Search String

Mortal Kombat IBM PC MS-DOS Probe Software 1993


Mortal Kombat



Probe Software ported Midway Manufacturing Company's Mortal Kombat coinop of 1992 to IBM PC MS-DOS in 1993. Mortal Kombat is a Versus Fighter notable for its responsive controls and digitized motion-captured sprites. PC DOS Mortal Kombat was published by Acclaim Entertainment.

Probe's IBM PC MS-DOS ports of the Mortal Kombat games are practically 1:1 arcade-perfect. IBM PC MS-DOS Mortal Kombat is one of the best coinop ports of all-time.

Mortal Kombat features single-player mode against a series of computer-controlled opponents and two-player versus mode against one human opponent. Players choose one warrior from a pool of seven to compete in stages of battle in the Best of Three Bouts format; that is, the first warrior to win two of the three bouts is declared the victor of that battle.

Combat in Mortal Kombat is one-on-one, hand-to-hand and melee and ranged. The bouts are timed. The object of each bout is to defeat the opponent by depleting their strength meter or by having the most strength remaining when the time expires.

In single-player mode players compete in a tournment against six other warriors, one by one in stages. Ater that, players take on a mirror-image of their character. After that, players take on two warriors per stage, one after the other. Finally, players face off against a sub-boss, Goro, and the final boss, Shang Tsung.

Stages of the tournament are interspersed with "Test Your Might" mini-games.

Each of the warriors has their own movesets and finishing moves known as Fatalities. In the IBM PC version controls consist of 8-way directional inputs and four buttons. Warriors can move forward and backwards, jump, crouch, block, apply the elbow and knee, and punch and kick high or low, fast or slow. Advanced moves include specials, combos, counter-attacking and "juggling" opponents while they are in mid-air, helpless.

Notable as well are the rapid-fire pummelings that can halve strength meters in short order.

Points are awarded based on time remaining, strength remaining, Fatality execution and Flawless Victories and Double Flawless Victories.

Mortal Kombat is staged in seven locations of Shang Tsung's Island on Earthrealm. Each playfield scrolls smoothly in 256-color VGA 320x200 with a full-screen drawspace. 

Note that Moonstone of 1991 animated gouts of blood two years before Mortal Kombat.

The characters in Mortal Kombat are Rayden (aka Raiden), Liu Kang, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage, Kano, Reptile, Goro and Shang Tsung. The characters were rotoscoped and digitized based on real-life actors (Goro is a model).

PC DOS Mortal Kombat is a Rational Systems' DOS/4GW Protected mode run-time. Mortal Kombat requires an i80386DX 33 MHz CPU, 4 megs of RAM and 512K vRAM VGA graphics.

Gary Liddon and Mark Roll converted Ed Boon's original coinop code to IBM PC MS-DOS. PC Mortal Kombat was drawn by Andrew Jackson, John Tobias and John Vogel and composed by Allister Brimble and Dan Forden.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat was distributed on 3x 3.5" 1.44MB HD diskettes and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via Mortal Kombat Installation Program and LHA's SFX by Yoshi. The install size is 6.7 megs and consists of 62 files.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat supports keyboard and 4-button and 2-button joysticks.
 
PC DOS Mortal Kombat audio supports PC Speaker, Sound Blaster, AdLib and Roland.

Mortal Kombat PC DOS Manual: 30 pages.
Mortal Kombat PC DOS Copy Protection: Manual reference.

Mortal Kombat Amiga 1993



Probe Software released Mortal Kombat for the Amiga in 1993.

The Amiga version of Mortal Kombat was programmed by Richard Costello (Golden Axe), Paul Carruthers and Gary Liddon. Amiga Mortal Kombat graphics were drawn by Lee Ames and Jason Green, and its audio was composed by Allister Brimble.

Amiga Mortal Kombat displays in 16-color 320x256 with an active drawspace of 304x224 (Mortal Kombat VGA is 256-color 320x200).

The backdrop, sprite, and presentation graphics of Amiga Mortal Kombat were cut down from the VGA and coinop versions (the Amiga version was based on Sega Genesis MK), but the Amiga Paula rendition of Mortal Kombat is comparable to the Sound Blaster, AdLib and Roland renditions.

When comparing Amiga Mortal Kombat with VGA Mortal Kombat, bear in mind that the Amiga version is coded to run on 7 MHz M68K A500s with 1 meg of RAM, yet runs as fast and as smoothy as VGA MK. In addition, the graphical cut-down does not in any way impact playability.

Amiga Mortal Kombat was not coded to take advantage of A1200s of 1992 (14 MHz 68020, AGA graphics, 2 megs of RAM).

The five-button coinop controls were adapted to one-button digital joysticks of the Amiga, yet the Amiga version turned out to be highly playable despite that limitation.

Amiga Mortal Kombat was distributed on 2x 3.5" 880kB DD diskettes. It was not hard disk drive-installable.

Mortal Kombat 2 IBM PC MS-DOS 1994



Probe Software released Mortal Kombat 2 for IBM PC MS-DOS 5.0 1994.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 2 introduced more fighters, extra Fatalities per fighter and Friendships and Babalities.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 2 requires an i80386DX-33 MHz CPU, 512K of free conventional memory, 4 megs of RAM and VGA graphics card with 512K of vRAM.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 2 is a Rational Systems DOS/4GW Protected Mode run-time.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 2 audio supports Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster AWE-32, Gravis UltraSound and Roland SCC-1 and LAPC-I.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 2 was distributed on 8x 3.5" 1.44MB HD diskettes or 1x CD-ROM and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via Mortal Kombat 2 Installation. The install size is 20 megs and consists of 600 files.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 2 was programmed by Brian O'Shaughnessy and drawn by Terry Ford.

Mortal Kombat 2 Amiga 1994



Probe Software released Mortal Kombat 2 for the Amiga in 1994. Amiga Mortal Kombat 2 presentation is majorly cut down from PC DOS Mortal Kombat 2. For example, there are no biography panels.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 2 was distributed on 8x 3.5" 1,440K disks whereas Amiga Mortal Kombat 2 was distributed on 3x 3.5" 880kB disks; that is, 20 megs of uncompressed data versus 3 megs of uncompressed data.

Two ways an Amigan of 1994 could have looked at this:

  • Wow, this big-name game is running from three disks on my 1 meg A500! So cool!
  • Damn, I wish this game displayed in AGA 320x256, took advantage of 2 megs of ChipRAM, was distributed on 13 disks and could be installed to my A1200's hard disk drive!

Amiga Mortal Kombat 2 features a 320x223 active drawspace.

Amiga Mortal Kombat 2 credits are tailorable from 1-30. Mortal Kombat difficulty levels are Very Easy, Easy, Medium, Hard and Very Hard.

In Mortal Kombat 2 players must battle 11 fighters before facing off against Jade, Shang Tsung, Kintaro and Shao Kahn.

Amiga Mortal Kombat 2 was programmed by Richard Costello and David Leitch. Amiga Mortal Kombat 2 compression was programmed by Nick Pelling and Rob Northen. Amiga Mortal Kombat 2 graphics were converted by Terry Ford, Jason Green and Richard Costello. Amiga Mortal Kombat 2 music was composed by Anthony Putson. Amiga Mortal Kombat 2 audio was engineered by Allister Brimble.

Mortal Kombat 3 IBM PC MS-DOS 1995



Structured Software released Mortal Kombat 3 for IBM PC MS-DOS 5.0 in October of 1995. There is no Amiga version of Mortal Kombat 3.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 3 supports LAN play via Novell IPX protocol.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 3 displays in 256-color VGA 320x200 and non-standard square-pixel VGA 320x240.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 3 requires an i80486DX-33 MHz CPU, 8 megs of RAM and VGA graphics card with 512K of vRAM. Mortal Kombat 3 supports network play for up to 12 players.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 3 is a Rational Systems DOS/4GW Protected Mode run-time.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 3 digital audio supports Sound Blaster, Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster AWE-32, Roland RAP-10, Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum, Gravis UltraSound, New Media Corporation WaveJammer digital audio, Ensoniq SoundScale and ESS Technology ES688 digital Audio.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 3 was distributed on 1x CD-ROM and extracts and installs to hard disk drive via Mortal Kombat 3 Installation and Sound Configuration by Miles Design. The install size is 27 megs and consists of 40 files.

PC DOS Mortal Kombat 3 was lead-programmed by Joe Barnes and composed by Mark Ganus.


cf.:
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)