"The first and the best!"

Ahhhh Mortal Combat. Who could ever forget? One of the most controversial games of the early 90's that shocked gamers parents and politicians across the world with its morbid and excessive blood and gore and not to mention the privilege of being allowed to painfully finish off your opponent. And the series is still going strong today!

Story. Everyone has a story and reason for being in the tournament, but for the main one is that this is the last of 10 tournaments that will decide Earth's fate as to whether or not Shang Tsung's Outworld realm will rule it. Not bad for an arcade story.
Story? 10/10

Graphics. In a word, wow! The graphics in this were digitized giving the world, characters and everything in between a realistic feel to them, and the end result is just damn stunning. The character and world animations are smooth as and the blood and fatalities blew away anyone who saw them back in its release. The backgrounds are cool to fight in too. You'll pummel it out in temples, an arena in which you can fight and entertain an audience at the same time (Hey, just like Rome!), and such other cool places. In my opinion, this game had some of the best of graphics and places to fight. First prize!
Graphics? 10/10

Sound. Again, it's good quality. The male fighters have a set of pain and fighting sounds, with Sonya and Liu Kang being the only ones having their own set of sounds, but they sound pretty good, even though these days they're obviously outdated in quality. The music wasn't anything special, just your typical other worldly kung fu music for temples and palaces. But it served the stage well.
Sound? 10/10

Control. Smooth and responsive. You're set up with 5 buttons which consist of the 2 punch buttons, 2 kick buttons and the block button. In the long run, anything you want to pull off from throwing a projectile to doing a fatality, the game never fails to read the joystick's movements. Sweet.
Control? 10/10

Gameplay. Ok, I still think its fun from time to time, but let's face it. The blood and gore was what propelled this game in the first place. Still, it's good stuff. Every fighter –save for projectiles and special moves- basically has the same set of moves. High punch, low punch (kicks as well), throwing, all that basic stuff, along with a block button rather than holding backwards to block. Like any other fighting game, you get a best out of three matches, and either warrior must win 2 of them to be the winner and well, lovingly finish his or her opponent off with no mercy. Or, if you're fighting it out above the pit, a final uppercut can send them screaming all the way down to the corpse infested pit where they can become another rotting last season's loser!

In one player mode, it goes a bit like this. You start off fighting the six other warriors in a listed order depending on who your opponent is. After that, you fight “yourself”, or basically the same character you picked. Two endurance matches follow after that, followed by a match with Goro, and then the big cheese himself: Shang Tsung. An interesting opponent. He relies on the forms of other opponents to fight you.

In between these matches, you have an intermission called Test Your Might. You have to rapidly mash down on all the 4 attack buttons until your yellow bar meets the set needle on the side, hit the start button and walla! Broken wood, stone or diamond even! Cool.

Well, we all know that since Mortal Kombat the first, the AI has often been a real cheap bastard. I've seen it on other versions before, though really, up until the end I don't recall having too much trouble against the computer (though it has been a few years since I played). Overall, good stuff!
Gameplay? 7/10

Replay. Like I said earlier, its good fun with from time to time. Not really something I'd play constantly anymore though.
Replay? 6/10

It's too bad that after MK3 that everything about it (save for the blood) pretty much went down hill. Oh well, we always have this and MK2. Good night.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/23/06