20 Essential Video Games You Must Play Before You Die

9. Mortal Kombat

The game that was so groundbreaking it spawned the introduction of age specific restrictions on video games sales, Mortal Kombat fell out of the genius tree and his every single branch on the way down.

Just as video game players and designers were starting to realise the potential for carnage, along came Midway games with something that allowed you to pulverise ninjas, shoot fire at opponents, then rip out their spine while a deep voice bellowed "Fatality". It simply couldn't get any cooler than that in the early 90s.

While fighting games are almost unrecognisable from their simple 2D ancestors, Mortal Kombat remains the title that wrote the book on the genre.