Looking Back On MK; Part 4: Mortal Kombat 4 & MK Gold

When Mortal Kombat 4 came out, I was still in primary school, but I didn’t get to play it until I was seventeen. I had seen the ads for it back when it was coming out, but everything moved too fast for me to know what was going on.

I can remember being in primary school and my friend who rented the game said it was now in 3d. I wasn’t sure if that meant the characters were now polygon models or if you had 360 degrees of movement. Turns out he meant both.

Looking Back On MK; Part 3: Mortal Kombat 3, UMK3, MK:T

Mortal Kombat 3 came out right as I was first discovering Mortal Kombat. It would be a year or two before I finally played it, so for much of my childhood, it was no more than an exciting myth. The world wasn’t so small back then.

I can still remember my first real exposure to MK3. Family friends of mine had it, but we saw them maybe once a year, if that. Their dad got the codes faxed to him from the Nintendo Hotline, I remember thinking that was so cool.

Looking Back On MK; Part 2: Mortal Kombat II

Once Super Nintendo began to consume my childhood, and I started obsessing over Mortal Kombat; I eventually caught wind of the sequel. I was about 7 at the time if I remember correctly. My mum surprised me with Mortal Kombat II that year, trading The Flintstones: The Treasure Of Sierra Madrock (the second game we ever owned) for it.

This was my first experience with one of the games that changed my life.

Looking Back On MK; Part 1: Mortal Kombat

My first exposure to the Mortal Kombat series was the Super Nintendo port of the first game. I can still remember the very first time I played it. My cousin and I were at my neighbor’s house one night while the grown-ups were partying or something. We were about 5. My neighbor showed me how to throw a fireball with Liu Kang and I was off.

40-something rounds later, I was a life-long fan. The first thing I did the next day was go back to my neighbor’s and play it again. At this point, Mortal Kombat 3 had just been released, and the live action film was to be released only a few short months later. I flipped.