Back in the 90's videos games didn't have much blood. I know. Sounds crazy but its true. Nowadays games are literally dripping with blood as soon as you hit the power button. But in the far more innocent 90's (hey, who's laughing?!) you were content with just beating the hell out of your twin brother Double Dragon style for some strange or hopefully watching them die at the hands of crabs or fireballs like The Mario Bros. And then one day a magical game came along and changed the...uh...game.
Mortal Kombat!
Now if you just read that an didn't shout it out loud or in your head you are either too young to appreciate it or too old to give a damn. Or dead inside. When Mortal Kombat came out everyone lost their goddamn minds. In games like Bad Dudes and Double Dragon you could punch someone until your hands fell off and there would be nary a drop of blood. In MK (that's what we cool kids called it) a small jab would result in blood loss equivalent to a massive gunshot wound. An uppercut would cause a bloodbath the likes of which haven't been seen since...a large bath full of blood. Yeah.
There were characters like Scorpion, my personal favorite, a yellow clad ninja that threw a harpoon out of his hand that only went into throats. Let me repeat that. A fucking harpoon out his hand. It never hit arms, legs, or the chest. Only the throat as he screamed "Get over here!" at the top of his lungs. Raiden, a god of thunder, who had nothing better to do than fight half dead ninja zombies and humans with bionic implants. There was also Sonja Blade. An Army trained fighter (sure...) who wrapped her thighs around your neck and flipped you.
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| Oh, did I mention that her kiss sets people on fire?! |
Whaaa...?!?!
How in the blue fuckity shit damn fart can you have a MK game with no blood? "Oh, let me play my Mario Bros. with no pipes. How about Q-Bert where jumping on blocks is disabled. NBA Jam is way better when there is no slam dunking from half court. You ain't lived till you played Frogger with the new traffic light feature!" MK with no blood was not only wrong, it was un-American. That's right, I said it. It is my patriotic right to punch four-armed unholy abortion by products of a disgusting union between a dragon and a human named Goro with blood shooting from every hole on my body. But, no. People thought it was too violent for kids. You know what was violent for kids? My goddamn rampage when Dante cant make things bleed on Sega when he wants!
But Sega had an answer. A, B, A, C, A, B, B when entered at the title screen caused the writing to turn red thus enabling blood. Yes! Next thing you know my balls dropped, I got a pube, my voice changed, and girls started making my pants tighter when they passed. In all fairness ice cream had the same effect. I was a fat child. Don't judge me.
Every game has blood now. If Bubble Bobble was new today you can bet your sweet Aunt Pearl that those dragons would be shitting knives and blowing hellfire. But in the 90's, Mortal Kombat was a rare game in that it allowed kids the chance to live out our fantasies of grabbing a grown man by the neck and ripping his head off while his spine stayed attached and we held it up in victory.
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| If you insist! |
Why did we kill him? Because that voice told us to finish him, asshole! Didn't you hear "Finish Him!"? Because I sure as hell did. Hey, if we went around ignoring voices in our heads Son Of Sam would just be that weird guy that ignored his neighbors dog, Randy Orton's theme would be silly, and The Arc would have never been built. So when booming voices tell me to finish someone they don't want me to sweep the leg or judo chop their neck. They want me to freeze them solid and punch them in half sending little pieces of man-meat everywhere. And I am more than happy to oblige.
4 comments:
That was fun to read! I rarely played MK because there was always a crowd of people waiting for their turns at every house. It was cool to watch characters beat the heck out of each other while everyone else in the room would be whipped into a screaming and jumping frenzy. And to this day, I use "Finish him!" any time someone is about to defeat another, even if the kids are playing Candy Land.
I shout "Finish Him!" and "You Lose!" from Street Fighter 2. Those games had so much nonsense to shout at others. Screaming during Candy Land though...?
Fatality!
Subzero rules.
Whatever, dude. He was a broke ass Scorpion. Scorpion rules so hard. What does Sub-Zero scream? Oh, I know. "Okay, sir..." when Scorpion shouts "Come here!!!"
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