how to best land blows on him with your particular character's attack set. But as far as wanting to throw down your controller in anger -- you aren't going to experience it in the same manner with Armageddon.

The review finishes off with a discussion of the Kreate-a-Fighter system, which the reviewer found to be very versatile and fun to use. All in all, IGN gave a score of 8.5 out of 10 to MK: Armageddon; the reviewer found it to be a strong title, with the only weaknesses being some characters left out (unnamed, but probably referring to Khameleon, among others) and weak endings.

To read the review in its entirety, click here.

Our thanks to forum member for letting us know about this new review!