DON'T LET IT WIPE THE FLOOR WITH YOU; ULTIMATE MORTAL KOMBAT *** NINTENDO DS.

Byline: Steve Lawson

PLAYING against the computer in UMK is about as much fun as getting your butt kicked by the playground bully.

Although you'll land a punch or two, you're only going to end up one way - on the floor.

The only realistic way to win is to exploit the artificial intelligence's reactive nature and trick it, which isn't too hard but also isn't much fun. By far the better experience is to be had by playing UMK against someone else.

You can play multiplayer against another person using one cartridge but you'll be limited to a couple of characters.

You'll need two copies of the game to play it right, or you can connect to the internet and seek out competition online.

Online mode works surprisingly well and, in most cases, matches are lag-free.

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 also applies to Puzzle Kombat, the added-value element of UMK, which is a blocks and-gems style puzzle game.

Graphically, the games look fine, like an arcade version only a lot smaller.

The game uses the inactive screen to display your fighter's special moves, which is useful if you haven't memorised them.