The History of Mortal Kombat 3 - Arcade Console documentary

happy little games the mortal kombat franchise if you've never heard of such a thing you must have been living in a galaxy far far away because not only has it permeated our culture but it also played pretty darn well to boot they have reduced cartoons comic books action figures two movies with a third one due to be released in 2011 and of course all those wonderful video games the series has been going strong for the last 30 years which included a few hiccups and bumps along the way but thankfully those have been ironed out with the latest game being another excellent entry into the series i've already done a history of mortal kombat 1 and mortal kombat 2. so today we are delving into mortal kombat 3. this game added a lot of new features and characters and even spawned an update which put new characters in the game why did the majority of the actors from the first two games not return to help produce this one so get over here and let's discuss the history of mortal kombat 3. the year is 1994 and ed boone and john tobias are riding high from their groundbreaking smash hit mortal kombat 2. they didn't have time to bask in all of his glory though as they immediately started work on mortal kombat 3. the third game in the series was designed from the ground up to be the biggest mortal kombat game yet with more secrets fatalities and moves due to the various lawsuits from some of the actors on the first two games and also daniel pozzina's involvement with the rival fighting game bloodstorm some of the characters are played by different people the cast of wacky characters include jax kano kung lao lou kang who is now played by eddie wong shang tsung who is now played by john turk sonia who is now played by kerry hoskins who would go on to star in revolution x and also be a cheerleader in nba jam sub zero who is now played by john turk cyrax cabal nightwolf sector shiva sindel and curtis striker this was at the time the biggest roster in the mortal kombat series not only was the rouster upgraded but the equipment and software used to film and digitize the actors were as well which produced much cleaner visuals in both the sprites and the close-up versus screens never once to rest on their laurels they decided to go ahead and innovate the controls by adding a run button along with a run meter which allows your player to run for a short period of time there was controversy regarding this feature because some players felt it disrupted the standard play mechanics personally i was never a fan of it either they also expanded upon the standard juggling combos by adding chain combos or otherwise known as dialect combos which makes it a little bit easier for newer players another new addition was the ultimate combat code which was a six digit number that was entered on the versus screen inputting the correct code will give you extras such as a run gauge never depleting the winner of the round will play galaga speaking of galaga can we finally put to rest that this is not galaga that you are playing i've seen it reported time and time again that this mini-game is called galaga when it most clearly is not this looks like something one of my inbred cousins from missouri cooked up instead the health bars are not displayed both players will take double the damage etc after the single player game was over if you entered the correct 10-digit combat code smoke would become a permanent playable character if the arcade operator didn't like the cut of his jib he could always go in and reset this in the dip switch settings noob cybot is also a hidden character but he is no longer a pilot swap of scorpion since there are no ninjas in the game his model is actually canal but completely blacked out you cannot select him but in ultimate mortal kombat 3 he was made playable also new to this game instead of performing a fatality you can perform a mercy move which will give your opponent a sliver of life the other brand new feature which was brought on as a result of the more popular rumor of sub-zero transforming into a polar bear in mortal kombat 2 are the animalities which allow your character to turn into an animal and maul your opponent like a piece of steak similar to my wife at a vegas buffet some stages are now multi-tiered and you can uppercut your opponent through the ceiling up onto the top level since this game introduces robots and other various characters three colors of blood were used for the first time red for the humans black or i guess it could be oil for the robots and shiva and motoro had green the names of the characters were not decided upon until late in development sector and cyrax were nicknamed ketchup and mustard sindel was nicknamed the bride and cabal was sandman which is a reference to us looking like a tuscan raider from star wars this is also the first game to offer user selectable difficulty at the beginning of each game despite how the first two games used ultra realistic violence this game is almost a parody of itself don't get me wrong there is still plenty of head smashing and body thrashing to be found but it's just a lot more cartoony for some reason i always thought it was pushback from midway or even from the ratings board so i reached out to both ed boon and john tobias regarding this issue but they declined to comment for example when you do a fatality it's not unusual to see three rib cages 29 bones and two skulls come out of one body which just happens to look like a department store mannequin for a series that takes itself so seriously it's a bit strange when you see this also there are times when you do a fatality on your opponent that their body doesn't even fall over it stays standing up which makes absolutely no sense that's not to say that mortal kombat 2 didn't have fatalities where the bodies didn't fall over they just look a tad bit goofy in this one it appears the programmers or animators just got lazy mortal kombat 3 was unveiled to the public in 1995. as the story goes shao khan somehow survives the events of mortal kombat 2 and has shang tsung bring his former queen back from the dead she cannot be revived in outworld but only in the earth realm shao khan reaches across dimensions to reclaim his bride but due to this earth realm becomes a part of outworld stripping billions of people of their souls raiden protects a few of the brave fighters but cannot cross over to join the fight they have to fight the minions and stop shao khan for good you have your choice of 15 different fighters with a few notable exceptions particularly all of the ninjas especially one of the most popular ones which was scorpion johnny cage is also missing due to the absence of daniel pozzina although there is a tombstone in the graveyard with his name on it as you notice sub-zero does not wear his mask rumor has it that the character had his mask removed to show the audience that a different actor was indeed playing the character daniel pozzina not only played johnny cage but he also played all the ninjas in the games as well another favorite character that is missing is raiden who was played by carlos pozzina river has it this was a penalty for his involvement in the rival fighting game tattoo assassins which coincidentally enough never even got released however the game has been emulated on maim so go over and check it out and you'll find out for yourself why the game was never released upon starting up the game you have three separate difficulty levels and thankfully it doesn't get too hard too quick once you reach the sub boss motaro another character similar to goro and finally shao khan the difficulty goes through the roof while xiao khan is kicking the tar out of you he continuously runs his mouth reminding me of my 12 year old daughter it's not impossible to beat these dastardly villains but they are a bit cheap in my opinion buried in the arcade code are unused wind pose sprites for mortar so it's possible he was going to be a playable character but then the developers changed their minds the five button controls are essentially the same as the first two games with the exception of the added run button the run button does allow faster gameplay and also offers a more offensive style for those of you who are not familiar with the controls the five button layout includes high punch low punch high kick low kick and block with each button corresponding to that particular action the reason the block button was added instead of pushing away from your opponent as in street fighter 2 is that the developers felt just because you are backing away doesn't mean you are necessarily blocking this also differentiated it from the aforementioned franchise the dialect combos work good and it's possible to string some double-digit combos thanks to this it really helped along brand new players but seasoned veterans of the first two games didn't really care for it since this game now takes place in a post-apocalyptic era all of the asian stylings are gone including the music instead of temples and various other locales you fight in a major city the entire list of stages include a subway city street bank rooftop balcony bridge soul chamber shao khan's tower the temple the graveyard and the pit there are now three stage fatalities you can perform and the pit does make a return only this time instead of spikes or concrete at the bottom there are a series of rotating blades my personal favorite is the subway station where you can knock your opponent onto the tracks right in front of a moving subway train your opponent becomes as flat as my high school girlfriend's chest now how about those wonderful fatalities everyone still has two along with a friendship and bay valley as i mentioned fatalities are not quite as realistic as in the previous two games but some being downright goofy for example lou kang will drop a mortal combat machine onto your opponent eagle-eyed viewers will notice they removed johnny cage from the side of the machine i would assume this has to do with the lawsuit dana posina filed against the company sector will take a trash compactor and squish his opponent cindell will spin you right round baby right round until you explode and die some of the friendships are pretty unique with striker having one of my favorites in which he becomes a crossing guard and all of the characters will cross in front of him the animalities look really cool with striker becoming a dinosaur cyrax becoming a shark kung lao becoming a leopard and sub zero finally becoming a polar bear even dan forden gets the graphical and audio update by yelling out his trademark phrase also when your opponent is in danger mode and you freeze them dead will pop up and yell frosty [Music] so how does it play well is typical mortal kombat with the graphics and sounds looking phenomenal especially at that time the controls are nice and responsive with plenty of variety to choose from as far as the roster goes but something to me just feels off according to johnny cage actor daniel bessina during production of the first two games he had a hand in developing moves for each of the characters in the game perhaps this is what's missing in the game perhaps just the more modern locales but i must not know my butt from a hole in the ground because this game was another massive hit for midway a number of home conversions were produced as per usual i will cover them at the end of the video along with all of my queefy commentary it wasn't all rainbows and lollipops though there were a number of complaints myself included that a lot of the original characters from the first two games were not included such as scorpion reptile and molina but plans were already in place to rectify the situation approximately six months later ultimate mortal kombat 3 was released into the arcades this is a stand-alone update to the original mortal kombat 3 and features multiple new characters more moves a more balanced gameplay system and more secrets a new gameplay mode is added which is the two on two battle and is similar to the endurance battle from the first mortal kombat game an 8-man tournament mode was added as well and for all you hardcore expert mortal kombat players an extra master difficulty option is included the already cheap ai has been kicked up a notch in this version so that you have something else to contend with something else that is new with shao khan's lost treasures these are selectable prizes available after the single-player game is beaten or the eight-man tournament is completed you are given the option of choosing one item from the list of 12 icons which unlock certain things depending on the difficulty selected for example you could unlock your character's ending yes that's right it's no longer a freebie you kids if you want to see your characters ending you now have to choose it from the treasure trove battle irmak demonstration of all the finishers in the game etc um a number of returning characters were featured in this game such as scorpion reptile jade and katana molina ermac and classic sub-zero are also unlockable via the ultimate combat code you can also unlock smoke's human form as well noob saibot also makes his appearance but this time he is a pilot swap of the ninjas instead of kano rain is also another hidden character you can fight new stages were also included such as scorpion's lair which also includes a new stage fatality jade's desert the waterfront noob cybots dorphin khan's cave and the blue portal if you are lucky enough to frequent one of midway's arcade testing sites in either san francisco or chicago it's possible you may have tried out the wavenet version of this game this would allow online multiplayer matches via the use of a dedicated t1 line one of the reasons it was never adopted nationally is because each arcade operator would need to spend several thousand dollars just for the dedicated high speed line similar to the original mortal kombat 3 this was released in a variety of platforms with a lot of the content removed on the 16-bit version such as animalities you do have the option of playing as motaro and xiao khan so there is that of the 16-bit versions the super nintendo is the best since it was never released for the playstation 1 the sega saturn version gets the top spot on the next generation hardware as long as you don't mind waiting an hour for shang tsung to morph later on it was released on xbox live nintendo ds which is a really good version game boy advance which is absolutely abysmal ios and is a part of the mortal kombat arcade collection compilation it's also available in the arcade one of standalone unit alongside mortal kombat 1 and mortal kombat 2. since mortal kombat 4 was still at least a year away midway decided to release mortal kombat trilogy initially for the original playstation and then versions would follow for the nintendo 64 sega saturn pc rzone and game.com if you thought the animators and programmers got lazy on certain fatalities in mortal kombat 3 then you haven't seen anything yet the playstation version has a roster of 37 with all of the characters from the previous four games running on the ultimate mortal kombat 3 engine johnny cage makes his reappearance based off of his mortal kombat 2 character but this time he is played by a different actor even the bosses are playable this time around almost all the characters received one or two new moves but they had to use existing frames of animation so the programmers wouldn't have to go back and animate new ones for example sub-zero has his spine grip fatality from the first game but is completely censored the screen goes black and says fatality showing absolutely nothing they couldn't even be bothered to reanimate that one classic move for this game johnny cage does have all of his previous moves except for the growing punch because there were no animations available for it a new addition to this game is the brutality finishing move which first showed up in the super nintendo and genesis versions of ultimate mortal kombat 3. if you combine a long enough combo it will continue on until you essentially attack the person enough that they explode another addition is the aggressor meter which constantly fills the more successful hits you land and the more attacks that are blocked once it is filled your character will gain a short burst of speed and your hits will do more damage some characters have alternate versions of themselves such as sub-zero in his mast and unmasked form kung lao and his mortal kombat 2 attire and more there is also a new secret character by the name of chameleon aside from a few stages that were featured in the original mortal kombat every other locale from the previous games are available to fight in the game plays pretty good and it is fun if you are a mortal combat aficionado but some of the shortcuts they took are a bit disheartening i can recall being very excited to get this back in the day but was also very disappointed after playing it for only a short while now i would be a bit of a douche if i didn't give honorable mention to the r zone version for those of you lucky enough to have bought a nintendo virtua boy in all of its two color red and black glory but thought slow down there big fella this is way too much power for me then this was the system for you the portable system came with one controller and a head mounted display which uses a flip down transparent lens over your left eye it tries its best to be vr on a budget but it ends up being a turd on a popsicle stick not only will you look like a [ __ ] while you're wearing it but you will feel like one after playing any of the available games now imagine all those wonderful tiger handheld games and the beautiful animation and playability they brought to each and every unit sold but only this time strapped three inches from one eyeball mortal kombat trilogy played as well as any of these other handheld games which is to say not very well at all the system has not been emulated so the only way i can show you this game in action is the commercial and even then there's really not that much meat on the bone tiger did release a dedicated handheld version of the game but the less said about that the better the home versions of mortal kombat 3 rolled out in the fall of 1995. let's start our trip down memory lane by taking a look at the fantastic game boy version while mortal kombat 1 and 2 were decent attempts on the game boy this one takes about 9 steps backwards the roster has been cut nearly in half with only nine playable characters in each one usually only having one special move the combos have also been removed along with a lot of the other secret content from the arcade game if you are expecting blood in this game then you are going to be horribly disappointed because it has not been included the sprites of the characters are large and fill the screen quite nicely but they are animated horribly the music is virtually non-existent but with the game boy hardware perhaps that's a good thing the controls are very stiff taking away any sort of enjoyment one may be looking to achieve you also only get two buttons to perform all those wonderful moves speaking of stiff unresponsive controls let's take a look at the game gear version this was released only in europe and is based off of the game boy version featuring another stripped-down roster and missing a lot of the content for the first time in the history of video games i have finally found one with a stuttering problem while playing this game i thought i was watching the zapruder film with how shaky everything was once again in still shots it looks decent with a nice use of color and fairly detailed sprites but the animation and scrolling really lets it down we do get a few nice droplets of blood here and there so there is that the music is used sparingly and i think in the two and a half years i've been doing these videos i have finally found a portable game that features farts and queefs for the sound effects while previous mortal kombat games on the system had somewhat decent controls that is not the case here with stiff movements and laggy input there is one hidden character and that is noob cybot the fun factor is just not there and believe it or not it's more of a chore than listening to my wife ramble on about her day [Music] let's stick with the sega line and look at the sega master system version the sprites are not as large as a game gear port so you would think that would help the animation and scrolling issues that plagued the other portable versions unfortunately it still runs at about 2 frames per second but at least appears to be a little bit smoother than the game gear i wouldn't classify the sound effects as queefy bad but they aren't necessarily good either we do get some ear bleeding music while we attempt to play this thing though the controls are still stiff and reminded me of the game gear version there's really not much else i can say except this version is not very good [Music] moving on up to the 16-bit versions we have the super nintendo port while mortal kombat 2 did a fantastic job of squeezing pretty much everything in from the arcade game this version does not first off let's look at the graphics the sprites have been given the good old shrinky dink effect and are roughly half the size that there were in the arcade original as long as the scrolling and animation are smooth i'm okay with it and thankfully they did a good job with this size doesn't matter which is what i've always heard from my ex-girlfriends so while short in stature the sprites are detailed with plenty of color to boot the sound effects are really good with most of the voices and boom crunching hits making the cut the playability is good and replicates the original arcade controls very well some of the stages did not make the transition including the graveyard which was shown in early promo shots there are three different cheap menus available which will allow you to select botaro and shao khan after three 16-bit mortal kombat games on the super nintendo the programmers finally figured out a way for the player to pause the game which can be enabled in the cheat menu overall this is a good little conversion just not quite on par with the aforementioned mortal kombat 2 on the system moving right along is the sega genesis version which appears to be based on the super nintendo except not quite as polished the sprites are roughly the same size as the super nintendo although the colors are extremely washed out and the details are very grainy the backgrounds have that same washed out look and don't look very good to be honest the genesis tries its best to replicate the bone crunching sound effects and voices but it sounds like the announcer has been walking in the desert for five days with neri a drink of water the controls are nice and tight and are reminiscent of the arcade with all of the combos and fatalities included motoro and xiaokon are also available to select you do get similar cheat options as found on the super nintendo although apparently the genesis is not quite powerful enough to allow you to pause the game since there's nowhere to be found i found the gameplay to be similar on both 16-bit versions although some people prefer the six button pad found on the genesis [Music] the playstation version is one of the better conversions on the market but unfortunately it's not quite arcade perfect the sprites are large and in charge with plenty of detail and colors most of the sound effects made it over except shao khan no longer announces what round you are fighting in they do sound really good with plenty of bone snapping crunches the music although a bit on the mild side does sound good and is a pretty faithful representation of the arcade original the controls are very responsive and the playstation pad works pretty well although a standard fighting stick would be better all of the content from the arcade game has been included but since this is early cd based technology there are some loading issues especially when shang tsung morphs overall really good but not quite the best one available [Music] sonja wins fatality the ms-dos version is up next and similar to previous midway conversions for the platform it is really well done and extremely close to being arcade perfect everything has made the transition from the arcade including all of the characters secrets and everything in between the graphics looked pretty close to their arcade counterpart with nice smooth animation the sound effects of music are fantastic with all the voices included the controls are top-notch and play exactly like the arcade games they have also added network play into this version cheap menus have also been added which will allow you to enable smoke as a hidden character and also a level select among others since you are installing this on the hard drive there are no load times when morphing with shang sum that right there puts it leaps and bounds above the playstation version seriously though it is a really good conversion and deserves the top spot later on it was released for windows 95 but it was based on the inferior playstation version instead of this one for some odd reasons [Music] huh the game was also available in emulated form in midway arcade treasures 2 for the xbox playstation 2 and gamecube the psp received it in their collection titled midway arcade treasures extended play the pc finally received its arcade perfect version with midway arcade treasures deluxe play mortal kombat 3 was a decent upgrade over mortal kombat 2 but a lot of the fan favorite characters were missing in my opinion the overall cheese factor went through the roof with this game to be fair a lot of the criticisms were rectified in ultimate mortal kombat 3 but like i said earlier something just feels off about this game i still enjoyed it but nowhere near as much as i did mortal kombat 2. i still enjoyed my time with this game especially playing with my friends if you've never dropped a mortal kombat machine on your enemy or turned into a giant foot and stomped them out you should really give this game a try it's always best in multiplayer but if you don't have anyone around to play with you can always play with yourself if you enjoyed this video or any of the content you find on my channel please share like subscribe and comment also if you would like to support me on patreon please click the link below thank you so much for watching

Channel: PatmanQC - History of arcade game documentaries

Views: 130,193

Keywords: NES, arcade, SNES, amputee, Xbox, PlayStation, Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, retro, video, gamesAtari, Colecovision, Intellivision, Jaguar, entertainment, system, Game, Boy, Genesis, Mega, drive, CD, X68000, Amstrad, spectrum, MSX, 2600, 5200, 7800, 400, 800, 1200, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, 360, one, switch, GameCube, wii, wii-u, Ed Boone, John Tobias, Midway, subzero, scorpion, Kano, Mortal Kombat trilogy, ultimate Mortal Kombat, Daniel pesina, toasty, Jax, Sonya, Shao Khan, goro, fatality, friendship, wavenet, Sektor, CyRax, Blood

Id: g5Tb8znzo6Y

Length: 34min 25sec (2065 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 07 2021