I got a chance to check out Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance at Nintendo's Cube Tour stop this week in Schaumburg, IL. I compiled a completed MKDA Special Moves Guide for people who will be visiting future stops on the tour and would like a reference sheet with the special moves. I won’t be reviewing this version of the game; instead a full game review will be coming from us along with the release of the final version of the game. This is because it's not fair to review the unfinished and buggy version of the game on display at the Cube Tour. Below are a few notes on the game, with more to come in the next week as I get more game play time in.

• There are MANY MORE little moves per each fighting style; the moves list is just a list of the character's Special Moves


• This guide is for the version of MKDA on the Nintendo CUBE TOUR (0.206) that is currently going across the US. Other than bugs, it seems fairly complete.


• "Fatality" fighting style has to be switched to after "FINISH HIM/HER" announcement. But when in Fatality you cannot move your character, this is either an indicator that you don’t need to have a specific distance anymore or that it’s a nice way to lock the player’s movements.


• "Power Up!" move gives player a boost of energy, usually done with the Z button on some fighting styles.


• Z button also does different throw-like moves based on fighting styles like Sub-Zero's Ice Slide throw seen in some movies online. Also weapon stabs are done with this button when applicable. It also allows you to do reversals, but I haven't figured out the exact way to yet.


• Player's "Handicap" in versus mode can be chosen on the select screen by hitting the X button and adjusting your Handicap in the bar that comes out on the side. Two more bars appear to be present off on the side, but couldn't find how to bring them out.


• Start button selects a character with their alternate costume, but it must be unlocked first. Possibility of other buttons used to get other costumes if more than just the one alternate costume.


• Kano's Fatality was seen a few times done by the computer. In it he pulls reaches into the body of the opponent and pulls out their organs one by one (stuff like Heart, Kidneys, etc). Hope to see more soon next weekend.

Feel free to email me with any questions you might want me to answer about the game and I will do the best to get those questions answered. If not this week, I'll answer them after I play the game next weekend again.

GameSpot has a 20 minute video interview with Ed Boon showing off much of the gameplay and going into depth upon what will be locked initially in the game. The streaming version is available for free to anyone. Thanks Shacknews.

As promised, I made my way to the Nintendo Cube Club again this week to play some more Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. I decided to see what new stuff we could discover on the way of Fatalities and Game Endings. We found that after losing to the computer opponent two times in a row will USUALLY trigger a Fatality. This time we saw Fatalities for Shang Tsung, Bo' Rai Cho and Kung Lao. But both Moloch and Quan Chi would not do a Fatality no matter how many times we died against them.

• Shang Tsung's Fatality is the same one we've seen before in the video, where he does a few telekinetic slams on the victim and then jumps up onto the victim and steals their victim's soul.


• In Kung Lao's Fatality, Kung Lao steps back and throws his hat at the victim at a vertical angle. The hat hits his victim in the head and seems to go quite deep into the victim's skull. This causes the victim to fall down. Kung Lao then walks over and steps down onto his victim forcing his hat to spring back up into his hand, at which time he places it back onto his head.


• Bo' Rai Cho's Fatality starts off by him doing a few sumo-like stomps backwards. After backing up fairly large amount, he just runs at his opponent and does a huge jump up into and does a belly smash on the victim breaking them into many pieces along with a huge pool of blood.

While trying to discover fatalities, we also decided to try to beat the game. We ended up defeating the game with Bo' Rai Cho. Here are a few details about the single player ladder and the game's endings.

• As stated many times before, Moloch is indeed the sub-boss of the game. He comes before Shang Tsung and Quan Chi, in that order. But it is been rumored that those two switch positions in the order at the top. So this may differ randomly or by your player chosen at the start of the ladder.


• Moloch continues in the styles of the past sub-bosses to where he is very big, takes little damage and delivers lots of damage. He attacks mostly with his ball in his hand, but at times will do a move where he sucks air into his mouth which will pull you at him, which he follows up with a quick smash with the ball. He also has a few charge moves where all three eyes glow red. He is also immune to some special moves, like Scorpion's Raise Hell Fire and Bo' Rai Cho's puke move. Scorpion's spear does damage him, but Scorpion can't pull in.


• Spoilers Begin Here, Highlight the black area below with your mouse to read the spoilers...
  After you beat the game, you are presented with a CHAMPION sign with an MK Dragon logo with a picture of Quan and Shang dead at the bottom. It is then followed by your character's ending story.


• Ending Stories are no longer acted out like in MK4, but rather is a MK1-MK3 style ending. The ending is presented with a few pre-rendered pictures along with a voice reading off the story at the bottom 1/2 of the screen. I like this ending style better because it tells you more of what's going on over a longer period of time, instead of a quick 30 seconds of something happening. I think this was mostly a time issue rather than a drive space issue.


• Bo' Rai Cho's Ending tells how he and his former student Kung Lao together defeated the Deadly Alliance of Quan Chi and Shang Tsung. And because of his victory he finds a new meaning to life and returns to training fighters at the side of his old student Kung Lao. It also mentions something along the lines of how he also turned down a more important role as a guardian in another realm because he prefers the Earth Realm's Rice
  Wine over the other realm's Liquor.

I am still working on getting all the questions that you, the readers, sent in to me. I will make an update at the end of the weekend concerning all questions, so keep sending me questions via email.

Here is a quick early update for today, adding the game's first confirmed Fatality into the MKDA Special Moves Guide. The first confirmed Fatality for the game is Scorpion's spear through the head Fatality. Scorpion throws his spear into his victims head. At which time he
starts to pull at the rope attached to the spear a few times. And he eventually pulls his victims head right off their body. The movements for the fatality are B, B, D, B, (X) in the FATALITY fighting style. Thanks goes to Elitekombatant from the MK5.org Message Boards for finding this Fatality at the Cube Club in Phoenix, AZ.

I am still compiling questions that you, the readers, sent in to me. I will make an update either later tonite or tomorrow answering the questions I received, so keep sending me questions via email.

After a few weeks of questions pouring in, I have finally finished compiling the first revision of our Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance FAQ. This is not a traditional FAQ as many of you may be used to, but rather a list of common questions and answers in Q&A format. Continue to email me with more questions and I'll continue to add them to the FAQ every few days.

I added a few more questions to our Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance FAQ. New in this revision is that now all questions have a last updated date on them, so you can easily see what questions are updated from the last time you read it. Continue to email me with more questions and I'll keep adding them to the FAQ every few days.

GameSpot has added 30 new screenshots from the GameCube version of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance which can be viewed absolutely free (for a limited time).
For GameSpot Complete members, 3 new gameplay videos are available -- one of which includes Scorpion's fatality.

Midway has released on its website, a 15 second commerical for TV along with a PDF checklist of the coffins in the Krypt.

Also, GameStop stores across the country began receiving the Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance Official Strategy Guide from Brady Games. You can view a preview of Scorpion's 4 page section here. If you don't want to shell out the cash, TRMK will be featuring our own online strategy guide for all 3 systems in the near future.

There is a new interview with Ed Boon over at HomeLAN Fed. He talks pretty much about the reinvention of the game and what is new this time around in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. You can read the interview here. Thanks goes to MiKeMcDnet for the tip.

There are lots of spoilers coming out recently with the release of the MKDA Strategy Guide. We will not be posting on our site the specifics of these spoilers until the game is released next week. Similar rules go for the message board as well. So if you want to post about a spoiler on the message board: don't put spoiler material in the topic and add SPOILER to the topic of the message board post.

Best Buy and Toys "R" Us advertised this Sunday that Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance will be in stores on Wednesday November 20th, two days ahead of Fatality Friday. However, Circuit City shows in their inventory system that MK:DA will be shipped to stores on the 19th, Tuesday.

On the video game-specific retailers front, GameStop and Electronics Boutique lists MK:DA as shipping to retail stores tomorrow, the 18th.

Retail sources have stated that they have not received any communication from Midway to strictly follow the advertised release date of Fatality Friday November 22nd; therefore, many retail stores will sell copies of MK:DA as soon as they receive them.

We have started a message board thread for everyone to communicate and collaborate on what stores and where MK:DA is available. As always, make sure that you call ahead before you go to the store to make sure that it is indeed available. If you are successful in obtaining a copy, let us know.

Most GameStop and Electronics Boutiques stores have stated that their regional warehouses have received their shipments of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. Depending upon regional distribution policies, many stores will indeed have MK:DA available today for pickup if you had preordered your copy in advance, with some stores receiving extras for walk-up sales.

Call your local video game specific store now and ask if they have Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance and then post a message in our Release Watch thread.

Several reports now confirm that select GameStop stores across the nation have received their shipments and are notifying people who have pre-ordered a copy. If you had pre-ordered your copy of MK: Deadly Alliance at a GameStop store, call your store immediately. Select regions that have early evening second deliveries had their copies distributed today and are in the hands of gamers as we speak. Calls made to several Electronic Boutiques stores nationwide reveal that their stores expect their shipments during their normal afternoon shipments.

For those who have passed on the strategy guide, we will be unveiling our own strategy guide for all 3 systems tomorrow night. Until then, post any new findings on the message board and we will confirm it ourselves and add it to our own guide.

After months of anticipation, the game we've all been talking about is here -- Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. And, as with every new game release, we have compiled a list of moves and information to help you enjoy your purchase to its fullest extent. TRMK's MK:DA Strategy Guide is now up and available for your perusal!



We will continue to add to this guide over the coming weeks, so feel free to check it often. A humongous thank you goes out to all of the contributors who submitted (and continue to submit) their findings as well as our own Patrick McCarron for putting the guide together.

We wanted to let you all know that we have added much more content to the MK:DA Strategy Guide over the past week (in case you checked it recently).

• More has been added to the Character Guide: the rest of the characters, all special moves, known finishing moves and how to unlock every character in the game. Keep a close eye out for all their fighting style attacks/combos to be listed in the near future.


• The Krypt Guide has been modified so that you now have the ability to sort koffins by name, type, or koinage.


• In addition, we finally unlocked all the koffins in the game, so our Krypt Guide is now complete and 100% confirmed by the staff at TRMK.


• A Printable MK:DA Moves List has been added which lists the basic moves, finishing moves, and how to unlock hiddens -- all in one nice and easy to print page.


• Endings have been added for some of the characters. Expect to see more of these very soon.

Also updated is our MK:DA Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) which covers new, pressing questions we've received from many of our readers. Here is a basic overview of what's new in the FAQ:

• Bugs and glitches such as the Frost Xbox Freeze and the Xbox HDTV Progressive Scan slowdowns.


• The much talked about "Infinite" Koins trick.


• Game features such as VERSUS options.

As always, keep sending your questions to Patrick and he will try to provide answers in future FAQ revisions.

Since tomorrow is considered to be the biggest shopping day of the year, we decided to relaunch our new and improved Mortal Kombat Auctions section! The "Mortal Marketplace" features up to the minute auctions with new listings being added hourly! Enjoy shopping for Mortal Kombat related gifts for yourself or someone you know from the comfort of your own home.


Happy holidays from your friends at TRMK!