Pit Fighter 2 copyright 2007 Atari Corporation and Hasbro Interactive
To begin with, you'd have to be blind not to see that the color scheme for the title of the two games are nearly identical. But lets take a closer, deeper inspection of various aspects of the two games....
On the left we see a shot of Johnny Cage from the Test Your Might sequence in Mortal Kombat. On the right we have a scene from Kato's animated bio screen. On one hand, Pit-Fighter did not have a playable version of breaking objects, but the similarity of the two is nonetheless striking. Even the two characters by themselves are very much alike; similar build, both shirtless, and even the forearm guards are similar. There is no doubt of the inspiration that Pit-Fighter gave Mortal Kombat team in this example.
If you break these two characters down, we will see that they are just too similar to deny. From Mortal Kombat II, we have a picture of Jax- a strongarm that wins over his opponents with brute force. From Pit-Fighter, we have Buzz- another muscle man that is know for his overpowering of opponents. Again, both shirtless, and when you compare Jax's winning pose to Buzz, one can only wonder why the Mortal Kombat team didn't make Jax's pose into any other of the dozens of weightlifter poses. I think the unoriginality of MK, as well as the Pit-Fighter inspiration is clearly evident here in the Mortal Kombat team's attempts.
Here we have the bosses of Mortal Kombat II (Shao Kahn) and Pit-Fighter (The Masked Warrior). If you break these two characters down into their basic components, we'll see the overwhelming likenesses.
The Masked Warrior (1990), is a very muscular foe that towers over his opponents. He is a shirless brute that taunts his enemies as he pummels then into the ground. He wears a mask to conceal his face, and is decorated with many leather bands and spiked wrist guards. Shao Kahn (1993), can be described exacltly as this predecessor was three years earlier. The Mortal Kombat II team could have designed any character to be the boss of Mortal Kombat II, but instead they virtually cloned The Masked Warrior from Pit-Fighter and slightly modified his costume to match the setting of Mortal Kombat. This is one of the most blatant examples of Pit-Fighter's obvious influence of Mortal Kombat (and other fighter games), as well as the lack of creativity of the Mortal Kombat team.
In 1990, Pit-Fighter brought us digitized film footage as part of the introduction of each character in the demo mode. Two years later, Mortal Kombat did the same thing. Although the quality of the footage is considerably higher and more elaborate in Mortal Kombat, the Mortal Kombat team had two years of technology to work with that the Pit-Fighter team didn't. There is no question that the Mortal Kombat animation is better, but the influence of Pit-Fighter is clearly portrayed in this aspect of the game.
In addition to the digitized intro screens, Pit-Fighter was the first to bring us digitized fighters as in game controllable characters. Mortal Kombat did the same two years later. Once again, the Mortal Kombat graphics are considerably better and no one would argue that, but two years of technology is light years in CPU terms. Once again, Mortal Kombat clearly copies one of Pit-Fighter's unique and trademark qualities.
Grudge match vs. Mirror match
In 1990, Pit-Fighter brought us the grudge match- a new concept in fighting games where you were to battle a duplicate of yourself. Two years later, Mortal Kombat produced the Mirror Match- an identical contest where you are faced against another duplicate. There is no question of the influence and blatent copy here.
Even today, one has to wonder if Blind Kenshai of MK: Deadly Alliance may have had some influence from this footage taken from Pit-Fighter's intro screen for Kato. Is Mortal Kombat still drawing inspiration from Pit-Fighter 15 years later???
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Pit-Fighter, Pit-Fighter II, Pit-Fighter 2, and Guardians of the 'Hood are registered trademarks of the Atari Corporation and Hasbro Interactive.
