I wasn't really a gamer, growing up. At least, not in the sense that a lot
of boys in the nineties were. I didn't have Sega or Nintendo (or later on, the
Playstation or Xbox). Even now, I have little inclination to get a console
system. But I have always loved PC gaming.
Granted, it had its pitfalls -- high among them being that a lot of the
games I wanted to play, as a kid, wouldn't run on whatever computer we had at
the time. But I had my share of fun and adventure, and that's what it's all
about in the end.
Anyway, one of the first fighting games I was exposed to, in any depth, was
the infamous Mortal Kombat. I had more-or-less missed its arcade run,
which caused such a controversy with its then unprecedented level of blood and
gore that it is one of the games credited with the creation of the ESRB ratings
system. But, in the summer of 1993, I was given a free magazine at the Canadian
National Exhibition, about new Sega Genesis/Game Gear releases -- and the cover
story was none other than MK.
Suffice it to say, this wasn't in the article.
Some time later (I think it was around 1995), my dad let me have the IBM
port, and I was hooked on it. Of course, when we eventually replaced our
computer with a machine that DIDN'T have a floppy drive, I was pretty much
stuck... until I got my own laptop, and put DOSBox on it.
AND SO IT (FINALLY) BEGINS.
For those who don't know, the story is basically this: a very old sorcerer,
named Shang Tsung, has invited seven elite fighters to his private island. They
are to compete in a vicious martial-arts tournament, against each other, and
against a few of Tsung's own fighters (as well as Tsung himself). If they win,
they live. If they don't, there are plenty of dungeon skeletons and dismembered
pit corpses that will keep them company.
Unlike the Windows 8 version of WordPad, that I am typing this review on,
the controls in this port and rather slick... for Player One. For some reason,
the Player Two controls, at least for the keyboard, have this tendency to
totally misread your commands. For instance, if you want to walk to the left,
the game will have your character SOMERSAULT to the left instead. Beyond that
glitch, though, the controls are reliable. More lovingly, they preserve the
layout of the original arcade cabinet; aside from the direction controls, all
of the attack/defense buttons are laid out BY DEFAULT in an X-like pattern, as
per the original display. This is such an effortless and fluid scheme that
Probe Software (the PC developers) duplicated it for their port of MK II,
and any non-Probe Mortal Kombat game I've played since, I've always
remapped the controls of to match this design.
However, there is a problem with the PC controls that seem to exist on
every device you can try it on: some of the special moves just won't work. The Mortal
Kombat games are rather infamous for their ridiculously convoluted commands
for special attacks, combos, and finishing moves. While that's not entirely
true of the first game, there are still some moves that you to hold down four
buttons at once, which most OS's treat as mashing the keys, and therefore will
ignore what you do. Even if you play with a gamepad (or "four button
joystick", as the game refers to it), the button layouts just down ergonomically lend themselves to those inputs. Don't even think about playing this with a two-button joystick.
One last word of warning: if you're going to play this game regularly,
start saving up for at least one new keyboard. Believe me, you'll be going
through them like Rice-a-Roni. It's worth considering buying the aforementioned
gamepad (the game's manual recommends the Gravis one that looks like the SNES
controller), but depending on what it's compatible with today, you may be stuck
with some actions not being doable with one button push.
The graphics mostly consist of digitized actors, superimposed on
illustrated backgrounds (with the exception of the sub-boss Goro, who was portrayed by a stop-motion puppet). While the image quality is extremely grainy
by any standards past 1997, I still love the photo-realistic touch of a
"real" person on the screen. Needless to say the buckets of blood per
hit, and routine blows that send opponents flying, are not at all realistic,
but it's very satisfying.
The sound effects, at least on the PC version, are a rather different
story. Even if your sound card is up to snuff, the effects will alternate
between high-quality immersive sounds, and something that sounds like a
tambourine being hit by a sledgehammer. On occasion, the only sound altogether
will be a booming chop sound, played at high speed until you can't take it
anymore. Between this and the aforementioned glitches with the Player Two
controls, this might have been my first experience with truly sloppy
programming and bug-testing -- how appropriate. Though I will give them props
for Kano's headbutt move (with a metallic face implant) being accompanied with
an awesome gong sound.
In terms of gameplay, to this day I find this one to be the most balanced
in the series. Obviously, when you play against a human, it's fair game
(especially when the controls are mostly fluid and responsive). With the
computer, however, that isn't always the case. The AI in this series is
notorious for being sadistically cheap, but the original game -- at least in
this particular home version -- was mostly programmed with some sense of fair
play. It will still anticipate and react to your moves far better than a human
could, but the challenge learning curve is far less severe than in many
subsequent games.
I've heard over the years, that Goro can be a really hard boss, but to be
honest that's rarely been the case for me, regardless of the game I've played
and on what difficulty level. If you play as someone with a stun move (eg.
Sub-Zero, who can freeze people at will), that and CONSTANTLY hammering Goro
with jump kicks, will get you through the day. Interestingly, this is also the
case in Mortal Kombat 4 and the 2011 reboot game. Shang Tsung is
slightly harder, not only because he can morph into ANY other character, but
his fireballs are an instant rookie-killer. Just duck them (rather than block),
and fight him as you would anyone else.*
(* the version of the game, presently on Abandonia, has a bug that will
crash the game as soon you reach the final fight. Check out other sites, to see
if there's a different source file available, as this was NOT a glitch in the
port I owned as a teenager)
Reptile, the hidden fighter, will quite simply own your ass. It is possible
to beat him, but I'm nowhere near good enough a player to be able to do it.
He's hard to get to, and you will need to be at the top of your game to stand a
chance against him; he is VERY fast, and hurls everything he's got at you. Good luck.
If you can find a version (either on CD-ROM or on an abandonware page) that
DOESN'T have the Shang Tsung glitch, I strongly recommend giving this a try.
From what I hear, you should absolutely stay away from the buggy and merciless
cash grab of the Arcade Kollection version. FINISH IT!
