Missed Potential #1: Mortal Kombat II for Gameboy

"So Evil. So Deadly."

Today I whipped out my Gameboy Color, and after stealing the batteries out of my trusty Gameboy Advance, I was ready to party like it was 1989 (through about 2001). I suppose I could have used an emulator, but emulation is for suckas and Japan only releases. But mostly suckas.

Thanks to both my packrat nature and a two-for-one original Gameboy sale at Electronics Boutique about seven years ago, I could survive for months after a nuclear war by eating nothing but Gamboy cartridges. So out of all those choices, including titles from the Dragon Warrior/Quest series, Super Mario Deluxe and four out of five of the GB-exclusive Mega Man games, what did I choose to play?

If you said a crappy port of Mortal Kombat II, you win a cookie!*

*OFFER NOT VALID EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES; GET YOUR OWN FREAKIN’ COOKIE YOU SLACKER

The Gameboy version of Mortal Kombat II offers players a staggering eight characters and one boss, compared to the 12 fighters and two bosses found in the arcade version. Yeah, I know the Gameboy is a lesser system than the other 97 consoles/toasters on which MKII showed up, but I’m pretty sure the programmers were taking advantage of the fact the players generally don’t expect much out of Gameboy software. This is pure laziness; a cash-in on the mighty Mortal Kombat franchise. Don’t tell me there wasn’t enough space on the cartridge to hold the likes of Kung Lao, Baraka, Raiden and Johnny Cage; the fact that Mortal Kombat II was also released as a “kombo pak” in the same ROM with the first game dispels any doubt. I’m pretty sure the programmers thought that if one could buy a nearly complete version of MKII for about half as much as the SNES and Genesis/Mega Drive versions, some players would just stick with the cheaper option.

Can you tell the difference between these ninjas? Neither can I!

So who are were left with? Virtually indistinguishable versions of Scorpion, Sub-Zero and Reptile, skank sisters Katana and Meleena, and three other dudes who actually use their own sprites. The original version of MKII was skating on thin ice with its reliance on clone characters, but the Gameboy version looks like some kind of bizarre ninja jamboree that Jax, Liu Kang and Shang Tsung snuck into so they could meet some chicks. Consider this: Every time your boot up MKII for the Gameboy, statistically, there’s more than a 50 percent chance that you will be playing as a palette swapped clone. And 50 is a LOT of percents.

There are three backgrounds, but unless you meet up with a secret character, you’ll only ever see two: The Pit and the Kombat Tomb. Who are these secret characters you say? Why, it’s Jade and Smoke, more ninjas! Yaay!

No, Kang's not doing a super move; my camera just sucks.

So I’m saying that this game sucks, right? Well, not quite. The Gameboy does an impressive job of cramming most mortal moves into a two-button scheme, with the Start button substituting for the all important block, just like in the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive version. There’s no high punch, low kick or ducking punch, but everything else – including the ever-infuriating, rinse and repeat foot sweep and the trademark MK uppercut – are present and accounted for. The moves are all easy to execute, with the exception of, oddly enough, jumping toward your opponent.

Whenever I load up MKII on the Gameboy, I feel like I’m playing a pretty good beta of a game that’s going to be released in the next four months or so; it’s a great start, but it could have been so much more. The missing characters are too many, the backgrounds are too few, and would it have been too much to ask to have mapped high punch to back and punch like on the Genesis?

No. But it would have taken more time and effort to complete, and God forbid anyone put time and effort into a Gameboy title.

What we’re left with is an almost competent fighter, which was sorely lacking on Nintendo’s premiere portable. With a few tweaks, Mortal Kombat II’s little monochrome brother could have delivered a rim rockin’ headshot to the on-the-go gaming market. But instead all it heaped upon mini Mortal fans was a bloody bucket of missed potential.

I wanted to record myself playing Mortal Kombat II for the Gameboy, but that required me to hold the camera with one hand and fight with the other. All I could reach was the low punch button. EXCITEMENT!

Experts Debate: Is Mortal Kombat Da Hypest Game?

With Osama Bin Laden finally taking a dirt nap thanks to a U.S. attack on his compound, I can finally turn my attention to the other thing I’ve been waiting on for nearly a decade: a new Mortal Kombat title worth playing.

Ads in the '90s were... wierd.

The evolution of the series has been rocky to say the least. Though the original arcade game caused quite a stir among players who had mastered Street Fighter II and craved something new and unique, many of the home conversations of the title didn’t fare well. For example, the Super NES version of Mortal Kombat cut out much of the violence that made the arcade game a hit. Also, like much of the software for Sega’s ill-fated CD console, MKCD got a lot of bad press. From what the reviewers at the time said, the game was some sort of hellish abomination that, when not in use, flew from the Sega CD and stalked the elderly, decapitating them in their sleep and stealing their medications to sell to small children as candy. A few years later when everyone though the MK formula was dead, parent company Midway killed it again with a decent but unsatisfying combat system that would carry the ailing franchise through the rest of the PlayStation 2/X-Box era.

Then they added Superman as a joke during a lunch break one day and everyone took it seriously.

Pow! Biff!

With the ninth entry in the series, known simply as Mortal Kombat, released the day before Sony handed out millions of customers’ personal information to a cyber trick-or-treater (April 19), it seems that I might get my wish for a fun new MK title. I haven’t had a chance to play MK9, but based on the intelligence gathered by the U.S. governments’ Gaming Information and Defense Department, it looks promising. However, I decided a long time ago that I would withhold my excitement until the world’s top scientists – the ones in the whitest lab coats – answer a single question: Is the new Mortal Kombat title indeed da hypest game, or has series co-creator Ed Boon made a FATALITY fatal error for a fourth time in a row?

According to a peer-reviewed Youtube video by a scholarly gentleman named gmcfosho, Mortal Kombat is indeed da hypest game. Gmcfosho, a celebrated lab technician and intellectual hero, used math, beakers, pipettes and whatever occult magic scientists envoke to determine the hype levels in MK9, and lab results prove that it is, in fact, da hypest game.

“I don’t even know how to play this game,” he said, “but it’s hype.”

After attacking Mileena, a horrific alien disguised as an ordinary Earth-skank, with Johnny Cage’s “nut punch,” gmcfosho proclaimed, “Ohh! I punched her in… in the gonads! That’s what girls got.”

He added later, “Mortal Kombat! Everything! Uppercuts!”

I urge you all, in the name of education, to watch Mr. gmcfosho’s enlightening film. His dedication to finding the truth through the scientific method is nothing short of inspiring.



TEST YO' MIIIIGHT!

Tales from the Krypt: MK Deadly Alliance

Worst. Headache. Ever.

I never want to play Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance again.

It’s not the moderately outdated fighting mechanics, the unexplainably chunky blood splatters or even the bowel-stimulatingly dumb fatalities like Quan Chi’s “Neck Stretch” that have me wanting to lob this game at the nearest handicapable youngster. No, it was my own obsessive-compulsive nature that rammed that last nail through my heart and into my koffin.

The three PlayStation 2 era Mortal Kombat titles – Deadly Alliance, Deception and Armageddon – share a similar way of awarding extras: The Krypt. The Krypt holds literally hundreds of unlockables, with kontent ranging from new characters and battlegrounds to the gaming equivalent of those asbestos-lined gumball machine prizes you used to beg your mother for as she checked out at Shoprite. Using the kurrency he or she earns in battle, it’s up to the player to purchase as much krap as possible. It’s sort of like Pokémon and its “Gotta Catch ‘em All!” tagline, only what you’re catching are shattered bone fragments and pieces of Kano’s shameful spleen.

Worst. Fatality. Ever.

Sensing that the Mortal Kombat database in my head needed updating when I didn’t recognize about 25 characters from the lazy-yet-brilliant hodgepodge that is MK: Armageddon, I chopped a bloody trail through MK4, MK: Deadly Alliance and MK: Deception until I had thoroughly explored all three titles. I cleaned out all the koffins Deception’s Krypt, but of the 626 koffins in Deadly Alliance, I only opened about 400.

Those 400 koffins didn’t come easy: For days all I did was earn kurrency for the Krypt or try to dream up ways to get more. My friends started disowning me, I almost got fired from my journalism gig and Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of missing persons and lost things, called my cell phone and threatened to have me excommunicated if I didn’t put down the controller. So one day I told the game that I was taking it out to clean it, then before I lost my nerve, I shoved it back in the case and left it on my shelf. For awhile I was free of the kall of the Krypt.

Worst. Caption. Ever.

Kut to about three weeks ago when my hard-hittin’, girlfriend-ranglin’, N-Sync lovin’ cousin came over and we started kombatting it up with MK1, MK2 and UMK3. All it took was a little Southern Comfort and his innocent suggestion that we play Deadly Alliance to set me off again, but worse this time. It was like quitting smoking only to take up licking tar directly off the sun-baked road.

I must have slogged through Deadly Alliance’s single player mode at least 20 times over the course of the next week before going through the ultra boring Konquest mode again. Then I started making dummy profiles with names like “Strawman” and (at the suggestion of my cousin) “Asshats,” kopping some easy koins, then fighting endless two-player battles with myself to “win” all the currency on my real profile. My cousin walked in at one point while I was sleeping, but I still had the controller in my hands and was attempting to do Sub-Zero’s fatality mid-round.

“This is sad,” he said.

“Mumble, mumble Kano wins,” I am told I replied.

With most addictions, it’s up to the afflicted individual to realize that he or she is stronger than their habit and consciously push it away in the name of a better life. My MK:DA Krypt addiction came to an end when I opened that last Godforsaken tomb one morning as the sun was just peeking through the clouds and over the horizon. The camera twisted around to a side view, as it always does, and the lid slammed down on the floor. An evil laugh reverberated in the chamber. Through the dust these words appeared on my screen:

EMPTY KOFFIN.

I know there’s a metaphor here, but I kan’t quite put my finger on it.

This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Top Five: Video Game Soundtracks You Should Never Listen to While Driving

There are plenty of things you should never do while driving, like using a cell phone, drinking alcohol, shaving, reading the newspaper, eating sloppy joes and listening to political talk shows that are likely to give you road rage. But did you ever consider that the music you listen to in your car could affect your performance as a motorist? Judging by the charred wrecks littering my lawn and the unpaid tickets that taunt me everyday, the right tunes could mean the difference between driving like a kind, nice car champ and a blind, NASCAR chump. Do yourself and everyone else a favor and never hit the road while listening to the following game soundtracks. As my father is fond of telling me, the life you save may be your own. Or more importantly, mine.


Ridge Racer – PlayStation

There are plenty of racing titles I could have put here, but I chose Ridge Racer because every song in the game has been clinically proven to increase adrenaline, disable speed related inhibitions, and cause the listener to mash his or her right foot into the ground as hard as humanly possible. When played in your car stereo, the Ridge Racer soundtrack makes you feel as if your hair has burst into flames, but its okay because you know how to put it out: All you have to do is roll down all of your windows and break the sound barrier with that NASA surplus rocket engine you strapped to the roof of your car. Cops hate speeders, if you’ve got Ridge Racer in your CD player, chances are they’ll never catch up with you to give you the ticket.

Listen to "Rare Hero" from Ridge Racer
Listen to "Ridge Racer" from Ridge Racer


Mother 1 + 2 (Earthbound and Earthbound Zero) – GameBoy Advance

The original Mother game – known in some circles as “Earthbound Zero” – bore the tagline “No crying until the end.” This game and its sequel both live up to that promise, with endings that will make you ball up into the fetal position and weep like a jellyfish-stung baby while simultaneously smiling you rear off, just to spite yourself. Considering the emotional baggage these games heap upon the unsuspecting player, not even the surliest of pirates would be able to keep from bawling with the likes of “Eight Melodies” or Mother 2’s ending theme pouring from their speakers. It’s very, very difficult to explain to a police officer that you drove into the car in front of you because you couldn’t see though the tears. It’s even harder to explain that you were crying because a ragtag group of robot teens thwarted a demonic space alien by praying at it thousands of years ago in your living room.

Listen to "Eight Melodies" from Mother 1+2


Silent Hill series – Multi platform

Anyone who’s ever played a game in Konami’s Silent Hill franchise knows that it was designed to twist unsuspecting gamers into spastic madmen, no longer able to handle all but the most kid-friendly titles. Silent Hill was originally just a way for Konami to sell more copies of Dance Dance Revolution to traumatized players looking for reintegration into gaming society, but some people actually like writhing in psychological agony, so they ran with it.

All official Silent Hill soundtracks lull the listener into a false sense of security by putting an awesome rock or pop song first, then slowly moving into more atmospheric and creepy tracks. Before your know it, you’re listing to the sonic equivalent of 1,000 Satans tying you to a vomit-stained torture rack in an abandoned mental hospital and sawing off your limbs with rusty sporks and shards of broken funhouse mirrors, all while cramming flaming bat guano down your throat. The dangers of listening to a Silent Hill soundtrack while driving include an increased heart rate, intense feelings of paranoia, and wetting the rich, Corinthian leather of your driver’s seat. If you’re foolish enough to listen to Silent Hill tunes at night while on a lonely back road, there’s at least a 3000 percent chance that you’ll wind up crawling out of your overturned vehicle and bolting into the night, screaming like a child wearing underpants made of wasps.

Listen to "Until Death" from Silent Hill

Listen to "Angel's Scream" from Silent Hill: Shattered Memories


Superman 64 – Nintendo 64
 

Everyone knows that Superman 64 is an abomination unto the Lord and no one should ever play it. This includes the equally horrendous soundtrack. Listening to the tunes from Superman 64 in your car won’t cause you to drive at warp speed or crash into anything, but it will make for a pretty crappy ride to work. When given the option, listen to the news instead: It’s just as aggravating and depressing, but at least you’ll learn something other than the fact that Superman 64’s soundtrack converts disappointment into music at a one to one ratio.

Listen to some music from Superman 64


Mortal Kombat: The Album – Inspired by the arcade game

If you’ve never heard of this gem, then you wouldn’t know that someone through it would be great to convert the bestselling Mortal Kombat arcade game into a poorly received technopop jam fest. In addition to a song based on every MK1 character – except for mildly offensive Asian stereotype Shang Tsung and mysterious palette swap Reptile – there’s also two versions of the infamous Mortal Kombat theme song. So why shouldn’t you listen to this pseudo-game soundtrack while crusing for chicks (or dudes, whatever) in your sweet ride? One word: Kano.

When I purchased this album about 15 years ago, listening to Kano’s theme song, “Use Your Might,” inspired me to create my own Mortal Kombat spin-off game called “Kano’s Go-Kart.” Here’s how I envision the intro movie:

After loading up the game, the screen remains black. Out of nowhere, the player is aurally assaulted with “Use Your Might” from Mortal Kombat: The Album. There’s a series of jaw-shattering orchestra hits.

The garage door of his suburban home slowly slides open, revealing Kano with his hands on his hips, wearing his white MK1 uniform. To his left is a go-kart, a tiny, homemade vehicle with just enough space for an adult rider to sit in the seat and steer, albeit with his knees up his nose. The morning sun shines upon Kano and his marvelous machine.

MK1 Announcer: KANO WINS!

Kano hops into his go-kart, and with his knees in the air, speeds down his driveway at a blazing 13 miles per hour. The orchestra hits continue, accompanied by an aggressive drumbeat and a face-pounding bassline.

The wind whips over his half-metal face and through his hair. Kano speeds over the stop sign at the end of the street, reducing it to thousands of twisted metal shards. The deer that had been grazing in the nearby alcove gallop away in terror. Suddenly, Kano’s go-kart screeches to a stop. He gazes onto the unmolested expanse of a suburban Saturday morning.

A female singer, who is probably hot, chimes in: Use your might, Kano fight! The world is at your feet. Fight! Use your might! I’m on your side!

Kano cracks a feral smile and revs up his kart, blasting towards the now-endangered livelihoods of the unsuspecting residents. End intro video; cue title screen.

The object of Kano’s Go-Kart is to destroy as much of suburbia as you can. This includes running over dogs and rabbits, plowing through lawns and gardens, and chasing small children up the stairs of their homes before shredding all of their toys with your kart. There are three power ups: a spinning knife that increases your kart’s maximum speed from 13 to 16 miles per hour, a dragon icon that changes Kano into his MK3 uniform for a limited time, and a grain of rice hidden somewhere in the grass that awards the player a single point upon pickup.

If I listened to Mortal Kombat: The Album in my car, I’d be highly inspired go on a Kano-like rampage, destroying my neighbor’s light posts, mincing garden gnomes, and collecting mailboxes with my windshield. And now you would too, because I guarantee that after reading this article, you’ll think of nothing but Kano’s Go-Kart whenever you hear MK: The Album. I’m sorry that I just ruined any possibility of you ever listening to one of the best/worst video game based albums of all time while driving, but learning about Kano’s Go-Kart is a worthy tradeoff. Well, at least it was for me.

Listen to "Kano (Use Your Might)" from Mortal Kombat: The Album

Drive safely!

Les Misérables: The Fighting Game

If you ever wanted to beat up one of the characters from Les Misérables, here’s your chance.


Arm Joe, created by an amateur programmer from Japan, is a one-on-one fighting game in the same vein as Street Fighter II and King of Fighters. Based on the Les Misérables musical, the game features anime style representations of Les Mis characters like Jean Valjean, Enjolras, Marius, Cosette, Éponine, Thénardier and Javert. The physical embodiment of judgment serves as the game’s final boss.

In case you’re wondering, the name Arm Joe is a parody of the play’s Japanese title, Ah Mojou, meaning “Ah, cruelty.”

As someone who has daydreamed about a one-on-one fighting game adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and a first person, 3D version of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in just knowing that Arm Joe exists. However, the game itself has some control and balance issues: Some characters are hopelessly underpowered and others can easily win matches using a single attack over and over again. The graphics and sound are excellent, though, and overall it’s a pretty decent game. Given the fact that Arm Joe is a free download, it seems a little inappropriate to criticize it too harshly.

Arm Joe brings the characters of Les Misérables to life in a way that’s virtually impossible in any other medium. Introducing students to Arm Joe might just be the key to getting some of them interested in the novel or the musical, or it could be used as a sort of enrichment exercise after finishing Les Misérables in class.

Purists might complain that this game isn’t a faithful adaptation of the Les Misérables novel or musical – and they would be correct. Just consider Robojean, the cyborg version of Valjean who fires rockets at his opponents, and Ponpon, a bunny creature who has nothing to do with the Les Mis mythos who is inexplicably tossed in with the rest of the characters. However, a creative teacher might take the opportunity to discuss the differences and similarities between the works, as well as talking about how ideas, stories and sensibilities change as they move to new kinds of media. After all, there are some key alterations between the stage version of Les Misérables and Victor Hugo’s original novel, so changes in new adaptations of the story are to be expected.

Teachers might also use Arm Joe to help explain the concept of parody to their students, given the humorous aspects of the game in contrast to the seriousness of the musical and novel.

I hope that more game makers, both independent and commercial, will use classic novels as inspiration for future video games. Faithful game adaptations of the classics might be one of the stepping stones in using gaming to educate our students.

Download Arm Joe.

Mortal Mediocrity: MK1 on Sega CD

It's bigger... than the Genesis cartridge.

While Midway Games was programming the Sega CD version of the arcade powerhouse Mortal Kombat, the publisher, Acclaim, promised the result would be "bigger, better, louder and meaner" than any of the other home versions available. What they finally heaped on violence-starved customers was essentially the old Genesis/Mega Drive version with a CD-quality soundtrack.

Soon after making a killing in the arcades, Mortal Kombat was released on several home systems, including the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Both of these ports underwent drastic changes in the process, including audiovisual alterations and downgrades in order to compensate for both of the home systems' limitations. The result was still Mortal Kombat all right, but the Genesis version lacked the visual punch of its big brother, and the graphically-superior SNES version suffered from watered-down violence and stinted controls.

But for the arcade perfectionist, there was a light at the end of the tunnel: The much anticipated Sega CD version was supposed to remedy all the problems of the previous releases and deliver a true arcade experience.

It didn't.

Those who had waited months for the definitive home version of the bloody brawler were sorely disappointed with the final Sega CD product. Instead of emulating the superior graphics of the quarter-cruncher, or even the problematic but pretty Super Nintendo offering, the programmers had simply added a few more frames of animation to the existing Genesis game. It seems like a cheap move, and it was. But thankfully, the reinserted frames turn the stiff, "cardboard cutout" characters of the Genesis version into much more fluid and realistic fighters. Kicks and punches flow much better, and characters bob up and down instead of performing the same three frames of animation indefinitely. Moreover, Sub-zero looks like he did in the arcade, meaning he no longer has to share his fighting stance with his palette swapped rival, Scorpion, in the name of saving ROM space.

It's the same washed out, grainy screen as before.

Unfortunately, the fluid animation doesn't save the graphics from looking grainy and washed out, thanks to the Sega CD's limited color choices and the already lacking Genesis game on which MKCD is based. Johnny Cage's portrait on the character select screen, for example, is a blotchy mess. His teeth are nothing more than a white blob, where as in the arcade version, one could practically count his fillings. Most backgrounds look decent, but some are mysteriously empty (such as the Buddha temple stage). Given the abilities of the Sega CD unit, there is no reason why the graphics couldn't have at least come close to those of the arcade original, yet we're left with a half-hearted hack job that rests somewhere between the Genesis and the SNES ports.

Mercifully, the sound fares much better. The music seems to have been sampled directly from the arcade game and it sets the stage for battle nicely. Foreboding, vaguely Asian tunes compliment the game's dark themes and seedy locales. The fighters grunt and yell during battles, but a few of the screams and groans from the arcade game curiously go missing. The sounds of combat are bland and uninspired, but they get the job done: Generic punching noises accompany every successful hit and a forgettable "wooshing" noise plays whenever a character whiffs a roundhouse kick or takes to the air.

Get over here!

Although there's not much in the way of extra features in the game itself, there is some extra content on the Mortal Kombat CD that can't be found elsewhere. When they first power up the game, players are treated to a grainy video splicing gameplay footage with the old Mortal Kombat TV commercial. (Laughably, the in-game footage is all from the SNES version.) While it's not much on its own, it brings back some fond memories for those of us old enough to remember these infamous ads. Also included are extra songs tacked onto the CD after the normal game music. These tracks are remixes of the now famous Mortal Kombat theme song heard in the intro video, tracks that aren't even on the official Mortal Kombat album! Lastly, the programmers were nice (or lazy) enough to leave the original Genesis cart's "bloodless" fatalities intact in the programming, accessible via a code. While they're all rather shoddy reworkings of existing moves, when you've seen Sub-Zero tear off everyone's head at least 14 million times, it's a fun change of pace.

While the extras on this disc shine, sadly, the actual gameplay doesn't. There are only seven selectable fighters versus the ten or twelve that were common in fighting games of the early 90s, and each character has the same set of basic moves. Ironically, the same uniformity that makes this game so easy to pick up also destroys much of its replay value. What few moves you are in control of are drastically overpowered. Uppercuts send players reeling, foot sweeps can easily be used over and over again to "cheap" your way to victory, and to quote what my friend Ian used to say, "Your jump kick is like a super move." The entire game can be easily conquered with these three attacks alone. There's not much in this game to keep head-to-head fighting freaks battling each other, and even less to keep the solo player interested. Mortal Kombat is fun for a while, but like bouncing on a trampoline, you're eventually going to get a headache from the repetitiveness of it all.

Fatality!

With a six-button controller, it's easy to make the characters do pretty much whatever you want. Impressive uppercuts, deadly fireballs, and crazy flying kicks are mere button taps away. Even the fatalities are easy to perform. Due in part to the simplistic design of the original, a three-button pad works better than one might expect with this game. A pause feature, however, should have been implemented. The start button is used to block incoming attacks on both pads, giving players with the six-button controller their choice of three separate block buttons. Call me old fashioned, but three block buttons is two too many.

Some players have a problem with the loading times in between battles, but it's actually not too bad. It takes about ten seconds for a fight to load, which is about the norm for CD games of the time. And the load time for the fatalities? Milliseconds. Actually, the time in between a successful fatality input and the actual execution (excuse the pun) serves to increase the player's anticipation. Like one of the Sega CD's other fighting games, Eternal Champions, once you hear that CD drive spinning, you know that digitized death is coming your way!

With Mortal Kombat on Sega CD, gamers received a mediocre port of a lackluster game. This disc delivers a better experience than the Genesis cart, but in the same way that Bush managed to defeat Gore in the 2000 United States presidential election: Barely. Though not without its occasional charms, like uppercutting hapless victims into a spike-filled pit below or catching the opponent off guard with Scorpion's notorious spear move, Mortal Kombat on Sega CD (or in any form, for that matter) will likely leave players unimpressed. However, if one boots up this game with few expectations, they're likely to catch themselves having a bit of fun, especially with a second player to face for Mortal Kombat supremacy. The game provides a decent challenge without being too difficult, and it controls easily enough that one can pick up a game pad and, within a few moments, have a fighting chance.

The era of Mortal Kombat dominating the arcades has come and gone, and without the hype (both negative and positive) we are left with a mildly entertaining martial arts romp that's more fun as a nostalgia piece than an actual game. If you can find a copy somewhere on the cheap, pick it up and give it a whirl, especially if you've played the Genesis cart to death. (Ha! That was a pun!) It won't be the best money you ever spent, but it's likely to inspire your friends to imitate whatever it is that Rayden yells during his "superman" move.

And that, my friends, is priceless.