Even up to the point that we sat down and started playing the game, and for the duration of around ten minutes into it, we had our doubts. Superficially, there’s barely any noticeable different between the Wii and PS2 version and the main draw for Wii owners, especially those that have already played the PS2 version, didn’t appear to work very well. Midway has taken the special moves such as projectiles, flaming kicks and so on, and replaced the analogue or D-pad motions with Wii manipulation. For example, Scorpion’s spear throw used to be away, towards and the punch button, then his flaming bicycle kick was a 180-degree crescent along the bottom of the directional pad. Wii manipulation now sees you swinging the remote in lateral swipes while holding the B-trigger and releasing to execute the move.

This new system had us flummoxed and frustrated for a short time, especially as Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon had given us a demonstration of the remote’s functions, and played MK: Armageddon with some degree of fluency. As it turned out however, we should have had a little more faith, as it wasn’t the system that was broken – it was our clumsy attempts to use the controls.

Timing is key to performing a special move correctly, and the B-trigger must be squeezed a fraction of a second after you begin to move the remote. This could have been more clearly need to make these moves, as well as tailoring the fighting style, victory stance and appearance of your fighter, including gender of course. There are restrictions though: you can only have three special moves, and these have a point cost associated with them. The more damaging and more useful specials obviously cost more, but more points can be gained by completing levels and collecting items and coins in the Konquest mode. These bespoke fighters can increase in power with the more battles you win, and while there is a cap to their abilities, a maxed-out player-created character will be endowed with more innate fighting talent than the average character chosen from the roster. This doesn’t mean you’ll win every battle from that point on, it just means that you’ll have the edge playing against a similarly skilled opponent with a standard character.

… continued