Mortal Kombat banned in Australia

[MadeManG74]

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/02/why-mo ... ification/

We’ve just gotten a hold of the Classification Board’s report for Mortal Kombat, which states the reasons why the game was Refused Classification in Australia.

According to the report Mortal Kombat “contains violence that exceeds strong in impact and is therefore unsuitable for persons aged under 18 years to play.”

As you’d expect – the fatalities were to blame.

   

At the conclusion of a bout, a character is invited to perform a ‘finishing move’ or ‘fatality’. To perform a fatality, a player has to push a series of button combinations within a short period of time. If this is successfully accomplished, a non-interactive cut scene is triggered which depicts a character explicitly slaughtering their opponent.

    Initially, the Move List Within the game includes one finishing move per character, although a player is able to unlock up to four per character. The Board notes that fatalities cannot be performed in Story mode and are unlikely to be performed frequently during gameplay; however, it is also noted that there are more than 60 fatalities available and they are an important component of the game.

The report then goes on to describe some of the fatalities in detail…

   

- Stryker tasers his opponents and then explicitly shoots their head off with his gun. Blood and gore is noted.

    - Shao Khan uses his hands to explicitly rip an opponent’s body vertically in two

    - Kitana uses her ‘folding fan’ weapon to explicitly dismember then decapitate her opponent, with copious blood flow noted.

These fatalities are then cited as being one of the major reasons why Mortal Kombat has been Refused Classification.

   

The game includes over 60 fatalities (some of which are noted above) which contain explicit depictions of dismemberment, decapitation, disembowelment and other brutal forms of slaughter. Despite the exaggerated conceptual nature of the fatalities and their context within a fighting game set in a fantasy realm, impact is heightened by the use of graphics which are realistically rendered and very detailed. In the opinion of the Board, the game contains violence that exceeds strong in impact and is unsuitable for a minor to see or play. The game should therefore be Refused Classification pursuant to item 1(d) of the computer games table of the National Classification Board.

...and nothing of value was lost.

[Pao]

Were the classic Mortal Kombats banned back then too?

[George]

Oh shitty game banned...

Let me write an angry letter:

[MadeManG74]

Were the classic Mortal Kombats banned back then too?

No, this is the first one actually.

[cube_b3]

I just like the first movie, the games are a bit weird especially the more recent ones.

Haven't played Shaolin Monks but I am confident it should be the best in the recent series.

[MadeManG74]

^What makes you think that? Also, it's not realy comparable since it's a completely different game to the others.

[cube_b3]

I played Deadly Alliance when it came out and it felt very dated, rigid and well not in the same league as Soul Calibur, Tekken and Virtua Fighter.

Even the recent MK VS DC game has this rigid feeling but it is better then the last gen games, still not fluid enough in my opinion.

I have seen Shaolin Monks once at a friends place, and may have even tried playing it. It just felt better than the other three PS2 games. They are really weird and ugly imo.

[Barry the Nomad]

In grade school, if someone threw out a stupid insult, we called it a "Mental Comeback". Of course, we'd then sing the Mortal Kombat song.

[cube_b3]

The MK Song?

While I enjoyed the games music I don't remember any tunes from it, but the movie tune, hell the entire sound track is fairly memorable.

Are you referring to that one?
It didn't really have lyrics except character names?

[Emmett The Crab]

Mortal Kombat was built around the gimmick (the fatalities).  It was controversial, but the gameplay was not fun.  It was all based around uppercuts.  I never played any past MK2.

[cube_b3]

That's not true to date I've never performed fatalities without cheats, and I enjoyed the 2D series, especially Mortal Kombat 2 on SEGA SATURN. I even had a good time with Mortal Kombat 3/Trilogy on Dreamcast with BLEEM.

Mortal Kombat 4 was amazing with those FMV endings and girls with big boobs, lol. Now I find it very objectifying but as a kid I probably ****** *** the fmv scenes, thinking about it for a while I definetly did.

Beeing a video game nerd doesn't get you girls, but beeing a professional journalist is a different story .

[MadeManG74]

I played Deadly Alliance when it came out and it felt very dated, rigid and well not in the same league as Soul Calibur, Tekken and Virtua Fighter.

Even the recent MK VS DC game has this rigid feeling but it is better then the last gen games, still not fluid enough in my opinion.

I have seen Shaolin Monks once at a friends place, and may have even tried playing it. It just felt better than the other three PS2 games. They are really weird and ugly imo.

Yeah most MK games feel very stiff and Deadly Alliance/Deception especially seemed really really dated compared to stuff like Virtua Fighter and Soul Calibur. The upside was that MK games had ass-loads more single player content with all the Crypt content to unlock, huge story modes, plenty of unlockable characters etc.

As for Shaolin Monks, you can't really compare it since it's an action adventure game, not a fighter.

Mortal Kombat was built around the gimmick (the fatalities).  It was controversial, but the gameplay was not fun.  It was all based around uppercuts.  I never played any past MK2.

Pretty much this. I think the creators even admitted that the only competitively sound MK game (UMK3) was by accident and they didn't intend to give it any balance/competitive nature.

[Sega Uranus]

I used to have the most firey hatred for this series, you guys have no idea.

Some of the newer games are fairly clever in some ways though. They would never work good in a serious tournament, but I think they are pretty funny, at least.

And the past 5 or so games have had just an incredibly wonderful amount of content, with literally hundreds of hours of unlockables, in everything from characters to music, to art, to one of the best character creators I have ever seen, to unrelated game modes, like a free roaming RPG or a kart racing game. Who cares if they are sub par? That is a pretty cool bang for your buck!

And I have personally met Ed Boon before and he is just a very nice and generous person that really cares a lot about his fans and how games are made. Especially after seeing how some people in the industry are, I really have a lot of respect for him.

[Sharky]

Oh shitty game banned...

Let me write an angry letter:

You laugh now, but if the guy Putin passes this note onto doesn't do exactly what's written, he'll be shot at noon.

That's the power of putin.

[CosmicCastaway]

While I enjoyed MK vs. DC I don't really have much interest in this Mortal Kombat title. (The DC superheroes won me over in the last installment) I just wish all the trailers and stuff focused more on the gameplay and such, all it seems to be is fatalities. Is that all the MK fans care about? Post-game finishers?