Our Mortal Kombat 1 walkthrough will guide you through the beginning to ending moments of cutscenes and gameplay for this classic Midway fighting game.
The best way to play Mortal Kombat 1 in most all its glory is to get your hands on a copy of “Plug N’ Play TV Games – Mortal Kombat” (or “Plug It in & Play”) by a company called “Jakks Pacific”. This version of the game is as close to arcade perfect as you can get and infinitely closer to the arcade than the Super NES version (which doesn’t feature blood or full Fatalities, blood was censored into white-colored “sweat”) or the Genesis version (which does feature blood but falls short of arcade perfect by a long shot).
The TV Games Version can be found for only about $15 bucks online and features arcade-perfect gameplay, with many details from the above versions remedied, this includes full blood and Fatalities in all their arcade glory, the Reptile secret is in the game, Scorpion will shout “Get Over Here!” in addition to “Come Here!”, the latter of which only appears in the above versions, the monks make the clapping sound at the end of a fight, severed heads appear at the bottom of the pit, your opponents heart beats after Kano rips it out in his Fatality, etc. However there are aspects of the arcade version still missing in the TV Games version, such as character bios and certain animations/scrolling such as animated torches or Shang Tsung moving his head while watching the fights).
Other than the TV Games version, you can also obtain a even closer to arcade-perfect version of Mortal Kombat 1 by purchasing the “Premier Pack” version of 2004’s Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance for either the original Xbox, GameCube or PS2. This MK1 Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance Premier Pack version includes a playable version of MK1 which is completely arcade perfect, although it has a couple sound issues that are minor. Other than that, if you own a PSP you can get the same version of the game as on the MK: Deception Premier Pack by picking up a copy of “Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play” for the PlayStation Portable. This version too is virtually arcade perfect and also includes arcade-perfect versions of Mortal Kombat 2 and Mortal Kombat 3!
MK1 was also released for the Sega CD, Amiga, Game Gear, Game Boy, Sega Master System, MS-DOS, mobile phones, and PC. Of course, the EASIEST way to play Mortal Kombat 1 is to simply get your hands on an the arcade emulator MAME and a ROM of the arcade game, after which you could play it on your computer.