Image via Complex Original
Mortal Kombat, as we all know, was once a dominant force in the arcades and on the home consoles. Could there be any more proof of this than the first commercial for Mortal Monday? But when the arcades died down, so did much of MK’s steam, with many of the later 3D releases all looking the same for some reason, even when they had Sub-Zero beating the shit out of Batman.
That said, with tomorrow's reboot looking to bring the franchise back to its gory days, the series that almost single-handedly brought upon the creation of the ESRB is looking to become legendary again. So in honor of the game's initial impact, it's time for us to pop our kollars and take a look back at the 10 most unabashed style biters that Mortal Kombat spawned along the way. Some of them may have been decent, but most of them deserved to be burned by Scorpion’s flaming skull fatality. Toasty!
By Rich Knight
10. Killer Instinct (SNES/Game Boy, 1995)
Killer Instinct is probably the only game on this list far enough removed from MK that one might not even consider it to be a clone at all. But it was. Rare was smart to make combos the key highlight of the game, but they also just had to add those stage deaths and fatalities in there that were so popular at the time, didn’t they? While its influence is far-reaching on its own—the massive combos of the Capcom vs. series have this title to thank for its success—KI was still a kopykat, albeit one with its own panache. And if you disagree, we may have to hit you with an Ultra, ultra, ultra, ultra…
9. Eternal Champions (Genesis, 1993)
At the time of its release, Eternal Champions was actually one of the more successful faux-MK fighters, likely because it picked only the best elements of the franchise to ape. Stage fatalities? Check. A rich mythology? Check? Memorable (enough) characters? Check again. The only thing it was missing was blood by the boatload, but this interesting title made up for it by adding two parts Street Fighter to go with its one part Mortal Kombat, making it a strange hybrid. The only thing that sucked was the difficulty. To this day, we still haven’t beaten it—and probably never will.
8. Thrill Kill (PlayStation, Cancelled)
How badass was Thrill Kill? So badass that it was never released, and was instead turned into a fighting game with the Wu-Tang Clan, Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style. Looking to capitalize off of Mortal Kombat’s brutality, Thrill Kill actually managed to one-up MK in the gore department, thanks to insane characters like redneck cannibal Cleetus and The Imp (who supported himself with stilts in battle). It also enabled four players to tear each other apart at one time. Still, if Mortal Kombat had never been created, a game like Thrill Kill could never have been conceived, making it a definite klone. A clever one, certainly, but one nonetheless.
7. Primal Rage (3DO/Amiga/Genesis/PlayStation/GameBoy/SNES, 1995)
While not a direct rip-off of Mortal Kombat—did MK have monkeys farting poison gas?—the signature gore was definitely there. The advent of the fatality was one of the key features that MK brought to the arcades, and Primal Rage had some of the most brutal seen at the time...performed by dinosaurs and monkeys, no less. The only problem? You had to pretty much hold down every single button on the cabinet and do some crazy joystick motions just to pull them off. In other words, the controls sucked ass. T-Rex ass. And really, is there any other ass that sucks more?
6. Street Fighter: The Movie (PlayStation/Saturn, 1995)
Yeah, even Capcom was on the jock at one point. This game, which used live actors for characters instead of animated sprites, doesn’t look like any of its predecessors. Besides looking like a failed MK side project, the game doesn’t even play well, with the controls coming off as stiff rather than fluid. Capcom made a rule banning motion-capture from any future SF titles, and thank God for that. How many other games do we need with the Muscles from Brussels himself playing Guile, or Kylie Minogue as Cammy? We've said it before, and we'll say it again: the only good thing to come out of the live-action Street Fighter was the soundtrack.
5. Mace: The Dark Age (N64, 1997)
Mace: The Dark Age was another Midway title that didn’t stretch the boundaries enough to be considered much more than a son of MK. The gameplay was beyond generic, and the game didn’t even try that hard to mask itself as anything more than a rip-off. For example, instead of “Finish him!” at the end of battles, the announcer said “Execute him!” So, uh, no points for creativity there. It was a weapons-based fighter though, so it had that going for it. If anything, it was like a more brutal version of Soul Edge—but Soul Edge was at least coherent, while Mace: The Dark Age was more its drunken step-brother that nobody ever wanted to be around. There’s a reason that you don’t remember it.
4. War Gods (N64/PlayStation/Windows, 1997)
War Gods was also created by Midway itself; some say that the game was solely created to test out a 3D environment in a fighting game for their upcoming MK4 release, but that’s probably just rubbish. The truth of the matter is, Mortal Kombat made a shit-ton of money and it looked like a new franchise could be born from it, but War Gods was just not that franchise: It had some of the wonkiest 3D ever this side of Battle Arena Toshinden, and the fatalities were far from impressive. The sad irony is, the game proved itself to be mortal in the only way it didn't asipre to.
3. BloodStorm (Arcade, 1994)
Remember that gag game on The Simpsons called BoneStorm that was meant to be a parody of Mortal Kombat? Well, BloodStorm pretty much was that game. A semi follow-up to Time Killers—which actually came out the same year as the first MK—BloodStorm was a herky-jerky mess. It did have a few cool features in it (most notably the ability to acquire certain techniques from your opponent once you defeated them), but the game’s characters were ultimately forgettable. Anybody remember Hellhound? How about Mirage? Anybody? Didn’t think so.
2. Way of the Warrior (3DO, 1994)
Like most of the MK clones on this list, Way of the Warrior was laughably bad. But a part of us thinks that it was at least intentional for this title—any game that started off with a talking skull with a mouth that wouldn’t stop chattering and said, “Find the way, noble challenger. Find the way of the waaaarrior,” had to have been putting us on. Once the actual game started up, though, the laughter stopped; the gameplay was beyond atrocious, even back then, and even for a 3DO title. At least the soundtrack by White Zombie was killer. Not $700 killer, mind you, but killer nonetheless. It almost made up for the shoddy motion-captured samurais and Bruce Lee rip-offs imitating Marky Mark with their victory poses. Almost.
1. Kasumi Ninja (Jaguar, 1994)
Many of the games on this list tried to at least add their own flair to separate them from the house that Goro built. But not Kasumi Ninja, one of the worst Jaguar games ever released in a sea of awful Jaguar games. Rumor had it the game's original title was Here’s Yer Mortal Kombat Rip-Off, Mister! The moves are pretty much identical, with uppercuts and sweep kicks, and the gore is all there, too, though, about ten times less gratifying and ten times more yawn-inducing. And while we're not the person to mention this, just about the only thing good about this game was that it had a Scotsman who would lift his kilt and shoot fireballs from his junk. Groundskeeper Willie, indeed.
