2. Mortal Kombat
Loved on: Arcade cabinets - 1992 Jesus, don't let your parents catch you playing this bad boy. They'll start crying, or send you to boarding school or something. Unprecedented violence was the central theme here, and its makers sure knew their demographic. Teenage boys flocked to this brutal video game like adolescent
males to a savage electronic amusement device.
Sucks because: Palette swapping, for one. But Street Fighter did that too, and that's still fantastic. Why? Because the fights were enjoyable. The pleasure of the bouts was the aim of the game, whereas in Mortal Kombat it was almost a formality. What we wanted to see were the fatalities, and once we'd done them, what was left? The strength of its actual fighting mechanics just couldn't carry it. BANALITY.