October 3, 2005 - Mortal Kombat is one of the most popular games from the arcade era of the 90’s. The fighting system was innovative and the brutal ways to kill your enemies “with fatality” were challenging and fun to watch. Over the years, Midway has released a few new titles to continue the franchise, notably MK Deadly Alliance, Deception, among others. This time around, Midway is trying to take the legacy in a new direction with Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks for the console market. Unlike the previous iterations, Shaolin Monks is not a pure fighting game but an action platformer that feels a lot like a fighting game. And if the amount of fun I had with this one is any indication, that’s not a bad thing at all.

The story for Shaolin Monks is a little different than the previous games. This time, Shang Tsung tries to invade Earth realm after losing the Mortal Kombat tournament to Liu Kang and his buddies. In doing so, he’s defying the elder gods and it’s up to you to find out what’s going on. The story seems a lot more fleshed out than in the previous incarnations of this game and it does have a couple of unexpected surprises. It doesn’t feel like it’s just there for no reason and actually helps the gameplay a lot. Various cutscenes also accompany the story and do a very good job of moving the plot forward.

In Shaolin Monks, you can play as either Liu Kang or Kung Lao, with the possibility of unlocking other characters as the game progresses. There is a single player mode where it’s just you against the hordes of demons, or you can partner up with a friend in co-op mode. Shaolin Monks also impresses in the co-op department. Instead of taking the easy route of just putting another character on screen and having the same gameplay mechanics, Shaolin Monk’s co-op played has a number of special features. Some of the puzzles in the game can only be solved with the help of a friend in co-op mode. Not only that, but the game has special moves which can be performed with your partner to lay waste on the demon enemies. These include grabbing your friend and throwing him at people, launching a fireball at your friend so he can deflect it at various other targets and more. This tag team experience adds a whole new strategy to fighting enemies and makes the game a lot more fun and rewarding to play. If you’re a big fan of Mortal Kombat fighting and you want to battle against your friend, the game also offers a versus mode. And believe me; after seeing your friend perform some stupid moves during co-op mode, you’ll want to smack him around for some time.

As far as graphics go, Shaolin Monks does impress. The environments seem really polished with destructible objects and various other environment effects. From earth realm to outworld, the game has some pretty impressive environments, which try to emulate games like God of War and Ninja Gaiden. The environments look very original and fit really well with the Mortal Kombat theme. Things like spikes and environmental hazards really add to the experience and can be used to your advantage during gameplay. The level design does seem a bit linear but it does allow you a fair amount of freedom as far as back tracking to acquire new secrets. The character models do feature good movements and the animation is fluid. I did experience some slow down in the game when I played against multiple enemies and had a torch right in front of the camera but that was the only instance and it was quite brief.

The sound for this rendition of the Mortal Kombat franchise is good, but not great. The problem with the sound comes mostly from the sub par voice acting in the game. And the constant “yaaa” screams from Liu Kang (à la Bruce Lee) can become really annoying at times. Every time you do any move with Liu Kang, he will scream “yaaa” for your auditory pleasure and seeing as how combos can get fairly lengthy in this game, you’ll hear the “uataaa” lines a lot. The voice acting is very average and sounds a lot like the translations done for Japanese animation here in North America. I also noticed at one point in the game, when you have to cut some chords to release hot tar on enemies, that the action played out on a cutscene had no sound. Those are really the only issues I had with the sound in this title, and this is really nitpicking on my part. The sound effects of the game are well done and the music is standard Mortal Kombat fanfare.