Mortal Kombat: Armageddon [PS2]

We've always been told that all things must come to an end, but we don't necessarily know when the end of days will come. Well, Armageddon arrived in our offices a bit early yesterday, as Ed Boon, the creative director of the Mortal Kombat series, stopped by to show us the latest build of the game and point out all of the features that players will be able to get their hands on in less than a month.

As the name implies, Armageddon will be the culmination of the franchise and the largest MK title to date, with a grand total of 62 playable characters taken from previous titles. One significant design change that had been made shortly after E3 was the decision to make almost all of the fighters available at the outset of the game. To this end, 58 characters will be initially selectable, which should allows fans a chance to set up their dream matches with their favorite characters while still holding onto the classic unlockable reward scheme that the franchise is known for. At first glance, it can feel somewhat overwhelming, particularly for players who know the MK universe well, because you are presented with a massive roster to choose from. However, Boon helped to point out the arrangement of the fighters on the select screen: male fighters are arranged across the top four rows of the select screen, while the female fighters take the two smaller rows beneath them. Bringing up the final two rows are the more "monstrous" characters of the series, so characters like Baraka and Drahmin share company with larger brutes and boss characters like Moloch and Goro.

As we made our selections, Boon also pointed out some of the changes that have been made to Armageddon's gameplay. Veterans of Deadly Alliance and Deception will notice that a reduction of fighting styles for characters: Instead of three for each character, most characters have two styles available to them. Some fighters will only use weaponry for their styles, while some will focus on hand to hand combat and others will mix and match weapons and martial styles. Some of the larger bosses, like Onaga, will only have one fighting style available to them to reflect their massive size. Part of this limitation was so every single character would have the opportunity to have some martial arts form without completely stretching the bounds of the design team; trying to create over 180 separate and unique fighting forms for all of the characters involved would be a monumental task. Most characters will also have the opportunity to go vertical, performing aerial combos and throws during fights, which hasn't been seen since MKII.

Characters will now go to battle in 17 separate arenas in Armageddon, which are somewhat similar to those in Deception due to their interactive areas and multiple levels. In fact, we noticed that one level was set in a bell tower, where we could use the massive instrument to ring our opponent with vibration before they plummeted to the ground below. The death traps return as well, with some brutal effects: We noticed one area with lava and another with a massive rolling pin that crushed anything in its path. Speaking of brutal, fans know that the MK series is known for its fatalities. Boon pointed out that instead of getting players to memorize button presses and sitting back to watch a canned animation, Armageddon's fatalities are now much more interactive. As the "Finish Him" command pops up, players have a certain amount of time, measured by a meter, to input a sequence of buttons. Each time you successfully put in a command, you commit a specific fatality move, like pulling out a heart or ripping off an arm, but you decrease the amount of time you have to complete the next move in the sequence. Novice players should be able to pull off a one or two hit fatality, but skilled players can potentially take an opponent apart for 10 or 11 hits.

When players choose to step away from the arcade or versus section of the game, there's plenty of other modes that they check out. The Konquest mode, which has been a popular mode amongst MK fans, returns in Armageddon with a brand new story and presentation for the game. Players take on the role of Taven, a half-god from Edenia who is placed into suspended animation along with his brother Daegon by his parents. While the two siblings believe this is to determine who will ascend the throne, it's actually to protect them from Shao Kahn. Over the course of the mode, players will discover that there's actually a lot more to the story than initially thought, as well as the place that Taven plays with the upcoming cataclysmic fight between realms.