Mortal Kombat

Description

Five Hundred years ago, an ancient and well respected Shaolin fighting tournament, held every 50 years, was corrupted by an evil and elderly sorcerer by the name of Shang Tsung. Shang was accompanied by Prince Goro, a warrior of the Shokan race (a four armed half-human/half-dragon). Knowing that if ten tournaments in a row were won by the Outworld champion, the Earth Realm would be conquered by evil and fall into darkness, Shang entered Goro in the tournament and had him defeat the great Kung Lao. Goro has been reigning supreme as the undefeated fighting champion for five hundred years now. As the last tournament required draws near, Raiden, Thunder God and protector of the Earth Realm, enacts a plan to tip the scales in the humans favor, Seven fighters step into the arena on Shang Tsung's mysterious island: Shaolin warrior Liu Kang, Special Forces operative Sonya Blade, the mercenary thug Kano, fame-seeking actor Johnny Cage, the ice wielding Lin Kuei warrior Sub-Zero and his undead adversary Scorpion, and Raiden himself.

Mortal Kombat is a side-scrolling 1 on 1 fighting game. Fighting is set as one on one kombat, allowing each player to perform a variety of punches, kicks, and special moves in order to defeat their opponent. When the opponent faces their second round loss, the winner can perform a finishing move called a "Fatality" on the loser. The Fatality is a humiliation move that graphically kills the loser in a blood-soaked finale.

Mortal Kombat began its life as a 2-player arcade title. It is notable for its use of digitized actors to represent the game's fighters, as well as its use of copious amounts of blood during gameplay.

Alternate Titles

• "真人快打" -- Chinese title (simplified)
• "Mortal Kombat Complete" -- Japanese Sega CD title
• "MK" -- Common abbreviation
• "モータルコンバット" -- Japanese spelling

Part of the Following Groups

• BPjS / BPjM indexed games
• Games made into comics
• Games made into movies
• Games made into TV series
• Germany Criminal Code confiscations (§131: Excess Violence)
• Mortal Kombat series

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User Reviews

The "Edited For Content" Edition	SNES	Lawnmower Man (91)
Has the blood and gore intact, but lacks the stunning visuals and sounds of the SNES	Genesis	Stsung (23)
Worthy (if toned-down) adaptation of the coin-op	SNES	Stsung (23)
Definitely the best arcade to console port of Mortal Kombat.	Genesis	scabadoo (33)
Don't Believe the Hype	Genesis	Liam Dowds (51)
A near-perfect translation of the arcade game.	DOS	Trixter (8873)
Butchered. The only way to describe this port	SNES	Mr. Huh (112)
Better known as "Mortal Kash Kow"...or "Horse Rubbish"!	DOS	Satoshi Kunsai (1856)
Mortal Kombat 1 enhanced with extra graphics.	SEGA CD	gametrader (230)
The first game of a very good series of fighting games, but not the 1 which should be called the best in the series	DOS	Steve . (75)

The Press Says

Amiga Action	Amiga	Jan, 1994	91 out of 100	91
The One	Amiga	Jan, 1994	89 out of 100	89
Amiga Power	Amiga	Jan, 1994	86 out of 100	86
Amiga Format	Amiga	Jan, 1994	74 out of 100	74
Game Zero	Genesis	Aug, 1993	70 out of 100	70
Just Games Retro	Genesis	Jan 05, 2003	67 out of 100	67
Sega-16.com	SEGA CD	Jun 05, 2006	6 out of 10	60
Digital Press - Classic Video Games	Game Gear	Oct 02, 2005	5 out of 10	50
Defunct Games	SEGA CD	May 14, 2005	22 out of 100	22
GamePro	SEGA CD	Jul, 1994	1 out of 5	20

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Trivia

This game specifically is credited for making Nintendo change their no-violence policies and generally "giving some slack" in what regards their strict content control policies. The reason? the SNES port of Mortal Kombat is censored beyond belief, almost to the point of making it a collector's item since the modifications go as far as making completely new finishing moves (Raiden burns his opponent to harmless ashes instead of making his head explode, Sub-zero deep freezes his enemy and then breaks him instead of pulling out his spine, etc.). As a result of this Nintendo lost millions of dollars in what is arguably one of the best-selling videogames ever and missed out on a title that became a certified blockbuster in all its other incarnations (by way of comparison the Genesis port of the game outsold the Snes's port by aprox. 6 to 1).