When Mortal Kombat was released in 1994 for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, a huge firestorm occurred. Parents were shocked to find that Johnny was playing a game full of blood. Around this time, a certain enemy to the gaming industry threatened with governmental regulations if the video game industry didn't clean up its act, leading to the eventual creation of the ESRB later that year. Nintendo, wishing to retain its family-friendly image, censored the SNES version of Mortal Kombat. The blood was coloured white, leading to wide confusion. Were the characters sweating? Less severe fatalities - which was the original focus of the outrage - were substituted. For example, Sub Zero simply froze his opponents and broke them into ice cubes. Kano simply kept his hand in the opponent's chest instead of ripping it out. Raiden zapped his opponent into a pile of ash.

The Sega Genesis version, however, had no such censorship. The only thing keeping a gamer from enabling bucketloads of blood was a simple code, which was conveniently made available by Acclaim's special hint line. For posterity, the code is:

A B A C A B B

Sales for Sega Genesis consoles rose, reflecting the demands of the gaming population. Nintendo realized their mistake and ordered an uncensored version of the game, but by then it was too late; Sega Genesis was unquestionably the superior choice for the Mortal Kombat gamer.

The game itself was fairly unremarkable, aside from the gory fatalities. The story is that there's some sort of tournament going on and your character decides to enter. The characters themselves are digitized actors with stiff movements. Characters were:

  • Goro: big four-armed guy, not playable - he was a sub-boss.
  • Raiden: 'lightning god' who zapped lightning bolts. Hours of fun can be had by infuriating the opponent with Raiden's teleportation move.
  • Sub-Zero: The only character worth playing; he had the highly annoying ability of freezing an opponent.
  • Scorpion: Pallet swap of Sub Zero; he pulls opponents toward him a la Link's Hookshot with the not-so-memorable phrase "GET OVER HERE!"
  • Sonya: Obligatory fighting game bimbo
  • Reptile: Pallet swap of Sub Zero - he was not playable in the original Mortal Kombat. Had the uncanny ability of possessing both Sub-Zero's and Scorpion's special moves. To reach him, the player had to fulfill a number of ridiculous requirements:
    • The stage had to be the pit stage
    • Shadows had to be across the moon in the background; this happened every sixth game
    • No blocking was allowed, except for certain fatalities
    • Fatalities had to be performed - both rounds
    • The player must NOT be hurt
    • One player game only - a second player could not have joined in
  • Shang Tsung: Highly annoying end-game boss, he had the uncanny ability of completely ignoring lower leg sweeps. Unfortunately, he gained his legs back in Mortal Kombat II.
  • Kano: Random criminal who just happens to be caught in the Tournament
  • Johnny Cage: Martial-arts superstar who enters the tournament for kicks.

The arcade versions went through several minor revisions - more blood, Reptile giving clues on how to find him, etc. Subject of endless MK vs Street Fighter debates.