With more than 50 playable characters you're bound to find someone that you like, but even if you don't there is a very powerful character creation tool that you can use to build a completely new fighter. I haven't seen a character creation tool this robust since City of Heroes. The Kreate-a-fighter option lets you choose everything from how your character looks to how your character fights. You be able to pick special moves and even decide what each and every single button press does. You could spend hours playing with this feature. I recreated a fairly good representation of Ghost Rider from Marvel comics, complete with flaming skull, chains, and the ability to shoot out hellfire. Any character you create will be playable in the arcade mode, the versus mode, and online over Xbox Live.
You won't be able to make a kick-ass fighter right off the bat. Most of the attacks and visual options, such as certain shirts, pants, etc, will be locked. As you accumulate more Koins, you'll be able to unlock more outfits, and, more importantly, moves. Eventually, you can create a kombatant perfectly suited to your particular fighting style and wipe the map with your friends both at home and online.
Sadly, the online multiplayer options are sparse, you can either automatically connect to a game or sift through different parameters to find the kind of match-up you prefer. The interface is clumsy and sparse. As usual, you'll want to make sure you have a fast connection for a better online experience.
You can also play Motor Kombat online, but I have no idea why you'd want to. I say it right now; this mode is a waste of time. It's a cheap Mario Kart wannabe that features super-deformed versions of a handful of classic MK characters. The track selection is limited, as are the characters, and it's not the slightest bit fun. You can use Koins to unlock more stuff for this mode, but there are better things to spend your virtual currency on, such as more costumes or hidden characters.
As you can see, there is a lot of game here, but none of it really sticks out. Sure pummeling your buddies is satisfying and taking out hordes of generic baddies in the Konquest mode is a good stress reliever, but all of it ends up feeling flat. The fighting mechanics in the arcade mode have new features such as air combos, but the MK mechanics have grown to the point where the game feels mechanical. Certain moves will leave you exposed for a long time, which is normal for fighting games, but here it feels forced rather than fluid. Rather than a flowing martial arts fight that fighting games should aspire to be, matches in MK:A are stiff and unnatural. The cast of MK hasn't kept up with the times very well either. Characters that used to look cool now look dated and cheesy and the art style makes a lot of these guys look weirdly misshapen.
