Liu Kang launches his fireball attack against Sub-Zero.
#6: Mortal Kombat
Platform(s): Arcade, SNES, Sega Genesis
Year: June 1992
Why Did it Change Gaming? (ESRB Rating System):
Mortal Kombat was known for it’s violence and using realistic digitized sprites with palette-swapping, for now well-known characters. Midway Games was some of the first developers to digitize characters, it seemed even game publisher Electronic Arts(EA) was inspired by Midways technique of digitizing live actors and ended up using the technique in many of their sport titles to create the sprite characters. Due to Mortal Kombat’s excessive use of violence and gore it later led to the creation of the ESRB rating system. It’s amazing that only four game developers impacted the gaming industry in such a way. The Mortal Kombat franchise currently holds ten world records in the 2011 version of the “Guinness Book of World Records” and overall the franchise sold over 30 million copies.
Runner Up(s): Street Fighter