Midway's Mortal Kombat II

Mortal Kombat II (MKII) was originally released, by Midway, As an arcade cabinet in 1993. Do to the success of both MKII and its prequel MKI, and do to the ever changing race of the 16-bit era of the time, MKII was released on several different platforms (such as the SNES and Sega Genesis) in 1994. The Mortal Kombat genre help set a new standard on both fighting games, and the regulations of video games. It is also believed by fans that MKII is still the best in the franchise.

Now for those who do not know the series ( and should be hung upside down by their toes for not knowing it...) the story of MKII is as follows:  after failing tom defeat Liu Kang in the first Mortal Kombat game, evil sorcerer Shang Tsung begs for mercy from the Outworld supreme overlord Shao Kahn. Shang Tsung convinces Kahn to redeem himself by defeating the Earthrealm in another Mortal Kombat tournament, but this time the tournament is held in Outworld. I know, epic right.

You start off the game by selecting a character and then using that character to defeat a set series of opponents. You defeat your enemies one by one using hand to hand combat, special moves, and fatalities. As you defeat each enemy and sub boss, you slowly make your way to the man who started it all, Shao Kahn, and defeat him to save Earth and all that has been effected by Shao Kahn's evil.

Now, one thing that I really like about this game, and the franchise in general, is that each character in the game has their own background. That is, it explains, who they are, where they are from, and even why they are fighting. This in depth detail really helps bring any game to life. You can also see how a lot of games in today's gaming world have either used this concept of story background in their own games, or put more detail into it, to really bring the game to life for their fans.

MKII is your typical 2D fighting game, where you and one opponent fight to the death on a staged arena. The game itself has a handful of different stages for your battles to take place. What makes mortal combat though is not only the special abilities of each character, but the finishing moves provided at the end of each fight, and even some of its comical humor in the game.

Eat my Hat, that is till on my head? whaaaaaaa...

 Starting with the special abilities of each character, this adds a little spice to the game play. That is, the moves are not just press this button and this will happen, you must enter a series of commands using the directional pad and buttons to execute the proper move. Know I really like this because it adds some difficulty to your every day button mashing fighting game.  If you do not enter the flow of commands correctly though, all you will see is the look of your character having a seizure. But, if entered correctly, you use a special unique move such as freezing an opponent, or spitting acid. This adds some excitement to the game, for everyone enjoys that special feeling you get after you correctly use a difficult move for the win. This brings me to the next point, that really makes MKII a real Mortal Kombat game. That is the use of bloody gory fatalities, stage fatalities, babalities, and... friendships.

Reptile, are you eating peoples heads again?

Another thing I really like about this game is that after defeating your opponent for the second time, you will come to the end of a fight with the words "FINISH HIM" and your opponent standing at a daze. This is time given to you to end a fight with style. You can either end the fight with a classic Mortal Kombat gory finishing move, knock your opponent off the stage into a river of acid or a bunch of spikes, turn your opponent into a crying baby...or just become friends with your enemy...I know this a total "WTF mate" moment. The reason that the developers added this "friendship finisher" was primarily because at the time, not a lot of companies followed the strict ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) rules that we have today. Actually the ESRB was just coming out of its shell at the time. The sum of it all was that people were throwing a fit about the violence in video games (big shocker there...) and so the developers of MKII stuck in the 'friendship finisher" to more or less mock everyone throwing a fit. But, you can really see how this game has effected all games since. Personally I just go for the cheep uppercut move to end it all (yeah all you people who have played this game know exactly what i'm talking about).

As a kid, I was a huge fan of this game. I also knew like every combo and special move. But I dont know why, now that i'm older I cant execute a finishing move to save my life. The game is still a lot of fun though, and it is always fun to just mash buttons in the hope you will some how magical knock off your enemy's head. with the ever so entertaining gory graphics, along with an agro quit every now and then, I am still a big fan of the game and franchise. So I recommend all those looking for a fun and comical challenge to check out this game. Oh, and lastly, I still always laugh when every that guy pops out of the corner and yells "toasty" in a really high pitched voice. Oh how it brings back the memories.

Remember, If you want to play this game, you must download the proper emulator and ROM. Both which are located at the top of the web page.

References:
http://www.mortalkombatonline.com/content/games/mk2/
http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/Mortal_Kombat_II