Mortal Kombat

Midway, 1992, Fighter / Versus

Mortal Kombat is one of the first controversial video games that I can remember. Parents freaked out back in 1992 when this game came out, thanks to its frequent and somewhat realistic-looking extreme violence. In particular, the finishing moves (called 'fatalities' in the game) were making people's jaws drop.

The game had digitised images for its character models instead of the cartoony-looking character models that were being used in the Street Fighter 2 games. This did not help with the aforementioned controversy, however the character models (and graphics overall) look great and that's the main thing!

The sound in this game is truly awesome. Very atmospheric and immersive stage music, with some nice little touches here and there for certain moments in the game, and of course some horrible sounds from the losers when they are brutally slaughtered by the winners. Lovely stuff indeed.

Another big difference between Mortal Kombat and it's main competitors for the genre at the time, the Street Fighter 2 games, is its combat system. You have to press a button to block in Mortal Kombat, rather than simply holding back on your joystick/d-pad.

You may find the controls in Mortal Kombat hard to get used to, but it's well worth the effort. The control system and fighting mechanics of Mortal Kombat are the biggest reasons why I keep coming back to the game.

The Mortal Kombat series of games has a very in-depth plot, but I'll leave that for you to look up if you're interested enough in that sort of thing. To cut a long story short, the main aim of the single-player mode is to fight your way through all the opponents, 'test your might' in the bonus stages (see screenshot), and beat the last two (unplayable) bosses.

This game is great by yourself as well as with a friend.

So hard to choose!

The first of the bonus stages.

What happened next to my poor opponent is too violent to post here!