Mortal Kombat

Blood on the screen, digitized actors and the phrase Finish Him, which burned itself into the memory of an entire generation. Mortal Kombat, originally an arcade hit from Midway in 1992, also arrived on the Amiga and brought with it one of the most controversial and influential fighting games ever.

Unlike cartoonish beat-'em-ups, Mortal Kombat bet on digitized footage of real actors, which gave it a realistic and, for the time, shocking look. The combat system builds on blocks, special moves entered as combinations of directions and buttons, and above all on the famous fatalities, brutal finishing moves with which you defeat your opponent after a winning round. It was precisely this violence that became the series' trademark.

With Mortal Kombat, Midway reshuffled the deck of the entire genre, which until then had been ruled by Capcom's Street Fighter II. The home conversion for the Amiga, released by Acclaim, had to wrestle with the platform's limitations, so it did not always reach the fluidity and colorfulness of the arcade original, but even so it brought to the computer the experience players craved. Versions on different systems differed in the amount of blood shown.

The cultural impact of Mortal Kombat was enormous. The controversy surrounding the game's violence played a crucial role in the creation of the American ESRB rating system in 1994. The series grew into one of the most successful gaming brands, spawning films, countless sequels and the status of a pop-culture icon. The word Fatality is known today even to those who have never played the game.

Today Mortal Kombat on the Amiga is more of a historical curiosity and a reminder of a time when a single game could ignite a society-wide debate. For fans of the series and of media history alike, it is an essential stop.

Why play: For the digitized brutality that changed fighting games and the whole gaming industry and gave birth to a pop-culture phenomenon.