Mortal Kombat (Video Game 1992)

Seven martial artists from Earth must battle in sorcerer Shang Tsung's super secret tournament. For the past 9 of these tournaments, Shang Tsung's four-armed mutant bodyguard Goro has won ... See full summary »

Writers:

Ed Boon (creator), John Tobias (creator)

Stars:

Dan Pesina, Richard Divizio, Carlos Pesina

Cast

Cast overview:
Dan Pesina	...	Johnny Cage / Scorpion / Sub-Zero
Richard Divizio	...	Kano
Carlos Pesina	...	Raiden
Ho-Sung Pak	...	Liu Kang / Shang Tsung
Elizabeth Malecki	...	Sonya

Storyline

Seven martial artists from Earth must battle in sorcerer Shang Tsung's super secret tournament. For the past 9 of these tournaments, Shang Tsung's four-armed mutant bodyguard Goro has won all of them. Should he win the tenth, Earth will be left at the mercy of Shang Tsung's Outworld. Playable characters include Raiden, the Thunder God invited to fight in the tournament, in human (and thus killable) form; Liu Kang, a Shaolin monk determined to stop Shang Tsung; Johnny Cage, a Hollywood movie star who wants the publicity; Sonya Blade, a US Special Forces agent; Kano, a tyrant being pursued by Sonya Blade; Sub-Zero, a mercenary ninja with orders to assassinate Shang Tsung and Scorpian, a murdered ninja who has been brought back from the dead to try and kill Sub-Zero, the man who murdered him.

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Plot Keywords:

ninja | sorcerer | shaolin monk | movie star | shaolin | 

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Genres:

Action | Horror

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Certificate:

M

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 August 1992 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Midway Manufacturing Corporation

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

The characters Liu Kang and Shang Tsung are mortal enemies, yet they are played by the same person: Ho-Sung Pak. The same status applies to Scorpion and Sub-Zero (both played by Daniel Pesina), but that is because they are palette-swapped characters.

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Goofs

When you select Sonya Blade for the "Test Your Might" stage for the Sega Genesis, her grunt is a man's grunt.

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Quotes

Voice over: Test your might!

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Connections

Featured in I Love the '90s: 1992 (2004)

User Reviews

Short-lived über-violence

This was one of the few games that gave the then-very-popular Street Fighter II video game some competition, and it tried to better that classic by not only including real digitised martial arts fighters, but by putting in some really gory bits.

Just punching someone's head in repeatedly causes liquid crimson to spurt from their face in ridiculously high amounts, and when you had one two bouts out of three against your opponent you had the option (if you knew how) to perform a fatality that would actually kill your opponent in some rather horrible way.

As usual with this kind of game, every single character has a special move (the best ones were Scorpion's harpoon and Sub-Zero's freezing move that froze his opponent rigid for a short time, leaving him/her open to an attack); otherwise, all characters had much the same set of punches and kicks.

While the graphic violence (which probably started the video game rating system) is amusing for a little while, it hides a less-euphoric truth; there's not really much to all of this, and once you've seen the fatalities a few times it's doubtful you'll bother much with them (or even the game) anymore.