Just when you thought the Mortal Kombat franchise was headed to the digital graveyard, Midway revived the series with the excellent Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. It showed that MK still has a place among the current crop of 3D fighting games. The company is poised to build on MK's resurgence with Mortal Kombat: Deception. Utilizing many of the elements that made Deadly Alliance so enjoyable, Deception adds even more features. Best of all, the game will have extensive online options.

Like its predecessor, Deception's fighting system allows each character to change between a number of fighting styles. Weapon-based combat can also be engaged in if one of the fighters picks up a weapon. One interesting addition is the level indicators. Under the player's health bar, there are three bars that flash when a character is near a dangerous spot in the level, if a character is in a good position to counter, and if a character is vulnerable for an attack. Reading the indicators quickly can be the difference between victory and defeat. Aside from the level indicators, the fighting system has been polished from the previous and no major changes were made.

There are some nice ancillary additions that spruce things up. Each character now has two fatalities; one of the frequent complaints of the previous game was that there was only one fatality per character. Fighters can also execute a suicide move to prevent getting humiliated with a fatality, proving that it's much more honorable to snap you own neck than having a gruesome death move put upon you.

The biggest change is in the game's levels. There's a much higher degree of interactivity this time around. Each level has two stages: the one you start out on and another that can be reached by breaking a portion of the level. While it's not as crazy as some of the levels found in Dead or Alive Ultimate, it's a pretty sweet inclusion. Objects in each level can play a big part in the fight. One of the stages I saw had several hanging corpses dangling about. Players can use the corpses and move them for defensive and offensive purposes. There's nothing more disconcerting than setting up a slick combo, only to have a decomposing body bust your rhythm.

Deception also has a few nifty modes to mix up the gameplay and add value to the package. Konquest Mode adds some RPG quest elements to the fighting. Puzzle Mode is similar to your favorite puzzle games, but with a wicked MK move set to distrupt your opponent with. My favorite was Chess Mode, which is a simplified version of the game, with lots of fighting. In this mode, characters move their pieces along a chess board. When one character attempts to occupy the same spot as another, a one-round fight ensues. Hot spots appear on the board and give a character an advantage during a bout. It's like Battle Chess, with much better battling.

The sweetest part of the game is that all its multiplayer modes will be available online. The team is currently working on making latency a non-issue, but only time will tell if the game will play without a hitch over the Internet. Still, it's incredibly sweet that all this gameplay will be available online. If you like Deadly Alliance then you'll love Deception. If you've been away from the series for a while, Deception has enough reasons for you to get back into the mix.