Five Domains of Play

Get over here!!!! So that I can tell you about a popular fighting game from the 90’s called Mortal Kombat!!!!! The game was published in 1992 and was released the same year on October 8th. This arcade fighting game was known to be one of the best coin operated games of its time. Mortal Kombat was famous for its use of blood, gore, violence, and of course fatalities. Who can ever forget after defeating your opponent, being able to finish them off with an epic gory finisher and up to this day is still an eye catcher to the player/ audience. Fatalities was such an epic way of finishing off your enemy in the game and giving you a much more glorious win. From being able to rip out spinal cords to burning your enemy alive is what let the player feel like a victorious fighter with lots of bragging rights. The game was such an attention grabber that it really did catch the attention of parents, gamers, and even game developers which helped inspire them to have their own version of fatalities such as super moves and final finishers.

It Is Indeed that this martial arts fighting game was a fun and aggressive game, but what made it unique was the realism that it had. During the time that Mortal Kombat was out, its competitor was Street Fighter 2 another martial arts fighting game that was released in early February of 1991. The two went head on with each other; Street Fighter 2 had more of an anime graphic visual for it as to Mortal Kombat had more realistic looking arenas and characters. Being able to have a game that has a bloody cartoonish and photo realistic feel to it was very revolutionary during the 90’s, up to this day with our technology growing every day, does not compare to the graphics that was once a very great achievement of its era. In other words making it an original awesome game for its time, speaking from personal experience (being a 90’s kid myself) have had the pleasure of being part of the generation that grew up with such an amazing gruesome game as Mortal Kombat.

Jason Vanderbergh’s “Five Domains of Play”, can relate to a game like Mortal Kombat from its novelty, challenge, stimulation, threat, and of course harmony. Let’s start with Mortal Kombat’s novelty; in the game you have fighters that are part of a martial arts battle dimension (making you feel like a fighter) with different fighting techniques which also leads them to having different stories and themes, therefore making each character’s end story a treat and surprise to the player. Moving onto the challenge of the game which can vary from fighting another opponent or A.I (artificial intelligence) the player can expect an easy goal to defeating their enemy or even a difficult one by being a terrible fighter (like myself) in the game constantly causing them to lose and not progress. The emotional part of this whole experience (besides rage quitting) would be the stimulation you get from the excitement of aggression the player gives when performing super-fast paced combos and fatalities against the enemy, the adrenaline of wanting to be the winner. Now onto the threat, c’mon people we’re talking about Mortal Kombat here, what in this fighting bloody gory game is not a threat would be a good question to ask, but for those of you who don’t know, everything is threat! Being the player, your emotions can spiral into different feelings, from anger (rage quitting or being a sore loser), to sadness (losing), excitement (completing a combo), down to just plain out upper cutting somebody into a pool of acid thats all around you and feeling victorious from a fatality. But in all fun in games the competitiveness is what brings together the competition in harmony, the objective being to defeat your opponent/ the boss and the rules to destroy your enemy before the timer runs out. This game was remarkable of how well put together it was, so awesome that it went on to make 2 movies and a television series! It is no wonder as to why Mortal Kombat earned its rightful place (throne) in the top 1up 100.