Mortal Kombat (1992)

This article is about the original 1992 arcade game. You may be looking for the 2011 reboot with the same name.

Mortal Kombat

FATALITY!

Genre:	Fighting
Platforms:	Arcade Amiga MS-DOS PlayStation 2 PlayStation 3 PlayStation Portable Sega CD Sega Game Gear Sega Genesis Sega Master System Game Boy Super Nintendo Entertainment System Xbox Xbox 360 Atari Jaguar (cancelled)
Release Date:	October 8, 1992
Developer:	Midway Sculptured Software (SNES) Probe Entertainment (Other versions)
Publisher:	Midway Acclaim Entertainment (PC & Consoles) Virgin Interactive Entertainment (Amiga)
Made in:	United States
Franchise:	Mortal Kombat
Next Game:	Mortal Kombat II

Mortal Kombat is a video game released by Midway originally in 1992 for the arcades and then ported to various systems. It is the first installment in the Mortal Kombat series.

Plot

The game takes place on a fictional island in Earthrealm, where a tournament is being held at Shang Tsung's Island, on which seven of its locations serve as stages in the game. The introduction to Mortal Kombat II explains that Shang Tsung was banished to Earthrealm 500 years ago and, with the help of the monstrous Goro, is able to seize control of the Mortal Kombat tournament in an attempt to doom the realm. For 500 years straight, Goro has been undefeated in the tournament, and now a new generation of warriors must challenge him.

Why It Rocks

The gameplay is a typical fighter with some additional features thrown in it.
Loads of blood and gore, to the point it caused a lot of controversy.
The game uses digitized sprites based on real actors.
There is also a minigame called "Test Your Might", where players can get bonus points by breaking blocks of various materials by filling a meter past a certain point through rapid button presses.
Semi-realistic fighters, as they were all recorded on a camera.
Nice story even for a paper-thin plot.
Good soundtrack.
Just like Street Fighter II, the game revolutionized the popularity of fighting games.
Once you beat your opponent in both rounds, you may make a cool finishing move called fatality, if made successful, you get more score for it.
This game sparked a trope of hidden boss characters in any fighting games that required to meet certain conditions in order to face the hidden boss character, starting with Reptile (whose name was "Scorpion" in the health bars) in this game.
The PC version is the closest port to the Arcade version.
- It had 2 versions, the floppy version, containing midi music, and the cd version, containing the original arcade music and more sounds.
The line "Finish him" became one of the most iconic lines in games.

Bad Qualities

The controls aren't always responsive.
The console versions can be problematic
- The SNES and Game Boy versions are very disastrous ports, and the Tiger handheld versions are even worse.
- The Genesis/Mega Drive version, has worse graphics and sounds than the arcade version, and the blood is censored if you don’t use the blood code (A, B, A, C, A, B, B,)
- The Game gear version doesn’t have Kano as a playable character.

Videos

Comments

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PeterPhantom

22 months ago

Score 3

This game is...TOASTY!!