Midway Games
Mortal Kombat

What can I say, I also had my video gaming period.

It didn't last long to be honest, precisely the interval between when I stopped treading the grass of soccer fields, realizing I would never become like one of those Dutch masters of the foot art (within a few years I would smoke more than tread the grass, preferably if Dutch) and when I turned my attention to the skirts of the most pheromonic girls (no matter if Dutch, Afghan, or Moroccan).

It was also a period of intense self-indulgence, and my wrist was put to the test when, at the village bar, I started excessively fiddling with that Street Fighter, a fighting game (indeed), which needed only 200 lira to entertain the pre-adolescent of the moment
(yes, once with 10 cents you could do something and they weren't needed, as today, just to loosen or tighten screws in the absence of the proper tool).

So imagine my delight when my friend Topolino (name of "Fantasia") invited me to his house to play Mortal Kombat on his Sega (again) Mega Drive.

Add to it the hope of meeting madame Upanova (another name of "Fantasia"), his older sister with an aristocratic aplomb that didn’t flinch when, attempting to exchange a few words to impress her, I spurted blood from my knee, nervously picking at a fresh scab from a bicycle fall (remember the villains hit by the brave Ken Shiro at a pressure point?).

But I'm digressing.

There and then Mortal Kombat disappointed me: sparse and monotonous graphics (how much more varied and detailed was that of Street Fighter?), not very interesting characters, and a certain cumbersomeness in executing special combos (how much easier and more delightful was it to perform an "aduuuuken" or "yoga fire"?).

But then came the stroke of genius, the Fatalities!

The fighter who lost the match could be gutted/decapitated/ignited/electro-shocked (etc. etc.) by the winner, and each brawler had their own particular secret move.

In short, the frustration (not yet numbed by THC) of not being a new Maradona or a precocious Casanova was sublimated in those gruesome images that could follow the words "finish him!" (Ah! How much does good Tarantino owe to Mortal Kombat?! And the wrestling tough guys?!).

I didn't care much about doing or enduring that move because that was a cathartic moment in itself, a moment that not only satisfied my latent sadomasochism but also detached me from the rest of the world in a way I would vainly seek in the arts and drugs for all the years to come.

But I know that on DeB there are many little hairless kiddos and many withered old-timers who have no idea what I'm talking about, so (if you weren't, like me, lucky enough to be born in the early '80s) here's a taste:

... (ok, I can't insert the link of the fatalities)...