Set in medieval times, the story concerns the Mace of Tanis, a powerful weapon imbued with necropotic energy that grants its holder unimaginable power. A visual splendor for the time, Mace had a leg up on the competition largely due to its confident presentation. That isn’t to say that Mace wasn’t another MK clone – the game’s heavy emphasis on fatal finishing moves (you know, fatalities) was reason enough to lump it with the MK-likes and the game itself isn’t shy about wearing its influences on its sleeve.īut there’s a retro finesse to Mace: The Dark Age that mere words can’t do justice, try as I may. Released by Atari Games in 1997, Mace would not go the way of the usual 2D gore fests that were already suffering from a mixed-to-negative reception in comparison to MK. In this sea of MK-likes, Mace: The Dark Age stood out as different from the bunch. These games, varied in concepts but identical in execution, could do nothing except flounder in the shadow of the Midway titan. All the carnage and jokes in the world couldn’t mask how blatant the inspiration was and how little they learned from MK’s gradual evolvement that started even in the 90s. If MK was able to break through the mainstream, then it stood to reason that developers would try their hand at breaking through with their own brand of edginess.īut what many of these games didn’t realize was how limited the appeal of gore baths and snarky humor was, especially when that was all that was offered.
Games such as Kasumi Ninja, War Gods, Cosmic Carnage, and oh so many more spawned from this 90s movement.
On the flipside, the 90s was also home to “ Mortal Kombat-likes”: fighting games that intended to capitalize on the success Mortal Kombat found with its gory and at-the-time transgressive content. The games have dabbled in the third dimension, developed a story that is just engaging enough to keep us glued to the non-fighting scenes, and tweaked their gameplay dynamics to fit into the professional fighting game scene. But beyond the widespread controversy caused by the game’s audacity at suggesting that a ninja can exhale fire balls to disintegrate another ninja into sawdust, what Mortal Kombat brought to the fighting game scene was the inspiration to continuously push the boundaries on what was acceptable to portray in a video game.īut for a series that is so intertwined with its own controversy, MK took time to reinvent itself, showing just how much mileage the blood-drenched game of fisticuffs could have even in the modern day. Sure, the game’s hand at unintentionally leading the charge for the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has been covered to death in the decades since the ultra-bloody fighter first hit the scene. Mortal Kombat really changed the game, huh?
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