Video games - Mortal Kombat

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	Video games - Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat was the first entry in the famous Mortal Kombat fighting game series by Midway, released in arcades in 1992. It centers on the first Mortal Kombat tournament and the ultimate defeat of the evil Shang Tsung by the monk Liu Kang.

Gameplay

The game was a response by Midway to Capcom's successful Street Fighter II
, which spawned a number of fighting games. However, it used a distinctly different fighting system from the Street Fighter formula, which was used in all subsequent sequels until Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
. The controls consisted of five buttons arranged in an "X" pattern: a high punch, a high kick, a low punch, a low kick, and a block button, as well as an eight-way joystick. Unlike Street Fighter, characters did not block while retreating or crouching, but required pushing the block button to block. Even then, characters would take (reduced) damage from any hit while blocking. If the two fighters were standing next to each other, hitting any of the attack buttons would result in a different strike that was unblockable: a low punch turned into a throw, a high punch turned into a heavy elbow, headbutt or backhand, and either kick turned into a knee strike. Crouching and hitting either punch resulted in an uppercut, which was the heaviest strike of the game. Jump kicking and crouch-kicking were executed in a similar fashion to Street Fighter.

The game retained a similar scoring system (based off successful hits, the Test Your Might minigame and other bonuses) to those games; this would be dropped in later entries to the Mortal Kombat series in favor of counting wins.

Another of the game's innovations was the Fatality, a special finishing move executed against a beaten opponent to kill them in a gruesome fashion. For example, one character (Sub Zero) would grasp a defeated opponent by the head, then rip off head and spine while the body crumpled to the ground in a pool of blood. Fatalities could only be executed after you had defeated your opponent in combat, and essentially served as a memorable and gruesome sort of victory dance.

Mortal Kombat also introduced the concept of juggling, an idea so popular it has spread to many games and even other genres. Juggling takes advantage of the fact when a character is knocked into the air, that player is unable to control their character until he or she lands and gets up again. The idea behind juggling is to knock the enemy into the air and then follow up with other combat moves to keep them there. Theoretically, one could juggle one's opponent to death without ever taking damage, though this was difficult to accomplish in practice.

Finally, Mortal Kombat also changed the way special moves were performed. Street Fighter (and many other fighting games) performed most special moves in fractions of circles (usually full, half or one-quarter) on the joystick followed by a button press (such as a quarter-circle forward, plus punch). Mortal Kombat was the first to introduce moves that did not require a button press (such as tap back, tap back, then forward), and only a few of the special moves required circular joystick movement.

Playable Characters

Johnny Cage
Liu Kang
Sub-Zero
Scorpion
Raiden
Sonya Blade
Kano
Goro - (Only Gameboy)
Noob Saibot - (Only Sega Genesis)

Non-playable characters

Shang Tsung - boss
Goro - sub-boss
Reptile - hidden character
Ermac - glitch character

Kombat Zones

There are a total of eight different backgrounds to fight on:

The Courtyard
Palace Gates
Warrior Shrine
The Pit - When an opponent is defeated on this stage, he/she can be uppercutted off the bridge where they will land on a bed of spikes. Although the announcer doesn't acknowledge it, this would be the series' first stage fatality.
Throne Room
Goro's Lair
The Pit Bottom
The Hall of Champions

Storyline

500 years ago, the annual Shaolin Tournament, long the most prestigious fighting tournament in the world, was interrupted by the appearance of an old sorcerer and a strange four-armed creature, who entered the tournament and defeated the Great Kung Lao. This Shokan warrior was the half-human, half-dragon fighter named Goro, who became the ultimate fighting champion for the next five hundred years. This was all part of Shang Tsung's plan to tip the balance into chaos and help Outworld conquer the Earth Realm.

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