Mortal Kombat

Game: Mortal Kombat
Developer: Midway
Platform: Sega Megadrive
Release Year: 1992
Stephen's Rating: 5/10

Mortal Kombat is one of the classic fighting games of my childhood along with Street Fighter II.

Basic Plot

Mortal Kombat is a science fiction fighting game. The story is not told explicitly in the original game but is slowly introduced in the sequels. The concept involves a fighting tournament called Mortal Kombat. In order for the inhabitants one one realm to invade another they must defeat their strongest warriors in 10 tournaments in a row. The original games involves a series of fighters from earth defending themselves against an invading enemy in the 10th and final tournament (after losing 9 times in a row previously to another realm called Outworld).

The original game involves the thunder god Raiden assisting the fighters of Earth. Liu Kang ends up becoming the Mortal Kombat champion after defeating Shang Tsung in the final, thus saving Earth. There is a fairly terrible movie with the same name (not the animated one, but the one with real actors) which tells this story.

Character selection.

Gameplay

Mortal Kombat is a traditional fighting game. The player was able to compete against AI fighters in a 2D side on combat scenario in different arenas. Players could also take each other on on the same console.

As with other fighting games the player was able to choose from a number of playable characters to fight with. Each character had their own look and aesthetic, as well as their own set of special moves.

Special moves were predominately what separated the different characters in the game in terms of fighting style. For example; Sub Zero used abilities which froze the enemy whereas Raiden had abilities which involved his power over thunder and storms.

An example of a fatality.

There were special kinds of special moves which could only be used when an opponent was already defeated. When you beat your opponent he or she was left standing nearly lifeless and a voice would say "Finish him!" This would give you a short moment to enter a special key combination. If you did it correctly, your character would perform a fatality on the opponent which involved some kind of butchery of the opponents body. For example, one fatality involved ripping the opponent's spine out of their body.

Positives

The concept of fatalities is something which although gruesome added to the mystery and interest I had in the game. There was nothing comparable at the time and it quickly became a benchmark in fighting games.

The gameplay was smoother and better executed than the main competitor at the time, Street Fighter II. This is my opinion, I'm sure there are those who will disagree.

Gameplay.

Negatives

There were not a lot of characters to chose from. In a time where the internet hadn't taken off yet, it was pretty hard to work out special moves and often required a lot of button mashing and then trying to remember what it is you pressed to make it work.

Memorable Moments

I never owned this game but remember playing this at a friend's house a lot. It was frustrating getting beaten every round. It was definitely a game you could get better at over time.