Sacred Barbeque: Mortal Kombat

Put down that sissy salad fork and grab one of them big Outbreak steak knives, 'cause I've got the grill fired up and its time we all indulged in some succulent deified cow meat. The first entree being served up in this experimental kitchen of culinary editorial cuisine is none other than the '90s classic, "Mortal Kombat".

For those of you born somewhere beyond the mid '90s let me give you a brief history on the importance of fighting games in the grand spectrum of video game history. Back in the late '70s and throughout a large portion of the early '80s arcades were the dominant provider of electronic entertainment. Sure, consoles existed such as the various Atari platforms, but most of their libraries consisted of poor arcade ports that removed all the glitz and glamor from the mammoth machines as well as that all so important competitive edge thanks to leader boards. Several companies tried to bring a unique experience to the home market but most of them failed and it lead to a very dark time for console players as future prospects seemed dim.

Luckily for us introverted house rats a couple of wise sages from across the ocean developed a little known console called the Famicom, which you may better remember as the Nintendo Entertainment System, a strikingly ingenious new device that not only brought the quality of console machines to a new plateau of excellence but was also key in developing the first set of platforming single-player titles that would forever set the mold for the console industry. The years to come were not kind to arcades and while they still did enough business to stay afloat they were no longer the looming titans governing the gods. Consoles had made their mark and as you can see by today's atmosphere they had a solid foundation that would last up until present day. Now what most of you youngin's or gaming neophytes may not realize is that the arcade scene was not out of the fight just yet. Entering into the scene somewhere in the early '90s was Capcom, a Japanese based developer responsible for creating some of the best platformers for the Nintendo during the '80s. Not content to just claim master over the NES, the company decided to take that same level of precision and care applied towards their triple-A console games and bring it back to the arcades to birth one of the most competitive games to ever see the light of day, "Street Fighter 2".

"Street Fighter 2" in many ways was the definitive fighter. In fact it was so well designed that the game is still considered a benchmark to be used for gaming tournaments thanks to the extreme levels of skill and balance that was emphasized in its core design. Sure, there were a few minor exploits and cheap combos at first but whatever problems existed in the initial release were slowly smoothed over with each new edition to hit the market. Arcades had once again exploded in popularity and children were lining up around the blocks to get their opportunity to put down some quarters and throw down.

If you were to ask most kids above the age of 20 whether or not they had any fond memories of "Street Fighter 2" I can guarantee most will fire back with long-winded hour long epics about the countless quarters they invested to sharpen their skills and prove their mettle. Even I can recall the times I used to play "Street Fighter 2" at my local public pool; the arcade had suffered so much water damage that it emitted a painful static aura when you placed your hands on the face buttons, but even this uncomfortable annoyance wasn't enough to keep me away from dispensing loose change while getting a quick bite to eat.

Of course, this article isn't really about "Street Fighter 2" now, is it? No, this article is about the Midway counter attack to Capcom's classic. A little title of gore and misery by the name of "Mortal Kombat".

Wanting a piece of that oh so delicious pie, Midway Entertainment and two fellows by the name of Ed Boon and John Tobias decided to create their own competitive fighter. This new title borrowed heavily from Capcom but had several distinctive differences that set it apart from its predecessor: it used a form of motion capture to give the characters a more realistic appearance, it was gory beyond all belief, and it was an inferior game. I'll allow a moment for the hissing and jeers from my peers (hey, that rhymes!) to settle, but "Mortal Kombat's" intense popularity was not predicated on its balance or revolutionary gameplay, it was all contingent upon the presence of blood and brutal dismemberment.

Now to be perfectly fair I can understand why this caused so much hype and interest. Shortly after the games release it became the media's poster child for everything wrong with the blossoming game industry and was quickly swept up as some sort of scapegoat for crime and violence amongst a misunderstood American youth. What news outlets didn't understand was that the attention they were giving the game was exactly what it needed to make a name for itself. Kids, in their infinite curiosity and penchant to go against their parents' wishes, were stealing quarters and sneaking out of their homes to go decapitate their friends and have a good ol' time in the process. Looking back on the whole event it seems rather silly, and it doesn't take a person with more than two braincells to rub together to realize that this game had little impact on the developing minds of teenage boys; it was escapist violence that helped quell aggressive tendencies and in that sense the game should be commended. Where the game shouldn't be congratulated though is in its game play.

Defenders of "Mortal Kombat" seem to fall victim to echolalia as they all chant praise towards "Mortal Kombat" for bringing games to a much more mature level. Admittedly the game was probably responsible for the invention of the ESRB rating but to act as if it was the sole contributor for something that was going to happen anyways is just absurd. Unlike developments in game design, violence is something that always existed in the background waiting for the opportunity to emerge. In 1988, four years before "Mortal Kombat" was released there was "Splatterhouse", a game so violent it came with a warning label. Someone could even extrapolate violence from the simple act of Mario jumping on a Koopa's head by adding red pixels. Let's not forget about sex either, in the mid '80s the Japanese and several Atari developers had already explored the possibilities of interactive pornography (sex, being a topic so taboo in the states that its still the only real way to ensure a NC-17 rating in film).

Regardless of what anyone says games were destined to become more and more violent. Living in the shadow of their big brother in the entertainment industry, films (which had long since adopted a rating system to allow for more graphic subject matter), video games had entered those awkward teenage years (and in this writers opinion are still stuck in a perpetual adolescent limbo) and were trying to establish a unique persona for themselves where rules and regulations regarding decency need not apply.

to solidify my argument let's take a detour and examine one of the big game changers of game play, "Everquest", and see why it differs from the advent of violence. While online gaming had existed for long enough to guarantee that someone would eventually create a massively multi-player experience, the existence of most contemporary MMOs are contingent upon the core game mechanics that Verrant Interactive had established with their benchmark title. "Everquest" was a radical idea that was just waiting to be built but the actual "way" in which the game was played is far more important. Quest design and raid encounters realized in a fully explorable 3D environment were ideas that no one had explored before and were not gravitating towards any kind of singularity of gimmicks or appealing to the lowest common denominator. "Mortal Kombat", in terms of game player on the other hand, has only contributed the fatality maneuver. As an industry flagship I'll agree that it was partially responsible for making games a whee bit more mature, but the word "mature" being used here is somewhat relative as the cartoonish levels of violence and sex that has spawned in its wake seem more childish than adult.

I'm not going to deny "Mortal Kombat" its place in gaming history, but I will take it down a few pegs; ultimately the game was nothing more than a poor duplicate of the king of fighters (that's "Street Fighter 2", not to be confused with the actual game, "King of Fighters") and the past decade has exposed the series for being nothing more than a publicity stunt that appeals to an audience belonging to an infantile mental age group. I hear they are trying to reboot the series again, but with Capcom's dominion of fighting games still alive and well with "Street Fighter 4" and this writers most anticipated new release "Marvel Vs. Capcom 3" it may end up arriving as cold as a dead fish in the arctic. Let's face it, layers upon layers of caked on viscera and blood can't hide the inconvenient reality that a poorly inspired game is nothing more than mediocre.