After well over a decade in the video game industry, Mortal Kombat is a household name that everyone knows and some love. It’s a series that has had its fair share of good, bad, and somewhat ugly. With Mortal Monday being a year old, it’s time to introduce to everyone the Mortal Monday awards. I have scanned over several aspects of the Mortal Kombat franchise to pinpoint all entrants and, eventually, the winner of each category.

Cheapest Move

Unfortunately, there are plenty of cheap moves to toss around in the Mortal Kombat franchise. It’s easy enough to have Liu Kang soar across the screen a thousand times over with a flying kick, Scorpion can repeatedly spear opponents, and repeated jump kicks can devastate even the most established opponent. Over the years, the MK Team has tried to liven up the series with different combos, an elevated list of special moves, and other tweaks to the gameplay. But that isn’t going to make us forget. We’re going to remember the times that we raged at the screen because some jerkoff found a way to beat the hell out of us with very little effort.

The Winner: The Sweep attack(Runner Up: Smoke’s Knee Smash throw)

We all remember how annoying it was to have some guy constantly go for the uppercut or the jump kick, but nothing compared to the guy who managed to corner you and used the Sweep attack until you were dead. Sure, it was something that could be blocked if you were paying enough attention, but one wrong move meant you were in the sweep lock until dead. What could be worse? How about two rounds of the same thing?

Smoke’s knee smash throw gets the runner up spot because of how ridiculously bugged it was in Deception. Most throws either create space between the fighters or at least leave a few seconds where the victim is invulnerable; but not Smoke’s throw. The knee smash can be followed up with another quick knee smash, and, in all honesty, this can be done until the opponent is either able to block it(doubtful) or use a breaker to escape. Either way, it’s next to impossible to escape.

Worst Character

There were plenty of new characters throughout the series, and these characters normally showed up with little to no real background. These were the same characters that usually could have been swapped out for an older character that didn’t make the cut in the new game and left fans raging until the Ultimate/Gold/Trilogy edition of the game came out. After the series ran so long, it was easy to get lost in the sea of Nightwolfs, Strykers, Li Meis, Ashrahs, Hsu Haos, Tanyas, Kais, and the list goes on. It slowly got to the point where each game should have came with a Mortal Kombat historian.

Winner: Hsu Hao(Runner Up: Stryker)

Hsu Hao was a character that really wasn’t explained, and the fans really didn’t care. Showing their sheer brilliance in the ability to screw up a wet dream, the MK Team decided that this new character that had little background should be placed as an unlockable character – y’know, that way players have already gone through the majority of the game before unlocking him. That way they really won’t give a damn once he’s unlocked.

It’s not like he had a great story anyway. He was apparently part of the Red Dragon under Mavado. He was killed by Jax. The end. What a great story to a great character that players had to work their asses off to achieve.

Stryker had to have the most boring story of them all. He was a cop who decided to stand up against Kahn’s invasion in Mortal Kombat 3. He has no special powers, no real desire to stand up against Kahn other than he’s a cop and that bitch is breakin’ the law, and he didn’t even look like a Mortal Kombat character. Players weren’t buying Stryker’s crap for a long time. Sure, he had amazing combos in Ultimate MK3/Trilogy, but he never really fit in with the rest of the crowd.

He was given a different outfit for Armagedcdon, but things still didn’t seem right. Looking like Chester Bennington from Linkin Park really doesn’t make you more of a hardcore MK character.

Best Joke

Boon and his MK team are legendary for throwing jokes into their games not only to lighten the mood but also to show that they’re having just as much fun making the games as we are playing them. Over the years, we’ve seen plenty of stuff that gone from honest misunderstandings to insane frenzies caused by some garbage that Boon decided to plant. We all remember the insanity that the “Kano Transformation” tracker in the MK II debug mode caused, and the Ermac misunderstanding from the first game has been permanently embedded in history. There were also strange inside jokes such as “Toasty” from MK II and the strange “alright” whispering that was tossed all around MK 4. But which of these random acts of madness has made its mark on the very name of the series?

Winner: Toasty!(Runner Up: Noob Saibot’s “Troll Hammer”)

Admit it; you were looking at the screen with a “what the hell was that?!” look the first time Dan Forden appeared on the screen and uttered the legendary phrase, “Toasty!” The phrase started out as a joke in the Midway office as the team would shout “toasted!” every time someone fell victim to Scorpion’s fire breath Fatality. “Toasted” eventually transformed into “toasty,” and apparently they decided it would be funny to have Forden sing the line and appear on screen as well. The joke later became even more ridiculous with “Frosty!” and “Toasty/Frosty 3D!” in MK4.

Any hardcore Mortal Kombat fan can tell you that Noob Saibot is (Ed)Boon and (John)Tobias spelled backwards. But none of them knew that the word “noob” would become an Internet phenomenon years later. Their character slowly became a joke that was never intended(especially with the announcer booming “Noob wins!) but they weren’t going to let that become a bad thing. Noob Saibot was converted back to a single character in MK Armageddon, and every character was given a weapon. Saibot was given a special hammer – a “troll” hammer. This was the MK Teams way of acknowledging the trolls as well as the noobs of the Internet world. I’m okay with it as long as they don’t feed the trolls.

Best Fatality

The last award is a sensitive subject considering how many Fatalities and characters exist in the series. Everyone has their favorite character and Fatality, but which one made everyone stop in place and think, “Damn, I can’t believe that!” Again, that is subject of opinion for a lot of people. It’s an ongoing debate at several different websites (such as MortalKombatOnline.com), and I doubt that the fans will agree with the winner of this award either. With that said, I’ve seen every Fatality that has ever graced a MK game. I’ve thought about every one of them and tried to piece together my own experience of when I first saw them. With this in mind, I give you the winner.

Winner: Sub-Zero’s Spine Rip(Runner Up: Scorpion’s Fire Breath)

Many people stared off in sheer amazement the first time they witnessed Sub-Zero rip his opponent’s head and spine clear from his body in a raw, relentless blood bath. We had already seen hearts ripped out, people bursting into flames, and people falling onto spikes, but we haven’t seen spines ripped out with the head still attached – that was news to everyone. It was bloody and gory enough to be the target of several critics who felt the game was too violent and wanted some type of censorship. The critics got what they wanted in the SNES port of the game, but it led to Sub-Zero’s second most popular Fatality of all times: The Ice Shatter.

Scorpion’s Fire Breath Fatality amazed many not only because it was cool but also because it was rather unorthodox compared to all the other characters – even Raiden. Even if you read the comic book penned by John Tobias that came with the home port of the game, you weren’t expecting the ninja in yellow to remove his mask, reveal a skull(somewhat like Ghost Rider), and launch a fatal ball of fire at his stunned opponent. His Fire Breath is definitely a worthy runner up.

Hopefully you enjoyed the first edition of the Mortal Monday Awards. I’m currently uncertain if there will be more in the future, so I’ll let your response determine that. Choose Your Destiny!