Mortal Kombat
Reviewed by David Ruocco
You all know the story.
The evil Shang Tsung and Goro have corrupted the Shaolin Tournament...blah, blah, blah.
Forget the plot, the most important question is: "Is this a good conversion of the
arcade game?" The answer is definitely: "Yes!"
Mortal Kombat is fiendish fun.
You can pick any of the seven characters to control and they come complete with
almost all the special moves from the arcade game.
The graphics come as close to the original as possible, with big characters and
excellent backgrounds. Just don't expect to see any blood.
Because of Nintendo's family image the blood has been replaced by sweat, and
some of the ultra-violent death moves have been modified. But it doesn't reduce
the fun of the game.
The sound is terrific, with music and bone-crunching special effects. All the digitised
speech from the arcade game has also been put in, which helps the atmosphere.
If you're used to playing the Mortal Kombat in the arcades you'll notice the Nintendo
version is sower, but not enough to spoil your enjoyment.
Two player games are the most fun, but the computer-controlled opponents offer a
great challenge with four difficulty levels.
You have to master all the special moves if you want to progress far.
My only gripe with the game is that it doesn't have much depth, so I feel Street
Fighter 2 is a slightly better game overall.
But playing with the more realistic characters in Mortal Kombat makes the game a
hell of a lot of fun to play, and let's face it, you don't play this type of game because
it with stimulate your high I.Q.
If you're a beat-'em-up fan don't miss Mortal Kombat.