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Choose a warrior and beat the cack out of everyone that crosses your path.

Honour and desire fuel the fighters who enter for the Mortal Kombat. This prestigious event has been held regularly for over half a millenium, when the most skilled and powerful ninjitsu fight to the point of death, or beyond, for the crown of Grand Champion. But the tournament has gone into decline, after the ascendancy of Shang Tsung to the rank of Grandmaster.

No one doubts he has the power to hold this position, as he has mastered the Protean magic that allows him to shift shape. However, he is totally corrupt and has sustained his monstrous pupil, the four-armed Goro, as Champion by trickery and deceit. This has inflamed the passions of young ninjas like Sub Zero and Scorpion, and the stench hanging over the contest encourages low-life like the assassin Kano to enter. The drama of the Mortal Kombat challenge makes its way from arcade to Megadrive undiminished.

The bonus round in Mortal Kombat generally involves the breakage of certain materials, ranging from sad soft wood through stone, steel, ruby and finally diamond. Tapping merrily away on the A and C buttons works up the concentration of your character with the START button bringing down the powerful blow. Generous lashings of bonus points are on offer for successfully bashing the hell out of the lifeless materials.

There are eight very different fighters in the Mortal Kombat, but all share in the mystery of their backgrounds and their ruthless blood desire. Chill to their gut-wrenching attributes:

1. Liu Kang
   Background: Once a member of the peaceful Lotus Society, he abandoned them to take orders with the Knights of Shaolin - a warlike but honourable sect.
   
   Powers: Lui Kang excels in physical combat. His Flying Thrust Kick is awesome. Skilled players unlock the secret power of the orange fireball.
2. Kano
   Background: Kano's shadowy secret is membership of the notorious Black Dragon cult. He fights for material reward, and is totally unscrupulous.
   
   Powers: Keno conceals a knife which he uses as a surprise move from close range. He also breaks through the chest cavity with bare hands to seize the hearts of his victims!
3. Cage
   Background: Cage is a movie star, the hero of many martial arts films. Spurred to show his skills are real, he's entered the tournament.
   
   Powers: Cage dazzles with his athleticism; performing Shadow Kicks and even the Splits. However, the demonstrates his brute force by ripping heads off unfortunate foes.
4. Sub-Zero
   Background: A Lin Keui Kinja, of unknown origin, Sub-Zero has spent hours of study into the elemental powers of Ice.
   
   Powers: Sub-Zero's Ice Blast is a quick-firing missile that leaves whom it strikes defenceless. His agility is shown by his sliding tackle, which ducks under missile attacks to trip opponents.
5. Sonya
   Background: Unknown to Kano, Sonya is a Special Forces Operative on his tail. However, she was ambushed and forced into combat.
   
   Powers: Sonya's Force Wave is a bolt of mysterious energy, only slightly less bizarre than the leg grab she performs on bemused fighters.
6. Raiden
   Background: Raiden is actually an Immortal: The Thunder God, who has assumed human form to participate in the contest.
   
   Powers: The deity's supernatural powers give him an unfair advantage. Witness his incredible torpedo, Teleport and Lightning Strike Overload!
7. Goro
   Background: The ruling champion of Mortal Kombat. He is the monstrous prodigy of Shang Tsung, and he exists purely for the sadistic pleasure the content provides.
   
   Powers: His bulk makes his range of attacks limited and slow, but they are devastating. From afar he has a fireball attack, and at close range he pounds victim's chests.
8. Scorpion
   Background: A ninja rival to Sub-Zero. He is driven not by the desire to learn inscrutable mysteries, but the hunger for vengeance against his rival.
   
   Powers: Scorpion induces terror with his Spear and Cord. He hooks his prey, then drags it towards him. For a grand finale, his Fire Breath leaves nothing but charred remains.

Fans wondered if the blood 'n guts of the arcade would make it ont cart. Well, it has on the Megadrive version. The particularly nasty scene with the Pit is included. There, when beaten, fighters fall to a disembowelled doom in a pit of neatly stacked spikes far below.

However, all the "gore" is only available if you can find the hidden "cheat" mode contained somewhere in the game. And by the way, our lips are sealed... for the time being!

Street Fighter II was a simple matter of winning the best of three rounds against each enemy. There is a tad more variety in Mortal Kombat. Read on...

1. Basic One-On-One
   The first six matches are very similar in concept to Street Fighter II - just win the best of three rounds and you progress to the next stage.
2. Mirror Match
   Here, the forces of evil have conjured up your evil twin, capable of all the special moves and tactics that you are! Use all your skill and cunning against this formidable opponent.
3. Endurance Rounds
   Here, your Mortal Kombat skills are tested to the max! With just one bar of energy at your disposal, you're charged with the task of decking not one, but two, opponents consecutively! Aieeee!
4. Boss Rounds
   In the final two matches, you pit your wits against the two most dreaded opponents in the game! First off, you fight the mighty four armed half-dragon character, Goro, capable of all manner of fist-related tomfoolery with his handy extra limbs.
   
   Defeat this master of combat and you're pitted against the evil terror that is Shang Tsung. This intriguing geezer is capable of firing off his own special brand of fireball and has the stunning ability to shapeshift into any of the game's characters and use their special moves!

On some bouts, your blows take the opponent right to the edge of their enduance, but normal blows are not deemed enough to end the fight. 'Finish Him' is intoned from on high, which is your cue to invoke each character's death blow. This is a spectacular finishing move that gives you a massive bonus, and often leaves a gory mess where your opponent stood. Expect fireball breaths, decapitations and hearts being ripped out of chests.

Mortal Kombat is a technically stunning conversion. The graphics are excellent: the sprites are amazingly similar to their arcade counterparts and the animation is very good indeed.

Sound too is just about arcade perfect. So what more could you ask for? Well, let me tell you. The game falls short on playability. When you punch someone it simply doesn't feel like you're making contact. The controls are slow and unaccurate and consequently you can't do quick-fire combo moves.

Another problem is the lack of challenge. On the highest difficulty level, most of the opponents can be easily beaten by jumping over their range move and doing a mid-air kick, and it doesn't take long to suss out tactics for the ones that can't. It's a flaw in the gameplay that simply can't be ignored.

Apparently you could do something very similar in the coin-op, but that's no excuse. Don't get me wrong - Mortal Kombat isn't bad, but it could have been a lot better.

Well, the Acclaim hype machine really built this one up, proclaiming it the ultimate combat game, beating Street Fighter II into a cocked hat. But I'm pretty sure that seasoned arcade players will realise that in concept and execution, if not in graphics, SFII is by far the superior game.

However, I do take my hat off to Probe Software for handing in a coin-op conversion that's literally arcade perfect. The graphics and sound are superb, perfectly mirroring the impressive coin-ops.

The digitised sprites and sounds are great and the animation on each of the players is just superb. The gameplay, though identical to the coin-op's, just isn't up to scratch. There's little variety in the way each character plays (apart from the special moves) and the computer opponents are very thick.

A single combination of moves is adequate to floor just about any opponent on any of the difficulty levels. Very sloppy indeed.

It took Jaz around two minutes of play to unearth that very serious fault in the gameplay and it works consistently on the majority of opponents, making a mockery of solo play.

I've played Megadrive Street Fighter II, and it's just as close a conversion as Mortal Kombat is.

Take your choice: If you're an MK fan, get this. If, like me, you prefer Street Fighter II save your cash for the forthcoming Capcom game.

Presentation 90%
P. Some smart presentation screens kick the game off and all of the coin-op's slickness is here.
N. No pause mode - even if you're using the six-button joypad! Aieeeee!

Graphics 94%
P. Probe Software are to be congratulated for their work - the sprites, backdrops and animation are nigh-on perfect to the digitised splendour of the original Midway coin-op.

Sound 90%
P. Some of the speech is missing, but there's still a wealth of high quality samples and really decent music to back the proceedings.

Playability 75%
P. Very similar to the coin-op. Mastering all the death moves is great fun.
N. The response is very slow and most of the computer opponents are too easy to kill, regardless of the difficulty level.

Lastability 82%
P. Mortal Kombat fanatics will get loads of play out of this one.
N. The thicko computer opponents can be easily overwhelmed, making solo play lose its appeal very quickly.

Overall 79%
There's no doubting that Mortal Kombat is an excellent conversion of the original coin-op. However, serious flaws in the gameplay damage the game's appeal.