The amateurs of versus fighting having hung out the dark rooms during the golden age of the arcade, have inevitably crossed these two fabulous fighting games that were Art of Fighting and Mortal Kombat. In 1992, Midway and SNK are in the competition to dethrone Capcom in the Olympics of fighting video game. AOF is one of the first Neo Geo games to cross the 100 megabyte mark. Programmers are starting to have good use of the machine's capacities, and it shows. MK is developed on the Midway T-Unit, a dual-processor hardware not overpowered, but having the particularity of displaying in 400X254, which is a really high resolution at the time. Midway will use this format primarily for "digitized" motion capture games. The SNK soft is made in 320x224, but still weighs 24 megas more than its rival. A colorful style with gigantic sprites on one side, "photo-realistic" graphics and a particular gore atmosphere on the other ...

If MK has a better resolution, the number of colors displayed is much higher in AOF. Not only are the graphics of Mortal Kombat bland, but we notice that the backgrounds are relatively empty, in addition to being few. In the table, only the characters are making it look better. The SNK soft is infinitely more generous: the sprites are huge and well detailed (for example, the faces of the fighters are swollen when hit several times) and the stages are beautiful and varied, in addition to being eight, against five only . Art of Fighting therefore wins easily in this round.

Art of Fighting    95                             70   Mortal Kombat

Art of Fighting is the first VS fighting game to include zooms during fights. These are very well made, and allow the game to display huge characters during hand-to-hand action. The pace is dynamic, with fast and just correctly decomposed moves, no more. Mortal Kombat does better: the protagonists have a very decomposed and realistic animation. About fluidity, it's really good. Only reproach, some postures a bit stiff, and some characters are less worked than others. Nevertheless MK dominates his rival here, thanks to a motion capture of good quality (for a game of 1992).

Art of Fighting    84                             86   Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat's soundtrack is really poor and simplistic. If the game is not stingy with vocal digits, they are of poor quality. The sound effects are sketchy and not very varied. The melodies could be elevator music, gore version! They serve as a little murky background sound, and that's all. Art of Fighting is more percussive, with music worthy of John Woo's action movies, high-end vocal digits, and particularly punchy sound effects.

Art of Fighting    93                             59   Mortal Kombat

The rivals of this comparison have very beautiful rosters for games of 1992, with respectively eight characters selectable for AOF, even ten with the code making Boss playable, against seven for Mortal Kombat. With a caveat though: in the game SNK, the single mode (story mode) is played only Robert or Ryo! Only versus offers all the warriors. And this is not a detail! Because other fighters are less interesting to play than our two heroes. Mortal Kombat is more homogeneous, because all the characters are of the same level, and the solo mode is longer and more difficult. If there are furies to discover in AOF, discovering and realizing the fatalities of Mortal Kombat is an even more challenging challenge. He wins this round hands down.

Art of Fighting    70                             85   Mortal Kombat

Art of Fighting is again innovative: gauge of "spirit" governing the use of special moves, hidden furies, zooms, gameplay with four buttons: fist, foot, powerful blow / projection, provocation. combine fist / powerful shot or powerful kick / kick to trigger another attack. It is possible to "dasher" (twice before on the stick) or to retreat (twice back). Depending on whether you press or hold A or B quickly, special moves are fast or strong. In short, the panel is complete, and even complex. Getting started takes time, but the game is interesting, with a lot of movement, bonus stages that improve your character, and story mode well put together. Mortal Kombat is more basic, but uses five buttons: little fist, big fist, little foot, big foot, block. Each character has a number of standard moves and special moves correct, but still less than AOF. There are a few combos, a range of interesting strategies, and of course, the highlight of the show, the fatalities. Each fighter has his own, and he is the one who will be the most disgusting. At the price of a difficult manipulation, you will be entitled to the cut head, limbs torn off, cremation, the section of the spine ... It is very amusing to succeed in placing "his" fatality, especially against a "human" opponent! But this is not enough to expand the gameplay too light MK. Mortal Kombat II will remedy this, but for now, the SNK soft takes the advantage thanks to its depth of play.

Art of Fighting    86                             72   Mortal Kombat

Midway happily explores the extreme gore in fighting game, and marks the spirits with Mortal Kombat. The fact remains that the first game of the saga stands a little too much on its fatalities feature, and it's not enough to produce a top-notch game of VS fighting. If Art of Fighting is also not high enough to compete with Street Fighter II Turbo, however, it's still superior to its rival in this comparison.