ArcadeExcellent
Mortal Kombat
The game that created the ESRB
Midway1992Fighting, Arcade
Emulator
MAME
Quality
Excellent
💿
Bring Your Own ROM
The Story
Midway built Mortal Kombat specifically to be more violent than Street Fighter II. Digitized actors, photorealistic blood, and Fatality finishing moves so graphic they prompted Congressional hearings and the direct creation of the ESRB rating system. The controversy sold the game. The arcade version's home port to Sega Genesis outsold the censored SNES version 3:1 because Genesis had the blood code and SNES didn't.
Trivia
01
The infamous 'Blood Code' on Genesis was A, B, A, C, A, B, B
02
Congressional hearings in 1993 featured Mortal Kombat and Night Trap as exhibits
03
All actors were digitized on a blue screen in a Chicago film studio
Tags
fighting2-playercontroversialhistoric