In short, the hearings didn't go well for Nintendo or Sega and after the sessions, Lieberman pushed for a Video Game Ratings Act in 1994.
#MORTAL KOMBAT VS STREET FIGHTER PC COVER SERIES#
In 1993, Congress held a series of hearings on regulating video games. By the end of 1993, as Mortal Kombat II was entering into arcades across America, another fight was brewing… in Washington DC.Īfter the son of a former chief of staff to Senator Joe Lieberman showed him Mortal Kombat, the Connecticut politician decided to lead the charge against violent video games. From Primal Rage to Way of the Warrior(remember the 3DO?), to Sega's Eternal Champions, the race to see who could come up with the coolest, most gruesome finishing move began. "Although the graphics don't quite live up to those on the SNES, the great gameplay and better control combined with the special Mode A option make the Genesis cart a winner."Īdditionally, the game's success spawned a rash of copycats. "Genesis owners will be taunting SNES owners with their cry of 'No guts, no gory' when they get their hands on this brutal beat-em-up," GamePro's initial review read. Midway flyer for Mortal Kombat via MKSecrets (Eventually, it was changed to grey sweat.) The Nintendo version also cut down and changed Fatalities for Raiden, Sub-Zero and Johnny Cage. Hoping to appease fans and their parents, Lincoln called for the blood's color to be changed from red to green. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Mortal Kombat was, at the time, the most violent video game ever released. 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.