Posts Tagged ‘mk2’
Two Mortal Kombat Documentaries
As promised, below are two documentaries found on the bonus discs of premium editions of Deception and Armageddon. The first is a brief (only six minutes) documentary of the Mortal Kombat franchise, produced by Midway, and found on the Deception bonus disc along with an arcade port of the original arcade game by Digital Eclipse. The second is a much longer documentary on the history of the fatality and plenty of stories from the staff. This was also produced by Midway and included in the bonus disc of Armageddon along with another Digital Eclipse port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Enjoy!
The History of Mortal Kombat (Part 1)
This week Fred and Jam are heading all the way back to 1992 when an intended Street Fighter II clone starring Jean-Claude Van Damme resulted in one of the most violent and popular fighters of all time. In this episode we delve into the history, development, release, home console releases, and of course inevitable violence discussions spawned from the first title and it’s inevitable sequel.
This is part 1 of a multi-part series on the franchise.
Closing Song: Encounter the Ultimate (Mortal Kombat Theme) by The Immortals off the Mortal Kombat Annihilation Soundtrack
Now & Then: Mortal Kombat II (Midway)
Midway must have known it had a hit on its hands with the original Mortal Kombat because no time was wasted creating the sequel. While most of us anticipated the home release of the first title, Mortal Kombat II (MKII) snuck into arcades and blew our minds. This game literally had it all – more characters, more fatalities/finishing moves, and more violence. For most MK series fans, myself included, this is considered to be the best and it’s one of the highest grossing video games of all time.
MK Meets its Match
The original Mortal Kombat was an impressive fighter, especially for one that was developed with digitized actors in only 10 months, but creator Ed Boon wanted to do more. “[MKII] had everything we wanted to put in the original MK but didn’t have time for,” he said in an interview with EGM2 (issue 5, Nov. 1994). It does seem like there’s some truth to his claim, especially with the introduction of more stage fatalities, a second fatality for each character, and even joke finishers “friendships” and “babalities”. I’m not so sure the roster was an initial idea, nor was the background concepts of Outworld, but I can definitely see the Midway team wanting to break away from the perceived reality of the original. Not only was MKII the definitive version of the original concept, but it continues to be the template for which all other titles in the series are based on.
Gaming History 101 