Mortal Kombat

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Name: Mortal Kombat Year: 1993 Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment Developer: Midway Platform: PC Genre: Arcade Total rating: 69.4% - rated 69 times rate now: please log in to rate Submitter: Res Added: May 22 2004 Warez status: Abandonware

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Author: Leecoop Date: Jan 05 2005 - 19:31 Score: 50 points

In the beginning there was Mortal Kombat, a now legendary 2D fighting game, combining photo-realistic graphics, tactical fighting and gore galore. Truth be told, it was never that good.

Sure, it looked good at the time. The characters were clearly "real" people, the fighting was simple to pick up whilst remaining a nightmare to master all the special moves and the 2 player game made my lowly 486 the envy of my mates. Many weekends were lost to Mortal Kombat, friends and I desperate to pull off the goriest move when the immortal "Finish Him" belted out the speakers.

Yep, 2 player mode was awesome, but one player mode was plain dull. Defeating the playable characters is a simple repetitive task, enlightened only occasionally when you get that fatality move right. The 2 boss characters offer a slightly steeper challenge but nothing that even on the harder modes will take more than an afternoon for any half serious gamer to overcome.

The game play itself is simple, high and low kicks and punches, block, move- you know the drill with fighting games and this offers nothing greatly advanced over other fighters of the time. The characters have their own individual moves on top of the standards that they all share but if you play through a few of them you´d be forgiven for thinking you were playing with the same character, the differences are marginal (see Sub Zero & Scorpion, Johnny Cage & Lui Kang). Having said that, seeing an enemy frozen, stunned, burnt or dragged over the screen is enjoyable enough, even now.

And so to the fatalities, the real reason this game has its "classic" status. At the time this offended and appalled so many people you find it hard to figure out why nowadays. The fatalities are still hugely enjoyable to watch (even more so if you´re the one who pulled it off) but have lost all there shock impact and are fairly tame in comparison to what we see and do today in video games.

Despite my criticisms, MK is a classic for many reasons. It pushed back the boundaries of what you can put in a mainstream video game, making the way for the GTA´s of this world - indeed the controversy surrounding its release was echoed with all the GTA releases, controversy makes for a best seller! It upped the competition for beat `em ups, ensuring that future releases had to compete graphically and game play wise. It spawned sequels (and continues to do so) that up the ante every time and build on the solid foundation of the original.

As far as 2D fighting games go, my personal choice will always be Street Fighter II in its various incarnations, followed closely by MK´s 2 and 3 - titles which took the basic premise of the original and exploded them into infinitely playable games, however, this one still holds its own.
If you want technically better games go for one of the three mentioned above. If you want to play a little piece of gaming history, Mortal Kombat has to be your choice.

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By NJdevil30 - Apr 16 2006 - 00:52 Awesome game, I loved it on the Sega Genesis when I was little. I still enjoy freezing opponents with sub-zero

By Kastu - Jan 03 2006 - 12:35 ya realy good game!!

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