10 Mortal Kombat Rip-Offs You Won't Believe Got Made

8. Ultra Vortek - Atari (1995)

mortal kombat ripoff
Atari

Ultra Vortek is one of those games where you could just glance at and practically hear the voices of the developer sitting around a boardroom sometime in 1994: "So let's see here: Doom is cool. Kids like Doom. Also Mortal Kombat is cool. Kids like Mortal Kombat. We should combine the two! That can't possibly miss."

Though somehow, it missed.

The story follows seven fighters as they enter a tournament held by the Guardian, protector of the ancient Ultra Vortek tablet that grants limitless power to the victor. The goal? To use the power of the tablet to save Earth from the power of the tablet. Yeah, we don't think they thought this through all the way either.

The game plays just as you'd suspect. Digitized characters, abundant digital blood, slow control and lots of combos to learn.

It even got a handheld port for the Atari Lynx. As much as we'd like to tell you it represented the Jaguar's single Mortal Kombat rip-off title, it was in fact only one of three that were planned by 1996. Do you also get the feeling Atari, bummed about being unable to secure any of the actual Mortal Kombat lisences for its hardware, had a point to prove?

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Contributor

Jason Russell has been working in video game journalism since the early 1990s before the internet existed, the term "fanzine" had meaning and sailors still debated as to whether or not the earth was flat. The first time. More recently he has been the guy responsible for the Retrospective column for Old School Gamer Magazine, pens up a Game Skinny column on a plethora of video game topics. He's somehow managed to author nine novels, writes and runs the blog CG Movie Review, is co-founder of the science fiction publishing house Starry Eyed Press, and sometimes, when the planets align and the caffeine has fully left his system, it's rumored he sleeps.