MK: Outworld Assassins by magggas

[zamuel]

Finally sitting down to play this, there's a number of interesting positives and negatives to the game as a whole.

MK: Outworld Assassins

Story: 2.5/5.0

At its base is a simple quest and the events that follow.  Not bad in itself and the speech popups work well.  The problem is the abundance of typos and the fact that the screens don't hold long enough for you to read them.  It really brings things down overall.  It would have been better to make the screens last a long time yet allow them to be skipped rather than the other way around.  The other problem is a bit nitpicky in that if you know about the MK storyline, you know that Subzero and Scorpion aren't from the same clan and wouldn't be working together but that's forgivable for the sake of having enough playable characters.

Audio: 5.0/5.0
Visuals: 5.0/5.0

Quite simply, this feels like an MK game.  Some of the sprite edits are noticeable but it doesn't seem to intrude on the visual scheme.

Gameplay: 4.5/5.0

There's a feeling that this mod made two steps forward and one step back compared to MK Unlimited.

Level design
All of the cool stage elements from the previous game are gone with the exceptions of one level with crushing stones.  It's disappointing since it was one of the strongest points of the previous game and set it far above other mods.

Characters
While the cast is small, they all have a unique feel which is good.  The major problems of Unlimited--inability to get rid of weapons and lack of an uppercut--have been eliminated due to a greatly improved control scheme.  The escape roll and the blast kick don't feel quite as useful as they could be but having the option is a good thing.  The main concern would be the fact that summoning Smoke seems to have no drawbacks and he seems to have as many attacks as the playable characters.  The other, much smaller, concern is with the fatalities.  In boss fights it would be nice if you could use all of them for any boss.  The bigger loss is not being able to use them against regular enemies.

Enemies
Regular enemies aren't as varied as in Unlimited but this is a decent enough.  There's still the problem with lesser variety in later levels.  The revamped player controls go a long way towards making the challenge from enemies mostly fair.  Bosses feel a little strong though.  Well, really the early bosses, first 3 or so.  It's very easy for them to take away most of the player's health in a single combo setup.  Boss fights tend to also suffer from having too many enemies on the screen for characters of that size in a non-widescreen resolution.  The sheer power is a little disappointing since they are otherwise rather innovative in their fighting styles.

Overall: 4.5/5.0 (not an average)
A good mod that feels like it's one half of an outstanding mod.  If it retained the current engine and character variance while gaining more unique levels and a proofread story delivery it would be one of the best available.

[nsw25]

It would be great if Maggas did an update to this game, added some bonus characters and tweaked gameplay etc using the skills he has gained since he originally released this game. BTW theres a video on youtube of some bogan guy in a chequered shirt, shorts and no shoes who has made himself a playable character in this game, some of his moves and combos etc look neat.

[maxman]

I bet that guy made a hack of it.

Hey zamuel. I thought there was another MKOA review made here before you did.

[zamuel]

Hey zamuel. I thought there was another MKOA review made here before you did.

I thought so too but didn't see it.  Was probably eaten by the forum purge.  As someone said in another review, it's a shame that the Reviews section is so dead.

[maxman]

True. There was one time I made a few reviews on bWWd's Fighting Spirit and masterderico's Jennifer. Can't clearly remember other reviews I made though. Too bad they all got wiped out and the Review probably led to being dead. There should be more reviews made here.

[frontyiria]

great game but in psp i just canīt make the fatality to frost WTH...