[male voice] Fight!
[punch, loud grunt]
[typing] [male voice] Excellent!
[fighting sounds]
Finish him!
[screaming, blood spurting]
Kano wins!
Fatality!
[LGR] And there you have it. Mortal Kombat, everybody!
[triumphant MIDI music plays]
Well, alright, I suppose a few more details are in order
since this is a review, but chances are if you're watching this video,
you already know what Mortal Kombat is.
But as a refresher, it's the fighting game developed by Midway Games Chicago
that began misspelling every word beginning with a C
back in 1992.
And much like Street Fighter II, you had multiple unique characters
fighting each other one-on-one until someone gets their head ripped off
with their spine still attached,
or their flesh burned off their bones where they stand.
Oh, wait, Street Fighter II didn't have that.
Which is why Mortal Kombat was freakin' awesome!
Blood, gore, fantastic environments,
weird fighters, memorable music
and the ability to piss off parents and politicians alike.
It was a teenage dream come true back then.
It was also at the center of the 16-bit console debate for a while
due to the Sega Genesis version keeping blood and gore intact,
whereas the Super Nintendo's removed all that
and replaced it with showers of sweat
and soul-crushing disappointment.
But it seems like most people gloss over the PC port of the game
which is arguably the single best home port of the time.
It was released in 1993 by UltraTech
and converted by Acclaim Entertainment's Probe Software division.
"Now for the PC!" states the box art blurb,
making sure you are aware that this is not for washing machines
or carrots.
Also of note is this little MA-13 rating sticker,
since this was released before the ESRB was formed.
But during the whole ratings fiasco going on in U.S. Congress,
you had all sorts of random ratings systems.
The strange thing about this one is that it's by the Videogame Rating Council, or VRC,
which was Sega of America's own system
for rating Genesis games and such.
Why the balls it's on a non-Sega PC game like this is beyond me.
"Prepare yourself!"
"Execute bone-shattering combos and ferocious finishing moves!"
"Become the Supreme Mortal Kombat Warrior!"
Which is unfortunate,
if you were planning on becoming the atrocious Mortal Kombat weakling.
Inside the box you get the game itself
on three 3½-inch high-density floppy disks,
and the game manual containing the K-word fetish
even in the table of contents, though completely at random.
Now why are "contents" and "characters" spelled with "C"
yet "kontrols" and "kombatants" aren't?
I demand congruence in my intentionally misspelled spelling!
The rest of the manual is quite helpful, though,
not only describing the ridiculous story and how every move and character works,
but acting as the game's off-disk copy protection.
So you'll want to have it on hand when starting the game up,
or else you can't play.
And holy '90s!
You even get a set of Mortal Kombat temporary tattoos! Yeah!
Which is neat, I suppose, but pretty confusing.
I mean the game is meant for mature audiences, right?
Yet, in my mind at least, temp tats are clearly targeted at younger children.
I mean I'm sure there was someone out there who was both old enough to play this
and loved smearing cheap ink on their skin,
but I'm content in thinking that Acclaim was just enjoying double standards.
After you enter the copy protection word,
the game starts off pretty much the same way as the arcade game,
with an attract sequence showing some backstory
and random gameplay highlights.
But the similarities don't stop here.
Really, the entire game is pretty much the same as the arcade
in every way but demanding your quarters.
And having to worry about some punk kid coming up
and joining as player two, and then crying when they lose
and getting you in trouble somehow, even though you just wanted to
play the dang thing solo.
Or, was that just me? Heh heh.
Ehh. The biggest difference here is the options menu
which allows you to change difficulty and things that the DIP switches did
on the arcade machine,
as well as choose your sound device
and graphics quality, depending on your system's specs.
You also have the options to change your controls,
either mapped to a joystick or keyboard,
though I'd really recommend the keyboard.
Why?
Well, let's take a look at the original arcade cabinet here.
You have a joystick in your left hand and a set of five buttons at your right,
each mapped to a specific high and low kick and punch,
as well as a block button in the middle.
Now if you play with a standard flight stick or a gamepad on a PC,
you lose that feeling and degree of control entirely.
Granted, it's not ideal with a keyboard either,
but at least you can kind of emulate the button placement
a little more closely to the real thing.
Plus, it's just easier to pull off those all-important special moves
with a keyboard since each direction can be pressed precisely.
So, how's the game itself?
Well, just take a look at each version side by side.
Other than fewer colors on the PC and a different sound of device,
the arcade and DOS ports are impressively similar.
Far more so than the console ports of the day,
and even better than the Commodore Amiga port,
as far as graphics are concerned,
which is somewhat surprising.
The PC version's 256-color graphics look great,
especially on a CRT monitor,
and the Sound Blaster does a great job
emulating the sound hardware of the arcade machine.
[male voice] Flawless victory!
FIGHT!
- Though the music sounds a bit different no matter what sound device you have,
just 'cause it's using different stuff,
but the tunes themselves are still the same.
And maybe it's just me but another thing I've noticed about this DOS version
is that some of the animations feel just a tad less smooth.
Which is mainly noticeable when you're jumping
and this even happens on a fast Pentium PC.
It's a very minor issue, though,
especially for a port from 1993.
Otherwise, the same brutal, violent arcade experience is here
on your PC, and that is just fantastic.
For a long time, DOS PC users just got shafted
in the arcade game port department, and this–
oh, no, it's exactly the opposite.
The roster is the same, the moves are the same,
all secrets I'm aware of are the same.
The finishing moves are all there and accounted for.
As far as I know, this port is based on the third,
or maybe fourth revision of the arcade game,
so the exploits in gameplay aren't going to match up with later versions.
But I don't care.
I get to beat up digitized people
in a ridiculous tournament to the death
on a DOS PC, and it doesn't suck!
[cheering]
And it's even better if you update the game to its latest patch
as it fixes several issues with sound cards and such.
It's nothing major, but it's nice to be aware of
if you're planning on trying this one out.
So, yeah, Mortal Kombat. Man, what a game.
And it's nice to see a home version worthy of the
original arcade game's standards.
Sure, we've got arcade-perfect ports on most every modern system imaginable now,
but if you're into DOS gaming and Mortal Kombat,
this is seriously just awesome.
There really is nothing like having Mortal freaking Kombat on an old 486
and beating the crap out of people on the same machine you can do your taxes on.
MK1 may not be my favorite of the series,
but there's still something raw and nasty
about this one that's just brilliant.
So if this sounds like fun, or you just want some gnarly temporary tattoos,
definitely keep an eye out for this one.
[male voice] Sub-Zero wins!
[MIDI music plays]