![]() ![]() Nintendo had built its brand on family entertainment and cute characters like Yoshi. In the summer of 1993, then-Nintendo executive Howard Lincoln met with the head of Acclaim to go over options. But that guaranteed financial windfall brought an important and risky calculation: whether to censor the game on their platforms. The game was too much of a sure hit to ignore. Raiden, the electric God of thunder, was based on the lightning-wielding demon from Big Trouble in Little China and Johnny Cage was based on actor Jean-Claude Van Damme.Īs the uproar grew, Sega quietly prepared to port Mortal Kombat to the Genesis and Game Gear, while Nintendo worked to do the same for the NES and Gameboy systems. According to former Midway developer and Mortal Kombat co-creator Ed Boon, the main characters were all caricatures of some of their favorite characters from martial arts and sci-fi movies: Kano, with his infra-red eye, was based on Arnold Schwarzenegger's make-up in The Terminator. ![]() Mortal Kombat 1 (Scorpion Gameplay) via YouTubeĪt the same time, parents were beginning to take notice of the arcade game that let you actually kill your opponent after beating him or her to a pulp. Most developers simply shied away from anything too graphic or bloody. In 1988, several systems ported the gory button masher Splatterhouse, but that was only after major tweaks. Fighting games like Street Fighter II had just become popular but, for the most part, games that featured violence or gore like Chiller, Dracula, and Jack the Ripper had been obscure PC releases. Up until that point, mainstream video games on systems like Nintendo, Sega, and Turbo Graphix had been relatively milquetoast. It also drove parents crazy, in a very different way. ![]() Kano ripped out Raiden's heart! Johnny Cage tore Scorpion in half! No one had ever put such graphic, gory detail into video games and kids went crazy for it. Blood spilled from characters like Liu Kang, Sonya, and Sub-Zero while uppercuts and roundhouse kicks knocked them across the screen. Not only were the mysterious digitized fighters incredibly lifelike, but the action felt real as well. ![]() When Mortal Kombatfirst rolled into arcades in 1992, it blew gamers' minds. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |