Goro Lives!

Part 1 of a Mortal Kombat Retrospective

Mortal Kombat has been a franchise near and dear to me since it first came out in 1992. In anticipation of the new game to be released in April, I've been thinking a lot about it. Almost twenty years later, it's easy to divide the series into eras, each with its own greatness and no shortage of pitfalls. In a world where there's Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt, Mortal Kombat as a showcase of brutal violence loses much of its relevance, and it's hard to argue with people who see no reason to pay attention to anything since the early days. And although this may prompt a chuckle or scoff from a reader or two, I've always thought Mortal Kombat's universe to be a very dark and rich one. It's very rarely had a flawless execution, I'll give you that, but it's always had cool characters with solid backgrounds doing horrifying things to each other.

At the Tottenham Community Centre there was an arcade for Mortal Kombat, and while my experience with video games wasn't extensive, it was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. I saw one guy execute Sub-Zero's spine rip fatality, though, and thought the game was awesome. The use of sprites and the short videos for the character's biography was a lure that hinted at something spectacular. Of course playing at the arcade was a disaster. I tried to get the hang of Rayden but never even made it to the mirror match. It wasn't until later that I got the port for the Sega Genesis that I had the time to get good at it. My character of choice became Sub-Zero, but I came to be alright with Kano, as well.

Mortal Kombat became a principle title in a growing controversy over violence in video games. While this was part of its allure, the great bonus features and many secrets of Mortal Kombat were probably more talked about by its fans. For a long time, the secret character Reptile was little more than an urban legend, and as these were pre-Internet days for me, I couldn't confirm or deny it until I read an article in a Sega magazine telling me how to fight him, but I never got the chance until the home port. The home versions on both the Genesis and the SNES were censored to have no blood and less gory fatalities, but luckily the Genesis version had the blood code (down, up, left, left, A, right, down).

The seven fighters were great. Bruce Lee's influence was divided between archetypal martial artist Liu Kang and movie star Johnny Cage. FBI agent Sonya Blade was tracking scarred thug Kano. Sub-Zero was out to assassinate Shang Tsung but was haunted by the spectre of the ninja he had murdered: Scorpion. And then of course there was Rayden the Thunder God. Then there were the two iconic bosses: four-armed half-dragon Goro, who has become one of the most recognizable characters in gaming, and shapeshifting sorcerer Shang Tsung. I liked the setup between them - the monstrous and terrifying minion and then the sinister mastermind.

The limitations of the medium meant that the story had to be delivered in snippets, during biographies and story splashes before you pressed start, and in character endings when you beat the game. It was told in a more coherent fashion in the comic book released in conjunction. It took a little work to get to know it, and at the time it wasn't nearly as elaborate as it became. The tournament of Mortal Kombat was held once every generation, and through it, the conquest of our world could be achieved by evil, extra-dimensional entities, represented here by Shang Tsung. If these outworld forces won the tournament ten times in a row, they would be free to conquer Earth. The shokan prince Goro had won nine already, making this one the deciding factor. The seven fighters were the final champions of our world, lured or brought by force to Shang Tsung's hidden island citadel. Not much to it, but these were just the first steps in a gruesome, ongoing legacy.