This ad is a simple teaser for the home versions of Mortal Kombat 4, perhaps the most maligned entry in the series. Eurocom did a pretty admirable job bringing the game to the PSX and N64, but they weren’t working with the best of material to begin with.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was one of the last big releases for the 16-bit consoles for Acclaim, who by that point was shifting resources onto the Saturn and PSX. The game is kind of impressive, given what the developers were working with – weak systems and limited cartridge space, but it is quite compromised when compared to the full arcade experience. Sheeva was the only character lost, but the number of stages was severely limited.
Nothing says Christmas like a bit of ultra violence. Enjoy the day!
Mortal Kombat 3 came out on just about every major platform, including the PC, the version which this ad is pitching. The PC port was actually a remarkably high quality port. The first release was DOS based and was quite possibly the most faithful port of the game. The later Windows based release was based on the PlayStation version, which isn’t quite as good.
Mortal Kombat Gold is an upgraded port of Mortal Kombat 4 which launched alongside the Dreamcast in North America and PAL territories. The game brings back several popular MK characters that were missing from the vanilla release of 4 such as Baraka, Kitana, Cyrax and Kung Lao. However, the game was well and truly overlooked upon release due to the stellar debut of Soul Calibur on the same day.
The sheer number of Mortal Kombat II ads we have in our archive is testament to just how heavily advertised the game was. It was one of the major battlegrounds of the 16-bit era: the newly formed ESRB allowed Nintendo to soften their stance towards violence, leading to a Super Nintendo version that was on par with its Mega Drive equivalent in the gore stakes. We put this one up just for that absurd EGM quote.
Mortal Kombat 3 is probably the most divisive game in the series. Some believe it is the point where everything started to fall apart – too many characters, many of which have ridiculous or stupid designs, and that the story ceased to make sense. Others enjoy the increased speed, variety of new characters and dystopian setting. No matter which camp you come from, I think we can all agree that it was pretty stupid to leave Scorpion out.
Mortal Kombat celebrates its 20th anniversary this August, and in preparation for the event, Gamespot recorded a series of interviews with the game’s developers – Ed Boon, John Tobias, John Vogel and Dan Forden – and three of the original cast – Daniel Pesina, Carlos Pesina and Ho Sung Pak.
The video discusses the origins of the game (including the well publicised Jean-Claude Van Damme connection), the challenges they faced in capturing the fighters on video and the game’s first location test.
Mortal Kombat 4 was the long awaited transition into 3D for the most violent fighting game series around. Arguments will continue to this day as to whether this was a good move. It’s worth playing for the hilarious ending cinematics, though.
Filling our Mortal Kombat ad requirement for the month.
Mortal Kombat CD is the Mega CD port of the first game in the series. The game is packed with typical early CD game gimmicks – it even opens with a (low quality) version of the “Mortal Monday” commercial. While not quite up to the standard of the arcade game in visual terms, the sound is more than adequate and the gameplay is quite faithful. The load times are absolutely awful, though. This ad is an early teaser – the final version of the game had an MA-17 rating due to the infamous blood code no longer being required.
