23 years ago, one of the most influential and controversial fighting games hit the shelves - Mortal Kombat (1992) for the SNES immediately spawned numerous complaints from parents, uncles or grandmas alike for it's brutal and realistic gory moves - such as removing an opponent's head or blasting them into a pile of bones.
It wasn't much different with the newest game of the series, which received an enormous wave of criticism with considerable force at it's release.
It's not an unknown occurrence: Developer NetherRealm Studios releases a new title of the Mortal Kombat franchise - and parents and other more sensitive people start creating and signing petitions, participating in plots to boycott the game's sales and all other kinds of shenaingans to express their distaste for the game's extremey gory fights.
It's important to note that, back in 1992, the criticism and complaints about the game's gore were one of the main reasons for the creation of the ESRB, PEGI and CERO rating systems for games, which are still used to this day.
Now, let's be honest: What's really happening here is that parents are leaning themselves on censorhip or even complete omission of certain contents from the main media vehicles, such as television, or in this case, games instead of doing their part as parents and educating their kids on what's right or what's wrong. It really bugs me how people want to use kids as the main argument for censoring a rated M for Mature (17+) game, really. Unfortunately, if parents can't control what kind of content reaches their children - it's not the developers job to do so. But, with graphical technologies rapidly increasing with the newest generation gaming systems, another question pops up: Has Mortal Kombat gone too far?
Fatalities are to Mortal Kombat what Hadokens are to Street Fighter - a recognizable and unique aspect of the core gameplay that represents the game in it's full glory. With even more detailed gaphics, it isn't hard to let out an "urgh" or cringe at some of the fatalities included in the newest title of the franchise.
Gone are the days where the goriest fatality was just blowing your opponent into a pile of (femurs) bones. Nowadays, each fatality is a little surprise: Tear the opponent's skin off with your bare hands, or split their head in half with a spinning hat. (Yeah, i'm looking at you, Kung Lao.)
For instance, check Johnny and Sonya's offspring, Cassie Cage, 2nd fatality:
The amount of deatils is really jarring, but that's to be expected, after all - why would a company downgrade the graphics of one of the most memorable characteristics of their whole fighting game franchise? Mortal Kombat was always an over-the-top, gory fighting game, and that's what it will always be.
At the end of the day, parents really shouldn't waste their time creating petitions or posting angry rants on their Facebook wall, what they should really be doing is educating their childs on what is right or what is wrong, and, if they don't want such content reaching their kids, pay attention to what websites they are visiting or what YouTube channels they follow. It's not the developer's job to educate anyone else's children.
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