Back in the ‘90s Street Fighter II set the world on fire and the tournament fighter was king. There were countless interpretations of the tournament fighter, from SNK’s Fatal Fury games to Rare’s Killer Instinct. However, none of them made as much of an impact as Midway’s Mortal Kombat.

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When you saw Mortal Kombat in action, you wouldn’t soon forget it. Each strike that hit your opponent would cause them to gush blood and once the fight was over you would be commanded by a disembodied voice to FINISH HIM - if you put in the correct combination of buttons you would brutally murder your opponent in some gruesome and creative fashion.

Mortal Kombat is possibly bigger than ever with the latest release Mortal Kombat 11 coming out just last year. As a way of taking a look back at the series’ bloody history, here are the top 10 Mortal Kombat games based on Metacritic scores.

10 Mortal Kombat: Special Ops (Metascore 28)

Mortal Kombat was massive in the ‘90s. There was merchandise everywhere, comics, and an odd cartoon aimed at children that avoided any blood and violence. It was so big in fact, that they decided to create games outside of the typical tournament fighter-style that the series had become known for at that point. Both Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces were released for the Playstation 1 and focused on a single-player adventure starring one of the characters from the previous titles. Both games we received very poorly, hence the incredibly low Metascore.

9 Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (Metascore 70)

The third game in the franchise and the introduction to many series favorites. Introduced in Mortal Kombat 3 were Knightwolf, Kabal, and the two cyborg ninjas Sektor and Cyrax among others. Combos were also introduced which allowed you to attack with multiple hits in succession without the opponent being able to escape.

Mortal Kombat 3 also introduced animalities which caused the player to turn into an animal and kill their opponent. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 had some gameplay tweaks and also brought back Scorpion and Kitana from previous games.

8 Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Metascore 76)

Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe was the first and only game in the entire series to not be rated M for mature due to the inclusion of DC Universe character. While it seems like an odd choice to have both of these universes collide, this was not long after Warner Brothers had acquired the rights to Mortal Kombat after Midway was closed down. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe went for an epic feel as you could throw enemies off of ledges and fight as you plummet to the level below.

7 Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (Metascore 77)

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon features every character to ever be in a Mortal Kombat game up to that point. They also included a create a character mode which allowed you to make your own kombatant and fight against the rest of the cast.

While the massive roster was seemingly a good idea, they are all broken down into different subsets based on their size with each subset controlling relatively similar to all of the other characters in that subset. Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is the final chapter in the Mortal Kombat storyline and remains so to this day.

6 Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Metascore 78)

Rather than being a typical tournament style game like most other Mortal Kombat games, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks is a beat em’ up with some RPG elements. You play as Liu Kang and Kung Lao after being separated from the other earth realm warriors. The game also offers 2 player modes which allow the other player to play as Kung Lao. You and a friend can juggle Tarkatan soldiers in the air with your diverse set of attacks and abilities. As you progress through the game, you unlock different characters which can be used in a side tournament fighter mode.

5 Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (Metascore 81)

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is the first of many Mortal Kombat games to be released for the 6th generation of consoles. The story revolves around Quan Chi from Mortal Kombat 4 and frequent series antagonist Shang Tsung teaming up to take down Shao Khan in hopes of conquering Outworld and Earthrealm and killing the series protagonist Liu Kang.

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Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance is the first game in the series to introduce the Krypt, a graveyard that you purchase different unlockables from with koins that you have earned from playing different modes of the game.

4 Mortal Kombat: Deception (Metascore 81)

Mortal Kombat: Deception directly followed Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. Shang Tsung and Quan Chi managed to resurrect the undead army and only Raiden stands in their way. After the deadly alliance has defeated Raiden, the Dragon King Onaga appears who destroyed them all with ease and took an amulet needed for shaping the realms.

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Mortal Kombat: Deception introduced the Konquest Mode which was a single-player story mode that allowed you to roam around the different realms and see many familiar characters from the series - this was also how some new characters were unlocked.

3 Mortal Kombat 11 (Metascore 86)

As of writing this, Mortal Kombat 11 is the latest game in the series to be released. Like previous games in the series, Mortal Kombat 11 has many guest characters from different series. The Terminator, The Joker, and Spawn were all added to the game as DLC along with many other characters.

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Recently, a large expansion was released for Mortal Kombat 11 called Aftermath. Aftermath adds a brand new story, all of the DLC characters up to this point, three new characters Sheeva, Fujin, and RoboCop, as well as three new skin packs.

2 Mortal Kombat X (Metascore 86)

Mortal Kombat X reintroduces series antagonist Shinnok who had a prominent role in Mortal Kombat 4. There are numerous characters in Mortal Kombat 11 from other franchises including Leatherface from the Texas Chain Massacre movies, Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th movies, and Predator from the Predator movies.

Returning from Mortal Kombat 9 is x-ray moves which are powerful attacks you can do mid-fight that will slow down the action and give an x-ray view of your opponents’ bones breaking. They later released Mortal Kombat XL which included all of the DLC for the game.

1 Mortal Kombat 9 (Metascore 88)

Mortal Kombat 9 or simply Mortal Kombat was a series reboot and the first game for quite some time. The game introduced a full cinematic story that future games developed even further. Rather than starting from where the previous game had left off, the game takes place during the events of the two original Mortal Kombat games.

The story centers around Raiden trying to set things right so he can retroactively stop Shao Khan from taking over the realms.

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