Mortal Kombat (1992) - MobyGames

1001 Video Games

Mortal Kombat appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Character choices

The manual states that "arcade machine statistics show that Johnny Cage is the least played character, while Sonya Blade is the most frequently chosen". This is backwards; history has proven that Johnny Cage is the most frequently chosen, while Sonya is the least.

Controversy

Mortal Kombat was one of the games Senator Joseph Lieberman centered his arguments on during the 1993 investigation by the United States Congress on extreme violence in video games. The investigation caused SEGA to develop the Video Game Council, which would later evolve to the Entertainment Standards Review Board (ESRB). Since then, even with the ESRB, video games have actually increased in violence.

Development

• Jean Claude Van Damme was originally slated to play the part of Johnny Cage, but the deal fell through due to Van Damme being busy with his movie work. Johnny Cage's clothing is almost identical to that of Van Damme's character's from the 1988 movie Bloodsport. Moreover, Cage's split punch is directly taken from a move Van Damme does in the movie. The original data files for Johnny Cage still bear the name "vandamme".


• According to Ed Boon in statements to EGM Magazine, the original Mortal Kombat was created by four people in just eight months from start to finish.


• The original name for the character Sub-Zero was going to be Tundra.


• Johnny Cage's real name is John Carlton (according to the game's storyline). The name was taken from the Midway game programmer John Carlton, who worked for the NBA Jam arcade series.


• The original name for the character Johnny Cage was going to be Michael Grimm.


• The original name for the character Goro was going to be Gongoro. According to John Tobias, the team decided to shorten it.

ERMACS

On the diagnostics screen of the first arcade version of Mortal Kombat, there was a listing in the audit menu for "ERMACS". This led players to believe there was a hidden character called Ermac. ERMAC actually is short for "Error Macro", and no such character appears in Mortal Kombat. Midway put a scrambled message in the sequel Mortal Kombat II, which appears at the bottom of the screen after beating the game: "CEAMR ODSE NTO EXITS" (an anagram of "Ermac does not exist"), and the hidden character Jade randomly appeared right before a match with the message "Ermac Who?". For Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, however, a new playable character called Ermac was created.

Game Boy version

Johnny Cage is missing from the Game Boy version.

German index

On March 31, 1994, Mortal Kombat, with the exception of the Game Boy version, was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games. In addition to the indexing, on November 11, 1994, the SEGA Mega Drive, SEGA CD, SEGA Master System, and Game Gear versions were also confiscated for violating §131 of Germany's penal code (for showing gruel violence against humans, etc.) However, due to the 10 year limitation for confiscations, those four versions are no longer confiscated since November 11, 2004.

Legacy

The game Mortal Kombat spawned numerous sequels, two films, a TV series, and even a cartoon.

Nimbus Terrafaux

It was rumored that there was a secret unlockable character in Mortal Kombat, called Nimbus Terrafaux. Later it was revealed to be a creation of Electronic Gaming Monthly as part of an April Fool's Day joke, despite the fact that Ed Boon had originally mentioned the character in an interview with the magazine. After this the magazine intentionally published false information on this character, complete with doctored screenshots and even a fabricated storyline.

Pre-order

Pre-orders of the console versions in the UK included a limited edition "Kombat Kit" as a give-a-way bonus. The kit included a poster, character cards, tattoo and pin-badge.

Reptile

As the story goes, on November 1992, while preparing an upgrade to fix several bugs, Ed Boon shut himself in his office for a weekend and added the secret character Reptile all by himself. However, no indication was ever given of his existence. It wasn't until a later revision of the game (which added Reptile popping up before matches to give clues of his existence in the game) and a July 1993 VideoGames Magazine article in which Boon and John Tobias specifically clarified how to find Reptile, that the mass public became aware of the existence of a character that was already in the game for months.

In order to fight Reptile, the player has to be in The Pit scenery when the silhouettes glide past the Moon (it happens every 6th game). The player can not use the block move during the whole match, has to win all the rounds with Flawless Victory and perform a Fatality move in the end.

References

• Raiden really is the Japanese God of Thunder. His appearance in myth is quite different though: he has red skin and a demonic face, his feet have two claws on them, and he carries either a wheel or drums on his back. He also is thought to eat human navels so people are advised to lie on their stomachs during storms. (from Davis, F. Hadland. Myths and Legends of Japan. New York: Dover, 1992. 1913.)


• According to Ed Boon, the main characters are all caricatures of some of their favorite characters from martial arts and sci-fi movies: Kano, with his infra-red eye, is based on Arnold Schwarzenegger's make-up in The Terminator. Liu Kang is, obviously, the likeness of Bruce Lee. Raiden, the electric God of thunder, is based on the lightening-wielding character from Big Trouble in Little China. Sonya was loosely based on martial arts star Cynthia Rothrock.

References to the game

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