Mortal Kombat
The main text that i will be looking at will be Mortal Kombat. I have picked this game as my historical text, as MK was one of the very games that were released with extreme gore and violence. Mortal Kombat was first released in 1990's. The games were only available in arcades, and they were played with joy sticks. These the first The original three games and their updates, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy. With the release of the next games, there was also a change in the way the characters would fight. Whereas in the first five games all the characters had the same set of attacks, apart from their finishing moves. although the characters now had an array of moves, from punches, kicks, and blocks they still had only one fighting style. This changed with the release of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance they differentiated characters normal moves and even giving them multiple fighting styles. Beginning in Deadly Alliance and until Mortal Kombat: Deception, the characters would have three fighting styles per character: two unarmed styles, and one weapon style. This gave the MK audience more from the game, they could now use weapons and the characters has some sort of a personality to them due to them now having more moves, it made them more individualistic. However this changed when MK vs DC Universe was released, due to the vast amount of characters, the characters were given more special moves. However this still gave players something new as they could now experiment with new fatalities.
Fatalities are what made MK different from other violent fighting games, the fatality was the finishing moves that players had to accomplish through pressing a series of buttons. Each of the different characters had their own fatalities, each of them being very different from one another, and intensely gory.
To give players an extra and more open game play experience, MK Deception and MK Armageddon had an extra option called 'Konquest'. This gave players to free roam and complete tasks that were set within the game such as; chess kombat, puzzle kombat, and motor kombat. These were all created as spin games from Archon, an action strategy game, Puzzle fighter, and Mario cart.
I chose MK as my historical text due the similarities it has to GTA, although the two games are very different from one another, they also have a range of similarities such as the violence in both games. MK was one of the first video games that had such a vast amount of violence within it, you could almost say it was a change in gaming altogether. It brought something new to gaming and it still is a very successful game. Similarly GTA also has been a very violent game from the beginning, from being able to steal cars, kill pedestrians and causing havoc within the game. These are the types of games that allow players to get away from the real world and have an escape, (Blumber and Katz, useses and gratification - diversion & escape)
Another similarity the two games hold are they have portrayed females within the games. in both games females have be sexualised and are shown as being very revealing. Within both games the females are barely clothed, this increases the appeal to the male audience (Laura Mulvey - male gaze) The fact that females are shown like this within games also causes many problems, as feminists despise games and other text that overly sexualise females, as they are simply being used for their bodies and their appeal to males.
I believe that the women have been sexualised due to society. With an increase of technology, there also needs to be more to give to the audience. Before with all the pixels on the characters, the producers didn't need to show the females as being very sexy and revealing. But now as we have HD TV's and better gaming devices there needs to be more to offer to the audience.
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