Graphics: Deadly Alliance would lose any beauty pageant where it went toe to toe with Dead or Alive 3, but would utterly crush many other fighters on the market. The fine details are truly the best part, as the characters are high resolution, high poly representations of those we’ve come to know from the past. Effects bring them further to life, be it Scorpion’s burning skull, the cold trails of frost that stream down from Sub Zero’s hands or the arcing electricity that dances across Raiden’s body. In combat, things move from impressive to amazing, as the characters change stances with each block, causing the fights to look very much like active combat rather than one character simply cowering behind their arms.

Always known for its bloody nature, this Mortal Kombat steps up another notch, featuring blood that drips from the point of impact and down the characters to pool on the floor. If you happen to walk through this wet mess, your footprints will pick up the red color as well. Since this gore is persistent, it’s not uncommon to see the arena covered in spilled fluids before the third round finishes.

The arenas provide ample distractions from the battle, should you desire, as they, too, are loaded with little details. Be it spectators cheering you along or a group of monks paddling your platform in a slow circle while you fight, there’s plenty of touches that set the scene. In some of the more excessive areas, you’ll see items whip past the camera, such as souls screaming into a pillar of light in Shang Tsung’s palace or debris being pulled into a dimensional portal.

Interface: Simple and easy to navigate, Deadly Alliance steers you to the gameplay immediately. Small transition animations carry you away from the main menu, but aside from this touch, things are pretty much down to business from the start. The highlight would have to be the force feedback functions, which are subtle enough to not throw off your gameplay, but strong enough to communicate the simple fact that you’re being schooled. As per expectation, the controller goes wild when you land a fatality or have one executed upon you.

Gameplay: At the beginning of the review, we questioned whether Midway could breathe life into the Mortal Kombat series, and by all accounts, they’ve succeeded. It’s not quite as deep as the PS2′s Virtua Fighter 4, but the trade off is that Deadly Alliance is virtually pick-up-and-play. Button mashers will find the controls responsive and easy to learn, while those who take the time to master them will find that the sheer variety of combos, moves and smooth style transitions provide a deeper experience than you’d expect. A healthy roster of characters ensures that multiplayer matches won’t wear thin, and gives you plenty of CG in which to bask after winning the Arcade mode with each character separately. The Krypt and the associated coin collecting system works fairly well, as dedicated but underskilled players need only play a lot of matches, rather than defeat the Arcade mode, to unlock new characters. The one aspect that doesn’t work so well is the Konquest mode. While an excellent tutorial for novice players, after the third set of ten missions per character, even the greenest of warriors will have grown a bit tired of repeating tasks. Still, there’s absolutely no pressure to complete Konquest mode; if you grow tired of it, simply dismiss it and earn the coins in Arcade mode.

Multiplayer: Mortal Kombat shines in multiplayer mode, translating tight combat mechanics into fun gameplay. Enough control over the matches has been provided to change their length and handicap certain players, if necessary. What’s missing is a Tournament mode or more involved group play options that would’ve added some extra depth as a party game. This complaint is minor, though, and the smooth implementation of the player profiles into Versus mode along with the option to wager coins on the contest makes for a fairly involved match that still remains simple enough to leap straight into.

Sound FX: While the sounds effects are great, there simply aren’t enough of them to avoid repetition issues. Each character has only so many grunts of pain or cries as they block, and after a few hours of trying to master a single character, you’ll hear them rebound through your brain like Orwellian propaganda. Given the series’ penchant for story-heavy play, it’s surprising that there aren’t more opportunities taken to give voice to the characters’ stories. Konquest mode seems a logical place to do this since it’s telling the story already, but instead, you’re treated to blocks of text. On the plus side, not only are the effects fantastic in their limited quantities, but the ring announcer has the right timbre and tone to capture the glory of the first Mortal Kombat‘s “Fight!” and “Flawless Victory!” cries.

Musical Score: Running smoothly in the background, the Deadly Alliance soundtrack can best be described as a smooth techno. Not the jarring, high-pitched tracks Mortal Kombat fans have heard before; these are softer, more laid back compositions that are actually more effective than pulsating up-tempo beats would be. The tracks aren’t tied to any particular level, they just cycle and play continuously throughout your battle.

Intelligence & Difficulty: The usual Mortal Kombat trick is that your fights start relatively easy and then ramp up in difficulty until the end, which challenges you to the utmost. Deadly Alliance is no exception to this rule, literally showing you difficulty percentages as they creep upwards. Luckily, you can elect to start anywhere from the novice level, which initially gives you opponents more interested in walking back and forth than actually attacking, to the highest “Max” level, which gets things started around 50 percent. The scale is relative, and novices will find the final battles to be tricky, but hardly a superb challenge, while those starting higher up the scale will have to get their acts together immediately. In terms of the AI itself, it’s notably juggle-happy, tending to flip you in the air far more often than you’d like. The design also has a few areas open for exploit, and savvy players will find some means to beat certain characters with specific chains. All fighting games suffer this problem from time to time, though, and Deadly Alliance avoids it becoming a major problem.

Overall: At this point, Deadly Alliance is the best arcade fighter on Xbox. It’s not as pretty as Dead or Alive 3, and it lacks the comic book appeal of X-Men Next Generation, but Deadly Alliance still knocks them both flat. The core gameplay and balance, a combination that makes or breaks a fighter from the start, are exquisitely well crafted, allowing player of all levels to step into the ring with reasonable success. After a few hours of practice, advanced players will recognize that the three attack styles add considerable depth and strategy to the game’s dynamic. Better yet, the focus is now on relatively short combos and careful attacks rather than over-the-top special moves. A grittier feeling Mortal Kombat than most, Deadly Alliance is a worthy successor to the series, redeeming a lot of the previous installments’ failures.