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New Mortal Kombat bloodier than ever
By Tom Lane
(CNN) -- Mortal Kombat, one of the first video games to popularize the use of blood and guts to entice its audience, is back with a new version that is bloodier than ever. Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance has fighters whose wounds bleed long after injuries are inflicted and blood is a constant companion. This makes for a very messy battleground at the end of the fight, but allows for interesting effects, such as combatants leaving bloody footprints on the ground. The game also presents a plethora of ways of finishing an opponent: beheadings, ripping skeletons out of bodies or soul stealing. Midway is banking on its latest version of Kombat to cash in on millions of dollars in video game sales this holiday season. The game is expected to join a long list of hot sellers aimed at adults, who make up half of all gamers, according to the Interactive Digital Software Association. Turning the tideIn an industry where a single game can turn the tide -- just ask Take-Two Interactive Software, which saw its value more than triple in a year thanks to Grand Theft Auto 3 -- Midway is relying on its flagship Mortal Kombat franchise to replace blood red ink with black. The company has taken a beating, falling from almost $25 per share in late 1999 to teetering around $5 for the second half of 2002. Syndicated video games columnist Marc Saltzman said video games reflect the reality of the marketplace: sex and violence sells. "Keep in mind those who played Pac-Man and Space Invaders in the late '70s and early '80s are now into their 30s and having kids of their own," he said. "Video games are a form of entertainment -- so it makes sense to have content that's appropriate/appealing to different audiences." Tracing the bloodshedTo a large degree, blood defines the Mortal Kombat series. The original is famous for popularizing mature content in video games when it came out in 1992. A slew of similar games quickly flooded the market, but Mortal Kombat remained the 800-pound gorilla of mature software in the console market. Still, programmer Ed Boon, who helped create the first Mortal Kombat, downplayed the violence in the game. "The fact that it is targeted towards older players has a lot less to do with its success than the fact that there is a great story, state-of-the-art graphics, and a fun play mechanic for players to learn," he said. It's been four years since the last version of Mortal Kombat was released. Midway, the company that produces the game, was shifting its focus from building arcade machines to creating home video games and researching ways to make their games more exciting, Boon said. Mastering deadly movesThe fifth version of the game, expected to be released Friday, puts players in a 3-D universe with an army of fighters, each with an arsenal of deadly moves to master. "What separates it from other games is the completely new fighting mechanic which gives each character three individual fighting styles that he can switch into during the battle," Boon said. Deadly Alliance introduces a reward system called "kombat kurrency." Players earn coins for overcoming challenges and use them to unlock hidden secrets such as new fighters, hidden arenas, and artwork. The game is available for Playstation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube consoles.
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