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Mortal Kombat review

Game: Mortal Kombat
Platform: Arcade
Genre: Fighting Action
Developer: Midway

Reader review by joseph_valencia

September 11, 2009

“Mortal Kombat” is without a doubt the coolest fighting game ever. It isn’t necessarily the best; that honor might rightfully be held by some Japanese title like “Street Fighter II” or “Garou: Mark of the Wolf.” But none of those games are as cool as MK. When push comes to shove (or fatality) Kombat has the most colorful of fighting game mythologies. Nothing else in the genre can match the sheer characters, the outrageous settings--the ludicrous plot twists! I’ve lost count of how many times the Earth has been taken over by Outworld.

In the original “Mortal Kombat” there were seven principal characters. Anyone who was of elementary or junior high age in the early 90s can name these players by heart: the hellspawn Scorpion, his mirror nemesis Sub-Zero, Johnny Cage the superstar, the femme fatale Sonya Blade, the thunder god Raiden, the boisterous and sinister Kano, and Liu Kang the honorable china man. You had to fight every one of these characters, including a mirror image of the one you picked. After you were done fighting them, you had to do it again in the endurance rounds, but now taking on *two* fighters at a time. Geez.

The pinnacle of the single-player experience was confronting Shang Tsung and his right-hand Shokan warrior Goro. Goro had four arms, towered over the player, and roared like a damn bull. You’d think that would be a difficult act to top, but Tsung manages to do the creature one better by being able to morph into every character in the game. He also fired *screaming souls* at you. These final confrontations took place in Goro’s Lair, a labyrinth of brick walls and dark passages with beady eyes glowing and blinking in the shadows. It was the coolest setting in the game, with the honor of second coolest going to The Pit, that level where you could knock your opponent off a bridge and into a hellish pit of blades and spikes. Together they rank among the most memorable places visited in video games.

I suppose this game is pretty technical. You have two kinds of kicks and punches, and every character has a selection of moves like back kicks, sweeps, uppercuts, jump kicks, throws, etc. Blocking is done with a button as opposed to automatically, which creates some interesting scenarios in contrast to other fighting games. For example, you can “block” to lure your opponent in real close and then lay one on ‘em. Having to consciously block attacks also lends to an interesting mixture of relentless offense and taut mind games.

By now the fatalities and signature techniques have become legendary within gaming circles. The most iconic is Sub-Zero’s decapitation finisher, which became a figurehead of sorts for gaming violence and the backlash against it. The carnage is about as authentic as a junior high kid’s Photoshop. Can you believe people once found this shocking and demoralizing? Other great kills include Raiden’s “exploding head” trick, Sonya’s kiss of death, and Scorpion’s “toasty” breath. There are also the non-fatal signatures, the most famous of which are probably Scorpion’s harpoon (“Come Here!”) and Sub-Zero’s ice wave. Ranking closely are Johnny Cage’s Shadow Kick, Liu Kang’s soaring kick, and Raiden’s torpedo, complete with its ludicrous incantation.

But perhaps the most enduring thing of all about “Mortal Kombat” was its cryptic nature. It was the first major fighting game to have a hidden character, Reptile. It also helped to establish a culture of unfounded rumors surrounding ridiculous methods to unlock things, which would later manifest in classic gaming legends like “Luigi in Super Mario 64” or “Reviving Aeris in Final Fantasy VII.” One of the reasons this game and its successors had such a tremendous shelf life was because people kept looking for secrets, and Midway humored them. This was in the days before you could open up a ROM and inspect its contents for obscure graphical data or code. Kombat embodied riddles and enigmas as much as blood and gore.

I guess in the grand scheme of things you could say seven characters is a quaint line-up, especially compared to the dozens that would comprise rosters in later Kombat installments. You could say that the fighting isn’t as technical as “Street Fighter” or “King of Fighters” or “Virtua Fighter.” You could probably argue that all sorts of things are “broken” or that the computer is cheap. Shucks to that; MK is one of the icons of my generation. Here’s to fatalities and hidden characters.

Rating: 10/10

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