6. Mortal Kombat: Deception’s Online Gameplay Was Predicted Eight Years Prior, In A Movie.
In a 1996 movie called Spy Hard, the film’s antagonist General Rancor, played by Andy Griffith, delivers a speech to leading man Leslie Nielsen’s character Dick Steele about what he feels is the future of the Internet.
“What’s left of you will have to watch helplessly while I play Mortal Kombat with the entire world!”
Eight years later, Mortal Kombat: Deception was released, the first MK game to feature fully-functional online gameplay.
Additional Fun Fact: Popular stages Dead Pool, Living Forest and the Pit were brought back to the franchise following fan complaints regarding their removal from previous games.
7. An Attorney Attempted To Halt Sales Of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon Over Kreate-A-Fighter
In October 2006, attorney Jack Thompson, clearly not possessing enough collective ammunition against his chosen profession, sent a Cease-and-Desist letter to Midway ordering them to stop selling Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.
His big issue? He apparently felt that Midway was illegally using his likeness in Armageddon’s Kreate-A-Fighter mode because players could allegedly create characters that looked like him.
As can be expected, he was disbarred well before his case could make it to a trial.
Additional Fun Fact: Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is, as of this writing, the last game released on a major Nintendo console, not counting Ultimate Mortal Kombat on the DS.
There are currently no plans for any future MK games to be released on Wii-U or future consoles.
8. Mortal Kombat Trilogy Contains One Of The Most Elusive Cheat Codes In Franchise History
Upon reaching the Game Over screen of a single player session on the N64 version of Mortal Kombat Trilogy, players could input an “Ultimate Kombat Kode” to unlock various things in the game, among them bonus characters “Human Smoke” and “Khameleon” for use in normal play.
While the game was released in 1996, the code combination to unlock both fighters remained undocumented and undiscovered until 2007 when it was posted by a user named Proto K on a ROM hacking forum board.
After inputting the code 113-840, the words “FROM THIS POINT ON…. SMOKE AND KHAMELEON ARE AT YOUR CONTROL” flash on the screen and both kombatants are available for use. While both fighters could be unlocked through other cheats, this Ultimate Kombat Kode, taking 11 years to uncover, is one of the most elusive cheats in the history of the MK franchise.
Additional Fun Fact: While Mortal Kombat Trilogy is the penultimate version of Mortal Kombat 3, and the one that offers the most content, the game hasn’t been re-released on any modern consoles, with Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 representing the final version of the game instead.
9. Mortal Kombat: Special Forces Nearly Killed The Franchise
As we documented earlier, the MK franchise experienced a streak of mediocrity that nearly ended the series for good. In the midst of all of this disappointment one of the series co-creators, John Tobias, actually resigned right in the middle of production on Mortal Kombat: Special Forces.
Special Forces represents the lowest point in franchise history and is widely considered the absolute worst game in the entire series. The game was rushed to completion following Tobias’ departure and was such a dismal sales failure that it led to Midway’s decision to place the series on a two-year hiatus until the completion of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.
Additional Fun Fact: This was the second MK game to be made as a platformer as opposed to a traditional fighting game, following Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero. Tobias intended to create a series of games of this style, including ones centered on Baraka and Shaolin monks Liu Kang and Kung Lao. Of these, only the Shaolin monks game actually came to fruition in 2007 after sitting on a dusty idea shelf for years.
10. Capcom Created An Entire Ad Campaign For Street Fighter II To Counter Mortal Kombat’s Release
It’s no secret that back in the day, Street Fighter II was the undisputed king of arcade fighters. That is, until Mortal Kombat was released.
Following the release of MK and its beautiful blood-spattering, spine-ripping, heart-extracting goodness, Capcom felt so threatened by the game’s presence that they created an entire ad campaign designed to prove to gamers that SFII was the superior fighting game. Check it out below:
Additional Fun Fact: There were actually discussions held that would have seen the original Mortal Kombat ported to the much-overlooked Turbo Grafx 16 console but NEC, the out-of-touch developers behind the system, declined on the grounds that “gamers were tired of fighting games”.
