Mortal Kombat: Games of Death (Landmark Video Games) (hardcover)

Mortal KombatGames of Death\nAuthor(s): David Church\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: The University of Michigan Press, United States\nImprint: The University of Michigan Press\nISBN-13: 9780472075225, 978-0472075225\nSynopsis\nUpon its premiere in 1992, Midways Mortal Kombat spawned an enormously influential series of fighting games, notorious for their violent fatality moves performed by photorealistic characters. Targeted by lawmakers and moral reformers, the series directly inspired the creation of an industrywide rating system for video games and became a referendum on the wide popularity of 16-bit home consoles. Along the way, it became one of the worlds most iconic fighting games, and formed a transmedia franchise that continues to this day.\n\n This book traces Mortal Kombats history as an American product inspired by both Japanese video games and Chinese martial-arts cinema, its successes and struggles in adapting to new market trends, and the ongoing influence of its secret-st.