IGN goes hands-on with: Mortal Kombat Armageddon

That being true, Armageddon is fundamentally changed on Wii because of the remote-enhanced control scheme and it is, at the very least, worth exploring. Now that we've had some time with it, we're our skepticism about the product has melted away. A new gesture-based system replaces D-Pad/analog stick and button presses altogether. Maneuvers are now done by holding the B-trigger, quickly making a gesture, and then releasing. Simple. And you know what? It actually works. Midway has kept the gestures easy so that anybody can pick them up - accessibility was a primary goal for the developer, which ultimately wants even novice players to pull off fatalities. So, to throw a fireball, you might merely hold B-trigger, and make a motion from the right to the left and back again. Or, a swiping motion up and then down again. Or an underhanded half-circle. Or an over-handed half-circle. And it's really not much more complicated than that.

We found the system to be surprisingly quick and responsive. Had it been slow or lagging in any way, it wouldn't have sufficed, since you need speed for a fighter like Armageddon. We watched Ed Boon pull off maneuver after maneuver with unrehearsed ease and most of the time we could, too, although we couldn't always duplicate the experience in our limited play time - every so often a gesture would go ignored, which we chock up to the fact that our timing wasn't quite right.

From a technical standpoint, Armageddon looks very much like the other builds, but it does support both 480p and 16:9 widescreen mode on Wii and it never, ever drops from a smooth 60 frames per second. The title also boasts impressive lighting and particle effects, which cover the screen in explosions and blood at any given moment. Fighters animate quickly and fluidly and textures are overall clean. There is a strong sense of polish about the fighter, even during four-player Motor Kombat, which never hiccups.

We've included an official Mortal Kombat Armageddon Wii tutorial trailer in our videos section below. We've also grabbed six additional 480p / 16:9 movies to complement the official one. On top of that, check our images section for a half dozen new screenshots.

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