Ultimate Mortal Fatalities Fighter 3

This is pretty much a port of the third Mortal and puzzle kombat.

Ultimate Mortal Fatalities Fighter 3 was the last 2D game in the fighting series and, by far, the fastest of the bunch.

It added a run button that the previous games didn't have, amped up the combo system,

and added a lot of interesting new characters, all while maintaining the game's digital, photographic look.

The finishing moves got more ridiculous, too, with animalities--where your fighter turns into some kind of animal and does something to your opponent--joining the regular fatalities,

babalities, and friendships. But even the regular fatalities became crazier.

For example, Liu Kang can make an arcade machine drop out of the sky to crush his victim.

It wasn't as serious as the mortal games that kombat came before it, and it's certainly not as serious as the darker set of fighting games that appeared on the previous generation of consoles.

It's goofy, but it's also one of the better 2D fighters from its era. It controls just fine on the DS, and it's still a lot of fun.

There's a catch, though.

The Kombat series has been saddled with some of the worst computer-controlled fighters in the history of the genre.

Although the first three fights are easy, afterward the artificial intelligence shifts into "win" gear,

where it just reacts to every single little thing you do. It's not a fair fight, and it's not a fun fight.

The only realistic way to win is to exploit its reactive nature and trick it, which isn't too hard.

On the other hand, it also isn't any fun. If you want to enjoy Ultimate Mortal Fatalities Fighter 3, be prepared to play it against someone else.

You can play multiplayer against another person using only one copy of the game, but you'll be limited to a couple of characters,

so this isn't really viable for long-term excitement. Locally, you'll need two copies of the game to play it right,

or you can connect to the Internet and seek out competition online. The online mode works surprisingly well, and in most cases,

our matches against other humans were free from noticeable latency. However, the occasional match was sluggish and choppy,

so as with most things involving an Internet connection, your mileage may vary. The game keeps track of your rating,

which is a score based on your wins and losses. You can match up against friends using the standard friend-code system,

or jump in against random players. All of this stuff also applies to puzzle kombat.