Mortal Kombat

Trivia

The Sega CD version was named as one of the worst ten games of 1994 by VideoGames Magazine (March 1995).

The Game Gear version was named the Hand-Held Game of the Year in the 1993 GamePro Editors' Choice Awards (Vol. 6, Issue 2)

Pre-orders of the console versions in the UK included a limited edition "Kombat Kit" as a give-a-way bonus. The kit included a poster, character cards, tattoo and pin-badge.

Contributed by ShabbyPie (2211) on Sep 08, 2008.

On March 31, 1994, Mortal Kombat, with the exception of the Game Boy version, was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.

In addition to the indexing, on November 11, 1994, the Sega Mega Drive, Sega CD, Sega Master System and Game Gear versions were also confiscated for violating §131 of Germany's penal code (for showing gruel violence against humans etc.) But due to the 10 year limitation for confiscations, those four versions are no longer confiscated since November 11, 2004.

Another instance of Nintendo's extreme censoring practices: In Sub-Zero's ending, his purpose for entering the tournament is the assassination of one of the characters. In the SNES version, however, the word 'assassination' is changed to 'destruction'.

In the movie, "Billy Madison" starring Adam Sandler, a little1st grader refers to Mortal Kombat for his Genesis as the best video game ever. Hmm...kids, they get more violent everyday!

The Genesis port requires you to input a code to get blood and some of the fatalities from the arcade version. The Sega CD port skips this and has blood on from the get-go and all the fatalities from the arcade version.

According to Ed Boon, the main characters are all caricatures of some of their favourite characters from martial arts and sci-fi movies: Kano, with his infra-red eye, is based on Arnold Schwarzenegger's make-up in The Terminator. Liu Kang is, obviously, the likeness of Bruce Lee. Raiden, the electric God of thunder, is based on lightening-wielding character from Big Trouble in Little China. Sonya was loosely based on martial arts star Cynthia Rothrock.

Raiden really is the Japanese God of Thunder. His appearance in myth is quite different though: he has red skin and a demonic face, his feet have two claws on them, and he carries either a wheel or drums on his back. He also is thought to eat human navels so people are advised to lie on their stomachs during storms.

from Davis, F. Hadland. Myths and Legends of Japan. New York: Dover, 1992. 1913.

Contributed by Terrence Bosky (5237) on May 28, 2004.

In 1998, Virgin Interactive was ready to release Thrill Kill, a gory four-player fighting game which was supposed to unseat Mortal Kombat as the goriest fighting game. The AO-rated game was never released.

Mortal Kombat was one of the games Senator Joseph Lieberman centered his arguments on during the 1993 investigation by the United States Congress on extreme violence in video games.

The investigation caused Sega to develop the Video Game Council, which would later evolve to the Entertainment Standards Review Board (ESRB). Since then, even with the ESRB, video games have actually increased in violence (eg. Grand Theft Auto 3).

Contributed by Kartanym (9909) on Sep 24, 2002.

Johnny Cage is missing from the Game Boy version.

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).

As the story goes, on november 1992, while preparing an upgrade to fix several bugs, Ed Boon shutted himself in his office for a weekend and added the secret character Reptile all by himself. However no indication was ever given of his existance, it wasn't until a later revision of the game (which added Reptile popping up before matches to give clues of his existance in the game) and a july 1993 VideoGames Magazine article in which Boon and Tobias specifically clarified how to find Reptile, that the mass public became aware of the existance of a character that was in the game months ago!

The game Mortal Kombat spawned two PC sequels (more if you count the arcade game and console variants), two films, a TV series, and even a cartoon.

Contributed by Tomer Gabel (4476) on Feb 08, 2000.

The manual states that "arcade machine statistics show that Johnny Cage is the least played character, whie Sonya Blade is the most frequently chosen." This is backwards; history has proven that Johnny Cage is the most frequently chosen, while Sonya is the least.

Jean Claude Van Damme was originally slated to play the part of Johnny Cage, but the deal fell through. The original data files for Johnny Cage, however, still bear the name "vandamme".

Contributed by Trixter (8865) on Dec 21, 1999.

Because the original code was written in C, the PC port is a flawless conversion in terms of gameplay. The same bugs and tricks in the arcade coin-op are applicable in the PC version, since it was built with the same source code.

Contributed by Trixter (8865) on Dec 20, 1999.