Saturday, March 5, 2011
Mortal Kombat, I Guess It's a Little Gross
Mortal Kombat was able to differentiate itself from the deluge of fighter games that came out in the 1990s solely based on the fact that it was violent and gruesome. Now, back then, when systems like Sega Gensis and Super Nintendo were so limited graphically, it was quite a bit violent. This is true especially when compared to other class fighting games like Street Fighter that showed little to no amount of bloodshed.
Yet, to be honest, I find Mortal Kombat boring and repetitive. It takes little skill and the controls and gameplay is too choppy, especially compared to Street Fighter. Yeah it was much bloodier and there were people tearing bodies apart, but to me it just looks like a bunch of more red dots spread out all over the screen. It's a bit laughable now to think that parents would thing video games like Mortal Kombat would make kids grow up to be violent, especially with much more realistic and violent games available on Xbox 360 and PS3.
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I never played much of Mortal Kombat for various reasons. I was an avid Nintendo player, yet I found myself playing classics such as Mario, Goldeneye, and a variety of sports games. I also didn't spend much time playing the arcade version due to NBA Jam, Blitz, Pacman, and Cruis'n USA. Although I would occasionally join in on a Mortal Kombat party, I often became more preoccupied with watching the fatalities. I have never really seen them as violent, but more as just an interesting way to end the fighting competition. Never once did I think these moves were possible by any stretch of the imagination, but who doesn't enjoy seeing the spine removed from your opponent after a flawless match? With the great increases in technology, MK and MK II look very outdated and almost unrealistically violent. If the the blood were to spew in HD graphics and internal organs splattered the screen, I have be able to speak more towards the violence of Mortal Kombat. Instead, I think I'll play this video a few more times and reminisce about the days of head-to-head arcade fun that filled my younger years.
ReplyDeleteThe graphics of Mortal Kombat are unique in that they use sprites of real actors instead of hand drawn or three-dimensional rendered graphics for the characters. I think that at the time, this made the game's violence seem a lot more realistic than other contemporary games. Over time, the game's realism has eroded, and I think most would agree that now it looks pretty cheesy.
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