The original Mortal Kombat and its successors will always have a key role in video game history, with the gore and violence of the arcade original famously being toned down in its Super Nintendo port. The early arcades and assorted ports are classics, and an upcoming Arcade1Up release looks like it'll be a fun way to play them (albeit with a price tag in the hundreds of dollars).
The 30th Anniversary edition of the cabinet (which is 75% the size of the originals), will actually include the first three games and a group of older arcade titles. The highlight is clearly the Mortal Kombat original trilogy, and of course you'll be able to play locally.
This home arcade packs a SUPERB punch, with a line up of 14 games, in a gorgeous cabinet that includes a matching riser and light-up marquee.
Yes…FOURTEEN titles! Mortal Kombat™, Mortal Kombat II™, Mortal Kombat 3™, Ultimate MK 3™, Toobin™ , Rampage™, Joust™, Wizard Of Woz™, Gauntlet™, Rootbeer Tapper™, Defender™, Bubbles™ , Paperboy™, and Klax™. ALL included.
A fun extra though, differentiating this version from a previous MK Arcade1Up cabinet, is support for online multiplayer through 'WiFi Live'. Cabinet owners will be able to play against others that own the same unit, so it could be an enjoyable community feature for enthusiasts of the IP and arcade units.
A potential issue will be the userbase, of course, with the price and nature of the product making it quite niche; that said fans will likely arrange matches through social media / forums etc. It's due for release later this year.
In any case, imagine if online play had existed when these games originally came out - minds would have been blown.
[source gizmodo.com]
Comments 23
Why can’t I get this from hamster arcade archives?
Odd that whenever they do a re-release with multiple games like this they tend to alway lack one game in the main series. Why have MK1, MK2, MK3, and Ultimate MK3, but not MK4 (the final arcade release)? It's like they want to piss the MK fans on purpose.
Unless I'm mistaken, this edition is nigh a thousand dollars! That's plain insane. What is Arcade 1up thinking? No one is going to just plop down a thousand bucks on an impulse buy like when their home arcade offerings were a few hundred. IMO they're blowing it here.
My uncle had a MK arcade machine in his garage when I was growing up, needless to say I visited often.
Thr fact that it has older Midway games is nice... but a sad reminder that Warner Bros has had ZERO interest in doing any re-releases of Midway content on modern systems.
It is the Twenties and there is still time for Klax.
Kind of surprised that, for a cabinet with Mortal Kombat as the main attraction, they went with ROOT BEER Tapper. I suppose because it was an even easier solution than removing the original Budweiser logos from the game.
Hopefully this collection will make it to consoles. Plenty of other Arcade1Up releases can already be bought on Switch. Just the MK games would do, but the others would be nice additions.
Gauntlet and Rampage, yet the cabinet only supports two players. ☹️ Ah well, maybe the online feature will sort that.
So this is just a more expensive version of the one currently available but with 2 extra games and Wifi? I might just go for that one
@Specter_of-the_OLED
It’s almost like it’s garbage that the mainstream/casual audience has no memories of.
The Switch has become basically the ultimate golden age arcade for me. I can play arcade versions of Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, BurgerTime, Frogger, Galaga, and more.
However, the lack of Midway/Williams/Atari Games titles is ridiculous.
I guess WB Games doesn't want printed money.
@NImH
Here is a Shop that sells Pinball and Arcade Machines.
Pacman 1950 €
Donkey Kong 1750 €
Galaga 1850 €
Hydro Thunder 950 €
Gauntlet II 1550 €
Terminator 2 Arcade 1900 €
Rave Racer Twin Version 2250 €
Seems like they sell it in Categories A to C, C is the best and all listed where A without Warranty.
For me this new working Machine doesn't sound as bad priced ^^
They once had Mortal Kombat, but isn't listed, would be nice to have a direct comparasion.
What happened to Johnny Cage on the sideart?
@Specter_of-the_OLED MK4 would require them to use a beefier PCB in this cab and some possible emulation hurdles. Also MK4 is a game that is mainly disliked by the fanbase(I personally liked it). Also the plain version of MK3 is omitted so technically it's 2 different MK games that are missing.
Just saw this in Best Buy almost took the plunge but too may MK games for my taste and the model I saw in BB only had 12 games
Not sure about the online stuff, but 12 out of the 14 games in this lineup are in the (in my opinion) nicer looking "Mortal Kombat II Legacy Edition" machine, out right now & cheaper than this one. A few friends of mine got it for Christmas. As with all their machines, its a nice cabinet, though the prices have been sneaking steadily higher since the first ones.
Arcade1up are releasing waaaay too many minor variations of machines they've already done with games they've already released. The fact they've just anounced a "pro" Killer Instinct just 2 months after the standard version is an insult to those who bought the standard. If this adds just 2 more games and an online mode to the (only recently released) MKII Legacy, I'm sure there will be many who bought that who will feel their purchase is now pointless. Its really messy and bad business.
@Toy_Link Daniel Pesina sued Midway for not paying royalties he felt they previously agreed on, so they stopped using images of him in anything. They got a new actor for MKII.
I wish soooo badly my house had room for this.
for 2000$, you ll get a nice repica cabinet but It will be the same emulation pest so you can enjoy timing issue and input lag.
@SalvorHardin If you had a Wii with the RetroArch channel installed you could play all those games AND the full library of Atari, Williams and Midway Arcade games with zero input lag using an X-Arcade through the GC ports.
@kingbk MK Trilogy and MK VI on the N64 is the best way to play these games. Arcade perfect ports with no loading in native resoltion with a 6-button controller!! 📺🎮🤘🏽
@eviljerry The article says regular 3 is included. And yeah MK4 is a black sheep. Most people care about the trilogy and try to forget 4 exists.
@SalvorHardin But MK4 was a landmark title at the time, it was the game that kickstart Mortal Kombat into the 3D realm of fighting game. It shackle Mortal Kombat from the 2D aspect started by Street Fighter and brought Mortal Kombat in the 3D realm where Virtua Fighter and Tekken thrives, the only issue with the game was that Boon and friends didn't know how to properly throw MK into 3D so they just mix the 2D gameplay with the side-steps from their other 3D fighting game, War Gods. It wasn't until Deadly Alliance that they manage to mastered 3D properly for the franchise.
@eviljerry I still don't get why people hate it more than MK3, MK4 is the only game that had cinematic endings and stage fatality where you don't uppercut the opponent (an early taste of Deception right there). Also what they did with the reboot final boss was interesting in MK4. In MK1 Shang Tsung is the final boss that could shape-shift into different opponent, in MK4 Shinnok is the final boss who could impersonate an opponent and use their moves. That decision to replace Shang Tsung with Shinnok in MK4 make sense since the videogames industry are going disc based by then so by using Shinnok's impersonation, the game doesn't need to load into another fighter to use their moves, it just jump into their code instead and just apply it to Shinnok. It was an interesting feature for him at the time, not sure why they abandon it. It solve the issue of lag morphing with Tsung especially when the game made it to disc based systems like the PS1 and Dreamcast.
Can't you almost buy a real arcade cabinet for what they want for this?
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