 Snatch drunk. Game developers in the early to mid 90s had a revelation kids that grew up with the NES are now teenagers And what's a teenagers like violence blood gore and punches to the groin? So here came Mortal Kombat at the forefront of a new era in gaming man when this game hit arcades in 1992 It was an event. I remember my friends and I walking to the bowling alley and there'd be a huge crowd Standing around Mortal Kombat. I was a 10 year old at the time and this game was just beyond belief I couldn't believe I was actually seeing this stuff let alone imagine how somebody could come up with some of these moves So Mortal Kombat was what was seen at the time as a natural progression of the fighting genre Street Fighter 2 took their franchise in a direction where the games were predicated on speed and precision Mortal Kombat went in a different gaudier direction, but how is that gaudy direction held up over time? Are the Mortal Kombat games worth playing today in a word? No These games are incredibly dated that very clearly relied on shock value to get attention from mainstream media and to play to a male Teenagers based sensibilities and instincts sure there were a lot of games that did that then like doom But that game is still perfectly playable with smooth and responsive controls Mortal Kombat is just bad especially on Super Nintendo give Sega credit They had the best port of the first game by far and not just because it had blood and the SNES version didn't it was better Looking it played fluidly and since the controller had less buttons It actually made the finisher combos a lot more straightforward the Super Nintendo version blended in with every other generic fighter not named Street Fighter 2 It wasn't until Mortal Kombat 2 came out that the SNES surged ahead that game at the time was everything you wanted out of a Mortal Kombat game Tons of personality with a detailed backstory that I ate up with a spoon a lot more characters a lot more settings some Interactive which I admit is still pretty cool to this day a lot more finishers Babalities and friendship friendship, and of course he got a love the announcer And of course this guy My biggest problem with this game though is that every character might as well be the same person Everyone's basic moves are literally exactly the same the only difference in being their looks and a few special moves At least with Street Fighter 2 you had characters of different sizes different speeds different range of motion And all that combines to lend itself to a wide variety of gameplay that is aged really well Mortal Kombat 2 almost everyone's the same size and speed everyone's punches and kicks and uppercuts are the same Combine that with how stiff the controls are and the completely lazy Half-assed animation of the characters and this game is just not worth playing today outside of entirely personal nostalgia And even then you're gonna play for like five minutes and then turn it off Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 expands the universe a bit more with even more characters and some more multiplayer friendly game modes the graphics and character Animations are mercifully polished up a bit, but the game is still really stiff Everyone moves and plays the same and they stubbornly insisted on having a block button. I have to mention how stupid that is I mean why can't you just have a block be the back button? That's automatically triggered when you press back while the enemy is attacking again Street Fighter 2 nailed this aspect But it's among my biggest pet peeves of the Mortal Kombat series like I said before though I do like how fully realized this game's universe is you really do enter another world when you play these games playing a Mortal Kombat game is a little bit like watching a cheesy 80s action movie like Delta Force or Bloodsport or whatever It's fun for a while, but you'll get your fill of it sooner rather than later Anyway, I can't think of a game series that's gone downhill over time as badly as Mortal Kombat Except maybe Sonic, but at least the older Sonic games were really good Again, if you still like it for nostalgic reasons, obviously, there's nothing wrong with that Just don't expect any actual substance in the gameplay here Even if you decide to check it out out of pure nostalgia after 10 minutes or so You're likely to be wobbling around like Liu Kang here. I'd much rather play Street Fighter 2 Turbo