Mortal Kombat Advance (GBA)

A SELF-INFLICTED FATALITY
Basically, what you have here is the Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 title ported to the Game Boy Advance. Now, since we’re dealing with a fairly old title that has been successfully ported to just about every system known to man, you might expect that this game would be a pretty decent GBA fighter right? Wrong.

There’s so much wrong here that I don’t even know where to start. Seriously, other than the music — which is actually quite good — this is one of the most unplayable titles that I’ve ever encountered. First of all, the control is hideous. All too often it seems as if the game is changing your character’s moves on you, because performing a specific button/d-pad combination will usually result in your character pulling off an action that differs from what you intended. But that’s not the worst of it…

WAX ON, @!#% OFF
The computer-controlled opponents are insane. As soon as a match begins, the computer is able to unleash a fast flurry of attacks, while your character responds as if it is stuck in molasses. I kid you not, the response time is painfully sluggish, and coupled with the whacked-out controls (as well as the lightning-fast speed of the computer opponents), this fighter will make you want to throw your GBA through the nearest wall.

Since playing the game on the default “normal” mode is essentially impossible, you can decrease the difficulty of the game to make things easier. However, this makes the opponents pretty much brain-dead and you can easily defeat them by backing them against a wall and tapping away at the buttons. When it comes to this game’s difficulty setting, it’s either all or nothing, baby.

FUGLY DUCKLING
The graphics leave something to be desired as well. They serve their purpose, but the backgrounds look all grainy, as if they’re being rendered with a somewhat low color count. Considering the more-than-capable power of the GBA, there’s simply no excuse for such lackluster graphics.

BOTTOM LINE:
To sum it all up, this thing is a turd of the highest order. The controls are sluggish and unresponsive, the computer-controlled opponents are extremely cheap, and the game is riddled with blatant bugs that NO professional game developer should have let slide. Unless you have a real penchant for train wrecks, be sure to avoid this steaming pile of a rush job.