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International Arcade Museum® — Killer List of Videogames®


Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat - Japanese Logo - Katakana / Kanji

Mortal Kombat - Cabinet - Video Game Marquee

Description

A player versus opponent fighting game with digitized character and background graphics. The game was quite controversial when it was released due to the amount of blood and gore it showed during competition. This title also started the infamous "Fatality" trend where the player could perform a special combination of joystick moves and button presses that would violently kill an opponent at the end of a match.

Mortal Kombat was produced by Midway Games in 1992.

Midway Games released 53 machines in our database under this trade name, starting in 1972. Midway Games was based in United States.

Other machines made by Midway Games during the time period Mortal Kombat was produced include: Double Cheese, Super High Impact, Total Carnage, Atlantis, Golf Champ, Judge Dredd, NBA Jam Tournament Edition, NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat II, and Killer Instinct

Specs

Name Mortal Kombat
Developer Midway Games (United States)
Year 1992
Type Videogame
KLOV/MOG # 8753
Class Wide Release
Genre Fighting
Monitor
  • Orientation: Horizontal
Conversion Class JAMMA
Game Specific Mortal Kombat Pinout
Dipswitch Settings

Mortal Kombat Dipswitch Settings (user contributed)

# Simultaneous Players 2
# Maximum Players 2
Game Play Competitive
Control Panel Layout Multiple Player
Controls
  • Joystick: 8-way
  • Buttons: 5 - High PunchLow PunchBlockHigh KickLow Kick
Sound Amplified Mono (one channel)
Cabinet Styles
  • Upright/Standard
Instructions Mortal Kombat Instructions Image
Control Panel Mortal Kombat Control Panel Image
Side Art Mortal Kombat Side Art Image
PCB Mortal Kombat PCB Image

Game Introduction

Players choose one of the following fighters: Johnny Cage, Lui Kang, Sonya Blade, Kano, Raiden, Sub Zero, or Scorpion. They fight in a random realm against a human player or the computer. Another human player may jump into a player's game during competition against the computer.

Use a series of special moves, including projectiles, to defeat your opponent twice in three rounds of fighting. After defeating your opponent, the fight emcee announces "Finish Him" and you have a couple of seconds to perform a special sequence of joystick positions and button combinations to have your character perform a fatality. Story lines are given for beating Shang Tsung.

Game Play

Fight one-on-one against other opponents up a tournament ladder until you reach the sub-boss, a four-armed mutant named Goro. After defeating him you go onto fight the boss, Shang Tsung.

Every character has a different story line and ending to tell why they got involved in the Mortal Kombat tournament.

This game is similar to Street Fighter II' - Champion Edition with blood and gore.
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There are several bonus stages:
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- Wood 100000 points. It appears when you win 3 fights
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- Stone 200000 points. It appears when you win 6 fights and you've passed the 1st bonus stage.
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- Steel 500000 points. It appears when you win 9 fights and you've passed the 2nd bonus stage.
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- Ruby 1 million points. This appears when you win 12 fights and you've passed the 3rd bonus stage. You must play at least once against another player.
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Simultaneously press the kick and punch buttons to fill the bar faster.

Mortal Kombat KLOV/IAM 5 Point User Score: 4.31 (17 votes)

Fun Factor: 4.36

Overall Like 4.44
Fun (Social) 4.50
Fun (Solo) 4.13
Collector Desire 4.31

Technical Rating: 4.45

Gameplay 4.63
Graphics 4.47
Originality 4.75
Sound/Music 4.31

Personal Impressions and Technical Impressions each account for half of the total score. Within the Personal Impressions category, Like carries a little more weight than the other factors.

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Cheats, Tricks, Bugs, and Easter Eggs

On the fourth stage, The Pit, look at the moon. If there are shadows flying in front of the moon you can fight Reptile. When the shadows are in front of the moon, you must get a doubleflawless victory two perfects and do the Fatality without EMeverEM hitting block. If you beat Reptile, you will be awarded 10,000,000 points Note Reptile only appears in versions 3.0 and 4.0 and can only be fought when playing as either Sonya or Scorpion in version 4.0. His name shows as Scorpion but he wears green and can do both Scorpions spear special move or SubZeros freeze move. He is also extremely difficult to beat.

Images

Trivia

During the fighting scenes that take place on the stone platform above the field of sharp spikes, if you look closely at the glowing moon in the background, you will sometimes see a silhouette fly past it. These shadows will either be Peter Pan and the Darling children, a witch on broomstick, a kite, a blimp, a rocket, a flying saucer, or Santa Claus in his reindeerpulled sleigh. The shadows appear about every six games.

Cabinet Information

The cabinet houses a 25inch monitor and uses a black, red and gold color scheme. The side art shows Daniel Pesina as Johnny Cage doing a jumping kick.

Conversion

The dedicated cabinets are a favorite conversion for IMortal Kombat III, IMortal Kombat 3I or any other IMortal KombatI series game since most of these use a similar control panel layout.

VAPS Arcade/Coin-Op Mortal Kombat Census

There are 15,165 members of the Video Arcade Preservation Society / Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, 9,628 whom participate in our arcade census project of games owned, wanted, or for sale. Census data currently includes 166,321 machines (6,975 unique titles).

Very Common - There are 545 known instances of this machine owned by Mortal Kombat collectors who are active members. Of these, 186 of them are original dedicated machines. 62 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet. 296 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.

For Sale - There are 12 active VAPS members with a Mortal Kombat machines for sale. There are 21 active VAPS members with a Mortal Kombat circuit boards for sale.

Wanted - Popular - There are 17 active VAPS members currently looking for Mortal Kombat. There are 4 active VAPS members looking for Mortal Kombat boards sets.

This game ranks a 85 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census ownership records.

This game ranks a 32 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most often seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on census want list records.

Rarity and Popularity independently are not necessarily indications of value. [More Information]

Flyers

Technical

Uses DIP switches or the test mode to set game options. Within the test mode you can review the games statisics. Some board sets use Midways TUnit architecture which is also used on games like INBA JamI.

Legacy

  1. Mortal Kombat
  2. Mortal Kombat II
  3. Mortal Kombat 3
  4. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
  5. Mortal Kombat 4

Manuals

Foto-Finder® (Books)

  1. The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: C2; Color photo Price guide: No
  2. The Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 214; Color photo Price guide: No
  3. Encyclopedia of Arcade Video Games Kurtz (ISBN 0764319256) Page: 214; Color photo

Additional References (logged in members often see more)

  1. 3D Model (External): Upright (alternate) (ac9195431598e3aa322c6476cf66bba6)
  2. 3D Model (External): Dedicated (3291f82790361bdd06e6be4f8954ac)

Arcade Map - Play This Game

Our members have reported that Mortal Kombat is playable at 1 locations:

Name Location State Country Details Check-ins
Greta Bar 213 10 Ave SW, Calgary Alberta Canada Arcade 2

eBay Listings

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TOP WATCHED LISTINGS FOR: Mortal Kombat

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Arcade1Up Mortal Kombat Home Arcade 1UP Video Game Machine - MKBA303720

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Mortal Kombat Arcade Marquee Original !

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Arcade1Up Mortal Kombat Home Arcade 1UP Video Game Machine - MKBA303720

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Mortal Kombat 2 Arcade Marquee High Quality Translite Backlit MK2

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Arcade 1up Mortal Kombat ll Collector Cade LCD Monitor DS3052022

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MORTAL KOMBAT LOGO-Midway APPROXIMATELY 2" STICKER-L@@K!

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Mortal Kombat 1,2,3 Original Arcade Marquee's Combo Pack

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Auction Results

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Auctions Recap

Year Count Median $ Average $
2015 1 115.00 115.00
2016 1 345.00 345.00
2017 1 177.00 177.00
2018 5 826.00 1,003.00
All Years 8 585.50 706.50

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