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 enlarge | From: Midway Entertainment
Category: Video Games
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $4.28
You Save: $15.71 (79%)
New (25) Used (31) from $4.28
Avg. Customer Rating:  53 reviews
Sales Rank: 2517
Platform: Playstation2
ESRB: Mature
Media: Video Game
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Age: 17 - 20 years
Operating System: Playstation 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: 26935
Model: 26935
UPC: 031719269358
EAN: 0031719269358
ASIN: B000GPVUQ2
Release Date: October 9, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Ships Next day,
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| Customer Reviews:
Armageddon Is Upon Us!!! October 28, 2006
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
I bought this game yesterday but, because of many negative reviews on Gamespot and other sites, I wasn't sure if this would be as good as I was hoping. However I gotta say that this game is MK gold!
Starting with the obvious: there are around 60 Kombatants (fighters) ranging from the Mortal Kombat originals Scorpion, Lui Kang, Shang Tsung, Sub-Zero etc. to the newcomers from Deadly Alliance and Deception such as Kobra, Onaga, Kenshi, and Kira. The one character that I couldn't wait to play as was the ultimate Outworld ruler: Shao Kahn - he was pretty crap on the originals but this time he is very strong and has some pretty good special attacks along with his warhammer. Characters that were hard to unlock in previous games, like Charmeleon, Kahn, and Onaga, are already unlocked so you can get straight into the action and beat your opponents to a pulp. The characters are fab and look excellent. Just don't expect to beat Blaze and Onaga all that easily.
The Kreate-A-Fatality is a pretty good decision, but does have its flaws e.g. it is now easy to perform fatalities, but every character can use the same fatality (such as ripping out their opponents lungs and spine) and so there is often little variation. But, on the positive, there are plenty of different moves to perform - some being quite hard to do and some very easy - and you can literally dissect your opponent with up to 10 different moves in a fatality.
The Kreate-A-Character mode is great, and you can do everything from appearance, to moves, to weapons, to biographies. The better moves often cost more than the cheap, pathetic moves, but you can use any move for your kharacter, from Scorpion's Spear to Cyrax's bomb attacks. You have to buy most hairstyles, costumes, armour etc., which I guess makes the game last a bit longer.
The Konquest mode...is okay. Deception's konquest style has been scrapped and a style of play similar to that The mode has certainly improved from last years, but so far I have reached the Red Clan base (a couple of hours into the mode) and have got enough money to buy most of the krypt's 'prizes'. I'm hoping that the mode will get harder otherwise I'll have bought everything within a week of playing.
Motor Kombat is a really cool little mode, best played with a friend. Chess Kombat and Puzzle Kombat have been scrapped from Deception (damn shame about Chess Kombat going!) and this is the replacement. There are only 5 tracks and about 9 racers (I think that they are Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Raiden, Bo Rai Cho, Mileena, Kitana, Cyrax, Jax and Baraka) but it is normaly fast racing with an MK twist. Also the mode is a great way of collecting lots of money to buy parts for your kreated kharacter.
The graphics and gameplay are pretty much the same as Deception, but the huge amount of characters makes this game a bit better in terms of improvement.
So if you like are a MK fan, or just love violence, then this game is for you. If you don't have an MK game then I suggest you get Deception first to see if you like it, but if you are a true fan then you'll love Armageddon. A good send off for the Midway classic, and look forward to the next-gen games!
 Incomplete and unsatisfactory product rated higher than it should be October 27, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I do not understand how any Mortal Kombat fan, or at least any real Mortal Kombat fan, can walk away from this game without being dismayed. Sure it does have some good things in it, but overall it falls very short of being both a satisfying entry into the franchise, and a solid gaming experience in its own sphere.
Before ripping the game for its flaws, it's worth looking at the positives, which as I have said are there. Not everyone agrees, but I thought it was a good idea to cut the number of fighting styles down for the characters. Sure maybe it would have been too much to ask them to have three fighting styles for all those characters, but even with the smaller rosters from Deadly Alliance and Deception, I thought that there was just too much to remember, making Mortal Kombat lose touch with its roots. I was glad to see Armageddon cut down the excess combos for each character. That plus the rebirth of air combat really made Armageddon come close to having a classic feel in the fighting. I also wish to praise the team for making almost every character scream differently. Sure they started the different voices back in Deadly Alliance, but it didn't seem to stick out much until Deception, quite possibly due to the lack of arena death traps in Deadly Alliance. Back on MK Trilogy I thought one of the most fun things to do was knock opponents down the Bell Tower because the repeated screams were often quite amusing, but there were only three or four different varieties of them among more than twenty-five characters. In Armageddon you can certainly have some fun listening to the variety of 50-60 different screams as you knock characters into death traps, which also happen to be another of Armageddon's strengths. Armageddon picks up where Deception left off with the traps, adding some of its own as well. Some of the new traps are quite interesting, especially the one in the Wastelands.
Next it's worth examining the characters themselves, where the results are quite mixed. Some characters are greatly improved from their last 3D appearance. Characters such as Hotaru, Mavado, Kitana and Reptile for example all have more moves in Armageddon than they did in Deadly Alliance or Deception. It was painful to see favorites in Deadly Alliance unable to do much, and Armageddon made up by giving more moves to certain characters. I'd even say that Armageddon improved some of the characters' voices from their previous appearances in 3D, such as Mavado's and Hotaru's to name just a small amount. However, whereas some characters are improved, others are completely ruined. Noob Saibot immediately strikes me as the most ruined character. Appearing in 3D for the first time without being in the Noob-Smoke team, his appearance is very forgettable. Gone now are all the cool properties his moves had in MK Trilogy. Instead of the no-block fireball, he now just throws ninja stars. His teleport slam no longer bounces opponents into the air for a free hit, and few people are ever going to get hit by that stupid cloud move. It's kind of sad when Reiko, the character who basically copied directly from Noob Saibot, is now a better character. Interestingly enough Noob Saibot is also among the few characters that don't even get the dignity of having their own Kombat Kards in the Premium Addition... Yet Noob Saibot is far from the only character to suffer. Plenty of other characters are also missing some of their classic moves, and others should have been given more; Kabal being a good example in this latest category. He has little more than the fireball and web spin moves, no longer being able to shoot the fireball in the air. That move when he and his opponent slam is just dumb, and for a guy of Kabal's appearance, I'd rather see something more brutal. He had that ground saw in MK Trilogy, and something similar in Armageddon would have been nice.
In retrospect yes of course Mortal Kombat: Armageddon has a few strong points, but unfortunately its problems equal or overshadow the positives. Most people say that Konquest is greatly improved from Deception and list it as one of Armageddon's strengths. I say that is only partly true. I will give those people that yes, Taven is definitely much cooler in every way possible than Shujinko. He looks cooler, acts cooler, and although not all his moves are necessarily original or innovative, at least he doesn't just STEAL moves from other characters as Shujinko did. Taven I'd even say is one of the few newer characters actually worth being made, but sadly he alone doesn't completely save Konquest in Armageddon. Armageddon's Konquest is admittedly more user-friendly than Deception's, but it is not nearly as immersive. Even though parts of Deception's seemed slow-moving, I just feel as though I got much more out of Deception's Konquest. I was also really hoping to see Reptile's realm in Armageddon, and not only does Armageddon's Konquest fail to do that, but it also acts as if some of the realms in Deception never even existed. At no point do Seido or the Chaosrealm ever appear in Armageddon's story, and almost no characters from those realms are present at any point in Armageddon's Konquest. In fact, less than half of all the Mortal Kombat characters appear in Armageddon's Konquest mode, and many who do appear have very lame appearances. If Armageddon is supposed to be the last game in this part of the Mortal Kombat story, shouldn't ALL of the characters have made a meaningful appearance, or at least all except dumb ones like Mokap, Meat, and a few others? Deception included every character made up to that point in its Konquest mode, even if only for a brief cameo or optional side-quest. Guess that was too much to ask this time around.
As for the other elements of the story, don't even get me going about their ruination. Don't even get me going about the joke of all the characters who have died and come back for lame reasons. Don't even get me going about the character endings... it's sad when the best thing about endings in a Mortal Kombat game is that if I hated a character's primary costume and didn't want to see it his or her ending, which happened to be the case at times, I had the choice of seeing each character in the alternate costume instead. The whole fiasco with the story is now at a point in which I don't even care anymore about the lack of character bios in the game. Even if some Mortal Kombat games throughout the years really were technically inferior to the likes of Soul Calibur, Street Fighter, or other competition, Mortal Kombat was always able to distinguish itself for its deep story and therefore give itself appeal rarely, if ever, seen in other fighters. The fact that it has now thrown this appeal away is just sickening. However, even more sickening may be Armageddon's Kreate a Fatality system. What EVER made them think that it would be a good idea to substitute the classic fatalities with this garbage I will never comprehend. Why didn't they just bring back brutalities instead if they wanted something more interactive?? I wouldn't mind seeing a Brutality with weapons! And if disc space really had been an obstacle to putting in classic fatalities and bringing back Hara-Kiris, they should have axed Motor Kombat and Kreate a Fighter. If the new fatality system split fans, so be it; I'll take one side and stand by it regardless of what other people think. Anyone who prefers Kreate A Fighter and Kreate a Fatality over classic fatalities and Hara-Kiris has no business calling him or herself a Mortal Kombat fan. The makers even had the nerve to mention Hara-Kiri's in one of the endings after being too lazy to put them in the game... What likely happened with this travesty is that Boon and team knew the game would instantly sell with the appeal of bringing back "every" character and therefore just got lazy. I'm beyond being furious at them for this, so I won't bother writing more about this area.
The selection of arenas was also somewhat disappointing. It's shameful that on the game which will supposedly close "this chapter" of the Mortal Kombat story they didn't bother putting in some classic arenas like the Pit, The Living Forest, the Portal, and some others. Yeah they brought back some that hadn't been around for a while like the The Evil Tower, Bell Tower, Soul Chamber, Subway and a few others, but some of these returns weren't very impressive. In particular the Evil Tower's music in Armageddon is nothing like the foreign, almost sinister tone it had in MKII, and its death trap wasn't all that impressive. The Bell Tower's new trap, although amusing, to me just doesn't build up the excitement that knocking them through six floors did. They should have done without a few stages from Konquest and put in more classic ones instead.
So what's the current state of Mortal Kombat? That obviously depends on whom you ask, and if you ask me, Armageddon gives little hope for the future. We'll just have to see which characters they "kill off" in the next game. Hopefully if the ninja characters come back some of their newer, crappier costumes will not (Sub-Zero's Shredder look, Reptile's unmasked tail look, Rain's Armageddon primary look), but enough speculation on the future now. For the present, due to the continuously deteriorating story, lack of classic fatalities, lack of hara-kiris, lack of character individuality and perpetual appeal, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is little more than a mindless time-killer to pop in if you have nothing else to do. Rarely has there been a collection of such awful ideas as ill-timed as the case here, and as a result, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon serves more as a sad reminder of a greatness that once was instead of being anything worthy of standing on its own. In fact, I nearly decided to just read all the character endings online instead of actually beating it with every character, something I was much more inspired to do back in Mortal Kombat Trilogy. After knowing the endings, regardless of how you come to know of them, the only thing that will likely bring you back to the game is killing some time knocking people into the more amusing death traps, or watching some of the Kombat Kards on the Premium Addition. It's really sad they couldn't do a complete job on this game. There was all the potential in the world and some parts were there, but at this point, I may be looking more forward to a movie that might never happen than the next game.
 Fun But Completely Pointless October 26, 2006
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
The endings have nothing to do with anything. Midway said they would end all current storylines in this game. Technically they did. Usually by killing everyone in a pointless ending (since it isn't recorded anywhere so there is really no reason to beat it, you can just read the endings at gamefaqs).
If you love Mortal Kombat for the fighting then you'll love this game. If you're like me and love the story, then this game will seriously piss you off.
On the up side the kreate a fighter is cool. I have five so far. Including He-Man. It's great.
Basically this game is really fun but serves absolutly no purpose and has a pointless story.
Mortal Kombat Armageddon....... October 25, 2006
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Introduced to Mortal Kombat with Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and having played all the games in the franchise(including MK Mythologies:Sub-Zero and MK Special Forces); I've seen the series have its' ups and downs. Like every franchise that has spawned many sequels, there've been moments of greatness and moments when you're left thinking "What were they thinking?". While Mortal Kombat Armageddon won't leave thinking the latter, Armageddon isn't a moment of greatness either. With a roster of over 58 characters as well as a good number of fighting arenas spanning the entire Mortal Kombat history- think of Armageddon as a 'Best-of' if you will or, at the very least, a second Mortal Kombat Trilogy as pointed out by another reviewer. I'll admit; it's good to see some of my old favorite like Rain-Ermac-Fujin-Smoke and being able to play them in the Deadly Alliance/Deception vein. That, first and foremost, was worth plunking down the asking price for the game. That and the new stuff included in the game such as Motor Kombat, the kreate-a-fighter/kreate-a-fatality modes and the revamped Mortal Kombat Konquest mode(done quite like Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks). Yet, what chaps my hide is the fact that Boon and company decided to recycle alot of the animations from previous games and put them in this game. Come on, if you're going to give us a 'Best-of' game of sorts...give us some new animations to look at during the match, for chrissakes. Instead of seeing Scorpion spear the camera and pull it to him for the umpteenth time, you know?? Too, Wassup with this Kata thing at the end of the Kombat mode?? If you can look pass it's faults, though, Mortal Kombat Armageddon is a good game to end the series on the current-generation consoles with.
After seeing screenshots of several next-generation games, I'm anxious to see what direction Midway takes with the next Mortal Kombat game. Hopefully, it will be a more realistic approach. It would also be nice to see them take the Mortal Kombat mythos into new genres(MMORPG?).
 Best Fighting Game October 23, 2006
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Ed Boon and co. worked very hard to make this the best fighting game on current generation consoles, and the results do not disappoint. A must have for any hardcore or leisurely gamer.
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