Mortal Kombat 3

Mortal Kombat 3 picks up directly where the second game left off - Shao Kahn merged Outworld with Earth and brought the dead Queen Sindel back to life so that nothing would stand in the way of his invasion of Earth. It was the first game in the series whose story directly continued where the previous one ended, instead of merely serving as an excuse for another tournament. Midway significantly reshuffled the fighter roster for the third installment: Kabal, Sektor, Cyrax, Nightwolf, Sheeva, and Stryker joined the game, while fan favorites Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile, Kitana, Mileena, and Jax were missing from the arcade cabinets at launch, and players had to wait for the updated version of the game for their return. The characters continued to be created by digitizing real actors filmed in front of a green screen, giving the series its signature, gritty realistic look.

In terms of gameplay, this was the series' biggest leap forward yet - a run button was added, speeding up and deepening the fights, along with chained combos that let players link hits into long sequences, and interactive backgrounds that could be used to throw an opponent into or knock them against. Kombat Kodes entered before a match changed the rules of the fight, unlocked hidden characters, or triggered bizarre effects, and the game introduced Animalities for the first time - a finishing move in which the winner transformed into an animal to finish off the opponent - as well as Brutalities, which required a precise sequence of hits instead of a single input. The right code could even unlock a hidden bonus minigame in the style of a classic shooting-gallery arcade machine, an unusual curiosity at the time that players talked about for a long time.

Why play it: Part three is a key milestone in which the series found the combo system and fight pacing that defined every subsequent entry - the ideal choice for anyone who wants to experience Mortal Kombat firsthand in its raw 1990s arcade form, discover the era's curiosities hidden behind secret codes, and understand the roots of mechanics that NetherRealm Studios still develops today.