Mortal Kombat (arcade game)

Mortal Kombat
Cover artwork for the home versions
Developer(s)	Midway
Publisher(s)	NA: Midway JP: Taito NA/JP/EU: Acclaim NA/JP/EU: Arena EU: Virgin BRA: Tec Toy
Designer(s)	Ed Boon John Tobias
Programmer(s)	Ed Boon
Artist(s)	John Tobias John Vogel
Composer(s)	Dan Forden Matt Furniss
Series	Mortal Kombat
Platform(s)	Arcade Amiga Game Boy MS-DOS PlayStation 2 PlayStation 3 PlayStation Portable Sega CD Game Gear Genesis Master System Super Nintendo Entertainment System TV game Xbox Xbox 360
Release	1992 Arcade NA: 1992 Super NES NA: September 13, 1993 EU: October 28, 1993 JP: December 24, 1993 Game Gear NA: September 13, 1993 JP: December 17, 1993 EU: 1993 Game Boy NA: September 13, 1993 JP: December 24, 1993 EU: 1994 Genesis/Mega Drive NA: September 13, 1993 EU: 1993 JP: May 27, 1994 Master System PAL: 1993 MS-DOS NA: May 25, 1994 Sega CD/Mega-CD NA: May 26, 1994 JP: June 3, 1994 EU: 1994 Amiga EU: 1994 Mobile Phone NA: September 2004
Genre(s)	Fighting
Mode(s)	Up to 2 players
Cabinet	Upright
Arcade system	Midway Y Unit (Version 1-4) Midway T Unit (Version 4-5)
Display	Raster, horizontal orientation

Mortal Kombat is an arcade fighting game developed and published by Midway in 1992 as the first title in the Mortal Kombat series. It was subsequently released by Acclaim Entertainment for nearly every home video game platform of the time.

The game introduced many key aspects of the Mortal Kombat series, including the unique five-button control scheme and gory finishing moves. The game focuses on the journey of the monk Liu Kang to save Earth from the evil sorcerer Shang Tsung, ending with their confrontation in the tournament known as Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat became a best-selling game and remains one of the most popular fighting games in the genre's history, spawning numerous sequels and spin-offs over the following years and decades, beginning with Mortal Kombat II in 1993, and together with the first sequel was the subject of a successful film adaptation in 1995. However, it also sparked much controversy for its depiction of extreme violence and gore using realistic digitized graphics, resulting in the introduction of age-specific content descriptor ratings for video games.

Mortal Kombat is a fighting game in which players battle opponents in one-on-one matches. The fighter that completely drains the opponent's health bar first wins the round, and the first to win two rounds wins the match. Each round is timed; if both fighters still have health remaining when time runs out, the one with more health wins the round.

Players select one of seven characters. Whereas other fighting games had characters with considerable differences in speed, height, attacks, strength, jumping heights and distances, the playable characters in Mortal Kombat are virtually identical to one another with only minimal differences in their moves' range and speed. The game also distinguished itself from other fighting games of the time with its unique control scheme. The controls consist of five buttons arranged in an "X" pattern: four buttons for high and low punches and kicks with a block button at the center, as well as an eight-way joystick. Attacks can vary depending on the player's distance from the opponent. All player characters have a shared set of attacks performed by holding the joystick in various directions, such as leg sweep and an uppercut; the latter attack knocks the enemy high into the air and causes a large amount of damage.