10 Features You Didn't Know Were Cut From Classic Video Games
4. Midway Had To Remove Mortal Kombat Characters From NBA Jam: Tournament Edition
The NBA Jam franchise is known for taking some liberties with the rules that govern both the National Basketball Assocation and reality. For example, very few NBA players can actually make a basketball catch on fire mid-game, and doing so would almost certainly result in a fine from the league.
But for all the non-sense the NBA tolerated in this series, there was apparently one thing they just couldn't sanction: their players sharing the court with supernatural martial artists.
In NBA Jam Tournament Edition, Midway decided to include a roster of unique players only accessible via cheat codes. These included real-life figures like Bill Clinton and Prince Charles, but also coded four characters from their ultra-violent Mortal Kombat series: Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile, and Raiden.
Unfortunately for Midway (and for fans of blood-soaked basketball courts), this happened at the height of the "violence in video games" controversy (not the most recent one, the older one). Once the NBA found out that players could pit the Chicago Bulls against decapitation-prone ninjas, they ordered Midway to remove the kombatants from any new NBA Jam Tournament Edition machines, meaning they can only be found in older versions.
Apparently ninjas are just too much for a serious pyromancy-themed basketball simulator like NBA Jam.