Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Mortal Kombat is a worldwide phenomenon
making a revolution in the fighting game industry
until mid 90’s, then it stepped down from the throne
during its transition into 3D only to return with a blast in 2011.
Join MK Secrets, and let’s make a review of the history of the title that changed
our childhood, our future, and the world, of fighting games forever.
The year is 1991!
The arcade machines are everywhere!
16 bit consoles
are still strong, and there are tons of good games to kill time with
In the fighting game scene
Street Fighter is the absolute monopolist and there are always
people around the cabinet
waiting for their chance to prove their skills.
During that time, in Chicago Illinois, a small team from Midway led by
John Tobias (designer) and
Ed Boon (programmer), starts working on a beat ‘em up game, where the
main hero is none other, but Jan Claude Van Dam, himself.
But the action hero, who is at the top of his career at this time, was unable to
commit to the project due to his busy schedule!
Unable to continue the project, the team decided to rethink the concept
and make a fighting game instead. They decided to use digitized graphics in
order to make the game as realistic looking as possible.
Another, previously unseen feature in fighting game was the use of a
dedicated Block button.
Mortal Kombat is not the first fighting game to use digitized graphics.
Pit Fighter has already been released at that time, and Mortal Kombat was able to
adopt the concept, without repeating all previously made mistakes.
The original story of the game was very different from what we know today.
Shang Lao (who later became Shang Tsung), a war lord, and ruler of an island fortress,
is the host of a legendary martial arts tournament in which only the most
experienced warriors can compete.
In reality Shang Tsung is a demon cursed by his gods.
He must drink the blood of true warriors in order to appease to his
gods and stay immortal.
After Gongoro (who later became Goro)
becomes champion,
500 years ago,
Shang Tsung is able to corrupt
the tournament and use it for his own goals.
Shang’s Gods want to invade our realm! To achieve this, they are
using the Mortal Kombat tournament to unbalance the furies that make
reality possible.
When Earth realm is in chaos,
Shang’s Gods can step through the Dimensional
Gates and overtake it!
Van Dam’s character was incorporated in the game
the name Michael Grimm, and later
Johny Cage.
However, the main hero in Mortal Kombat was decided
to be a Shao-Lin monk, called YoShitsune–Minamoto!
who later became Liu Kang!
For good or for bad, Ho Sung Pak,
the actor who portrayed Liu Kang, refused to shave his head
which ultimately changed Liu Kang’s look in the game.
Two ninjas – one hunted
and one hunter, were put to keep the mystery in the game.
Rayden - the mentor and protector of Earth Realm
Goro – the big brote with four arms and sub-boss.
Kitsune – Shang’s princess daughter, who betrays him because she fells in love for Liu Kang.
Kano, mercenary and thief!
And Kurtis Stryker!
an agent on Kano’s trail!
Kitsune was planned to be an unplayable background character,
but was cut during development.
The game needed a female fighter, so they applied Stryker’s story to Sonya,
and that’s how the hot blond Special Forces agent was born.
So, after all work on motion capturing and programming was done
prototype revisions of the game were released in the arcades.
The blood and finishers caused furor among gamers
and the digitized characters were favored by the fans.
Those seven characters will be recognized as the most iconic characters
of the franchise in the future.
Goro and Shang Tsung motion capture and visuals were brilliant for its time
and were hard to beat as well.
However the game still needed to fix some gameplay issues due to the fact
that Goro was almost impossible to beat,
the ridiculous juggles and several sound glitches
But after the 3.0 revision was made there was another feature
comes into the scene – a hidden green ninja character
called Reptile.
He appears randomly at the beginning of some fights and gives clues about how to
find him.
This hidden unplayable character was something never before seen in a fighting game
and eventually revolutionized the whole codes and secrets concept of the genre.
Few more revisions were made until the final T-Unit 5.0 was released.
The most famous from the previous ones are the Prototype,
3.0
and a few hacked ones such as Turbo 3.1 and Nifty Combo.
In the Audits menu of the machine there are counters that show how many times the
game was beaten,
how many times each character was picked, Reptile appearances and etc.
A huge mystery around the game
was the ERMACS counter.
Rumors spread around the globe with such a speed,
that this is a second hidden character, called ERMAC!
The truth is that Midway introduced ERMACS
to correct errors that often occurred in Smash TV.
In T-Unit revisions, the ERMACS counter was removed.
Mortal Kombat would probably not have been this kind of success if it wasn't
for the blood,
the gore and of course the fatalities. The new digitized graphics completely
redefined the term realism in the video games back then and the inclusion of the
breathtaking finishing moves could not remain unnoticed among the fans and also
among concerned parents and authorities.
The gore was so over the top for the time that it created one of the biggest
Video game controversies of all time leading to the creation of the ESRB.
Blood, gore and fatalities have become Mortal Kombat’s identity ever since.
The TV commercial for the Home versions was broadcasted at various TV channels.
This commercial remained in history
as one of the most recognizable video game commercials.
Most of the home ports were released on September 13,
also known as “Mortal Monday”. Mortal Kombat was released on almost every home
system,
with gameplay similar to the one in Revision 3.0.
More recent releases of the game, in Midway Arcade Treasures and Arcade Kollection offer
an emulated T-Unit 4.0 Revision.
Mortal Kombat quickly became one of the most popular fighting games around the
world with it's unique fighting system, digitized graphics, secrets
and of course the fatalities.
It was obvious…
…that with this success, a sequel…
…is inevitable!