Mortal Kombat 1+2+3

Timeless, photo-realistic graphics. The best gameplay. The original goriest game that is the reason the ESRB exists. But the Fatalities (and other finishers) are extremely creative too, not just gory for gory's sake. The ai difficulty is tough, but very predictable. The games may be deceptively simple, but learning the moves is only the beginning. The real game is learning the dance of combat, how the a.i. reacts, and how to leverage that behavior to land your attacks successfully while moving at fast speeds. It's a genuine challenge to successfully complete the ladder in just 5 tries. You will not win every time you play, something modern games don't do anymore. This just makes victory, when you achieve it, all the sweeter. (Note: you can activate cheat code for freeplay/unlimited continues). There's secret characters and fights, all sorts of finishers; it's MK at its finest. Only downside is this is original MK3, not Ultimate MK 3. So it is missing a few characters and stages. I am flabbergasted by all the negative reviews complaining about DOS or keyboard controls. Frankly, keyboard controls are the best way to play fighting games. I never liked playing fighting games on controller. The joystick leads to imprecise inputs that make combos needlessly challenging. It's easier to do on keyboard, which you can re-map so that the controls are like their setup in the arcades. For. e.g. I use 'O' for High punch, 'L' for low punch, ' [ ' (bracket) for high kick, ' " ' (quotation mark/apostrophe) for low kick, 'P' for dash/sprint (MK3 only) , and ' ; ' (semi-colon) for block. WASD for movement. This layout is comfortable to use and quite logical. Punch on left, Kick on right, high one row above low, and block/sprint in middle. DOSBox setup: In config, change scaler = "2xsai" works best for MK 1 & 2; set to "none" for 3. MK 1 and 3 use CD quality music, while MK 2 has midi. Use GUS (Gravis Ultrasound) soundcard. Sounds much better than default OPL emulation.

This edition left me wanting more, but it's not. It's almost impossible to configure the controls for both the joystick and the keyboard. None of the three are well adapted for PC. It's incredible they even charge for it. I really wanted to play these classics I played as a kid.

I love this game and I love to see it still alive thanks to GoG. It's not visually upgraded as MK Kollection is, but great old game nevertheless. Hoping to see MK 4 next, GoG!

These games still play awesome after all theses years. You'd think the graphics would be dated by now, but strangely enough, they aren't. The game looks tight, plays tight, sounds tight, and it's as hard as i remember it being. Maybe it's just nostalgia, but i just can't see much wrong with the games. The only complaint i had is that you do have to fiddle with the settings a bit to make controllers work. To me some buttons didn't work so i had to use JoyToKey in order to play properly, but the games by itselves are gems. Plus i bought them when they were jus a dollar so i couldn't complain even if i wanted to.

It works perfectly in a linux dosbox too! My 5 stars for this!