Editorials
‘Mace: The Dark Age’ – The ‘Mortal Kombat’-Style Fighting Game Lost to the 1990s
Mortal Kombat really changed the game, huh?
Sure, the game’s hand at unintentionally leading the charge for the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has been covered to death in the decades since the ultra-bloody fighter first hit the scene. But beyond the widespread controversy caused by the game’s audacity at suggesting that a ninja can exhale fire balls to disintegrate another ninja into sawdust, what Mortal Kombat brought to the fighting game scene was the inspiration to continuously push the boundaries on what was acceptable to portray in a video game.
But for a series that is so intertwined with its own controversy, MK took time to reinvent itself, showing just how much mileage the blood-drenched game of fisticuffs could have even in the modern day. The games have dabbled in the third dimension, developed a story that is just engaging enough to keep us glued to the non-fighting scenes, and tweaked their gameplay dynamics to fit into the professional fighting game scene.
On the flipside, the 90s was also home to “Mortal Kombat-likes”: fighting games that intended to capitalize on the success Mortal Kombat found with its gory and at-the-time transgressive content. Games such as Kasumi Ninja, War Gods, Cosmic Carnage, and oh so many more spawned from this 90s movement. If MK was able to break through the mainstream, then it stood to reason that developers would try their hand at breaking through with their own brand of edginess.
But what many of these games didn’t realize was how limited the appeal of gore baths and snarky humor was, especially when that was all that was offered. All the carnage and jokes in the world couldn’t mask how blatant the inspiration was and how little they learned from MK’s gradual evolvement that started even in the 90s. These games, varied in concepts but identical in execution, could do nothing except flounder in the shadow of the Midway titan.
In this sea of MK-likes, Mace: The Dark Age stood out as different from the bunch. Released by Atari Games in 1997, Mace would not go the way of the usual 2D gore fests that were already suffering from a mixed-to-negative reception in comparison to MK. That isn’t to say that Mace wasn’t another MK clone – the game’s heavy emphasis on fatal finishing moves (you know, fatalities) was reason enough to lump it with the MK-likes and the game itself isn’t shy about wearing its influences on its sleeve.
But there’s a retro finesse to Mace: The Dark Age that mere words can’t do justice, try as I may. A visual splendor for the time, Mace had a leg up on the competition largely due to its confident presentation. Set in medieval times, the story concerns the Mace of Tanis, a powerful weapon imbued with necropotic energy that grants its holder unimaginable power. In the hands of an all-powerful tyrant named Asmodeus, nations spread throughout Europe and Asia send their fiercest fighters to get ahold of the mace, either for more power or to stop the current reign of terror.
With a backstory that is just detailed enough for players to be subconsciously aware of in the background, Mace takes the stakes of its story and the motivations behind the roster of characters incredibly serious. A ragtag roster of warriors fighting for power is a simple hook for the eventual fighting, almost too simple of a hook, and yet Mace commits to the boundaries and lore of its own universe to keep us engaged.
An in-game universe that is touted as being a brutal, war-torn hellscape of death and suffering is just a natural fit for the Mortal Kombat aesthetics and Mace stands as an example of a game giving exactly what it advertises. Characters range from monks and samurais to a masked executioner that is literally only called The Executioner in-game because yeah, that’s what he is. In an era where MK-likes – and video games in general, were getting comfortable with calling themselves out on their own perceived flaws, Mace’s appeal largely relied on catering to our braindead desires to witness video game violence to get a reaction.
And that it did in the arcades. Initially sold to arcades before its N64 port later in the year, Mace: The Dark Age became a commercial hit amidst the sea of MK clones that had crashed and burned up to that point. Mace’s trump card to success was the cutting-edge graphics that attracted more and more people to the arcades. Running on a 3Dfx Voodoo graphics card, Mace stood out as one of the earlier instances of fighting games being given the benefits of the third dimension to add a new depth to the fighting system. Movement in 3D was obviously limited, but players were still rewarded with the option to move and sway in a manner that more closely resembled real life than most games at the time.
While 3D gaming was already revitalizing video games as a whole by 1997, Mace was still seen as a step-up in terms of its admittedly glitzy presentation. Virtua Fighter had already made waves with its 3D fighting engine 4 years prior, but Mace’s massive graphical upgrade caught people’s eye in the way that VF and the previous year’s Dead or Alive could only manage. Tekken 3 and Mortal Kombat 4 hadn’t been released to the entire world yet, so Mace was able to get its time in the sun as a result.
Of course Mace is not a hidden masterpiece floating around in purgatory waiting for a resurgence in popularity. For as groundbreaking as it may have been from a graphical standpoint, the game still suffered from many of the same issues that its predecessors had come across. A distinct lack of variety beyond the violence, fun yet gimmicky characters with a short shelf life, and clunky movement that wasn’t as refined as what we would see with Tekken 3 the following year.
Mace avoided the trappings of some Mortal Kombat stereotypes, but it had came in a time of change for the video game industry. Between the aforementioned Tekken and similar games like Soul Edge (what would later become Soulcalibur) and DOA joining the likes of Mario, Resident Evil, and Doom in helping to incorporate larger uses of 3D in their respective formats, Mace was ultimately a victim of circumstance.
One could argue that the game itself was not memorable enough to survive, but Mace’s presentation drips untapped potential, especially in the world of fighting games. There is a visceral level of fun to be had in trying your hand at Mace’s various characters, each wielding their respective weapons and swinging them with ferocity. The fight announcer sounding like a wrestler cutting a monster heel promo only adds to the game’s barbaric charm.
But it was a charm that quickly faded as the video game industry moved on. Mace was an arcade hit, but its port to the N64 was less favorable, only standing out for being the best of a thin N64 bunch at the time. Beyond its mixed switch to consoles, Tekken 3 and Mortal Kombat 4 were waiting in the wings and by the time the new millennia rolled around and console games started to take mainstream precedence over the arcade, Mace became relegated to the world of video game and movie shops, which is ironically the manner in which I personally discovered the game.
My parents would rent the game for me because, like so many others, a game that appeared this violent quickly brought forth memories of Mortal Kombat, which they remember me enjoying and raging over. I, like the industry as a whole, had my fun with the game before moving on and with consoles now being the main way to scratch our video game itch, a lone N64 port of an oft-forgotten fighting game didn’t have a chance in hell at surviving the times.
Fighting games have evolved beyond what we ever thought was possible and I am stoked to see the FGC alive and well in this day and age. Tekken, Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Guilty Gear, Smash Bros, and of course Mortal Kombat have weathered their respective storms to become the cream of the crop for the eternally expanding world of fighting games, but looking back at what could have been isn’t always a bad thing in my eyes.
Mace: The Dark Age was an admirable attempt to craft a hard-hitting whopper of a fighting game and the fact that it had any success at all is a testament to its qualities. Sure, it was a Mortal Kombat clone in its DNA, but Mace had the good thought to try and improve on MK’s appeal rather than just ape the formula. It may not have broken through at the end of the day, but Mace’s personality and presentation make it an endearing what-if in the world of fighting games. What if Mace: The Dark Age became one of the landmarks of fighting games?
We’ll never know, but with the fighting game world in the midst of another golden age, maybe we can finally pull Mace out of the dark ages.
Soon after the New Hollywood generation took over the entertainment industry, they started having children. And more than any filmmakers that came before—they were terrified. Rosemary’s Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Omen (1976), Eraserhead (1977), The Brood (1979), The Shining (1980), Possession (1981), and many others all deal, at least in part, with the fears of becoming or being a parent. What if my child turns out to be a monster? is corrupted by some evil force? or turns out to be the fucking Antichrist? What if I screw them up somehow, or can’t help them, or even go insane and try to kill them? Horror has always been at its best when exploring relatable fears through extreme circumstances. A prime example of this is Larry Cohen’s 1974 monster-baby movie It’s Alive, which explores the not only the rollercoaster of emotions that any parent experiences when confronted with the difficulties of raising a child, but long-standing questions of who or what is at fault when something goes horribly wrong.
Cohen begins making his underlying points early in the film as Frank Davis (John P. Ryan) discusses the state of the world with a group of expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room. They discuss the “overabundance of lead” in foods and the environment, smog, and pesticides that only serve to produce roaches that are “bigger, stronger, and harder to kill.” Frank comments that this is “quite a world to bring a kid into.” This has long been a discussion point among people when trying to decide whether to have kids or not. I’ve had many conversations with friends who have said they feel it’s irresponsible to bring children into such a violent, broken, and dangerous world, and I certainly don’t begrudge them this. My wife and I did decide to have children but that doesn’t mean that it’s been easy.
Immediately following this scene comes It’s Alive’s most famous sequence in which Frank’s wife Lenore (Sharon Farrell) is the only person left alive in her delivery room, the doctors clawed and bitten to death by her mutant baby, which has escaped. “What does my baby look like!? What’s wrong with my baby!?” she screams as nurses wheel her frantically into a recovery room. The evening that had begun with such joy and excitement at the birth of their second child turned into a nightmare. This is tough for me to write, but on some level, I can relate to this whiplash of emotion. When my second child was born, they came about five weeks early. I’ll use the pronouns “they/them” for privacy reasons when referring to my kids. Our oldest was still very young and went to stay with my parents and we sped off to the hospital where my wife was taken into an operating room for an emergency c-section. I was able to carry our newborn into the NICU (natal intensive care unit) where I was assured that this was routine for all premature births. The nurses assured me there was nothing to worry about and the baby looked big and healthy. I headed to where my wife was taken to recover to grab a few winks assuming that everything was fine. Well, when I awoke, I headed back over to the NICU to find that my child was not where I left them. The nurse found me and told me that the baby’s lungs were underdeveloped, and they had to put them in a special room connected to oxygen tubes and wires to monitor their vitals.
It’s difficult to express the fear that overwhelmed me in those moments. Everything turned out okay, but it took a while and I’m convinced to this day that their anxiety struggles spring from these first weeks of life. As our children grew, we learned that two of the three were on the spectrum and that anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD were also playing a part in their lives. Parents, at least speaking for myself, can’t help but blame themselves for the struggles their children face. The “if only” questions creep in and easily overcome the voices that assure us that it really has nothing to do with us. In the film, Lenore says, “maybe it’s all the pills I’ve been taking that brought this on.” Frank muses aloud about how he used to think that Frankenstein was the monster, but when he got older realized he was the one that made the monster. The aptly named Frank is wondering if his baby’s mutation is his fault, if he created the monster that is terrorizing Los Angeles. I have made plenty of “if only” statements about myself over the years. “If only I hadn’t had to work so much, if only I had been around more when they were little.” Mothers may ask themselves, “did I have a drink, too much coffee, or a cigarette before I knew I was pregnant? Was I too stressed out during the pregnancy?” In other words, most parents can’t help but wonder if it’s all their fault.
At one point in the film, Frank goes to the elementary school where his baby has been sighted and is escorted through the halls by police. He overhears someone comment about “screwed up genes,” which brings about age-old questions of nature vs. nurture. Despite the voices around him from doctors and detectives that say, “we know this isn’t your fault,” Frank can’t help but think it is, and that the people who try to tell him it isn’t really think it’s his fault too. There is no doubt that there is a hereditary element to the kinds of mental illness struggles that my children and I deal with. But, and it’s a bit but, good parenting goes a long way in helping children deal with these struggles. Kids need to know they’re not alone, a good parent can provide that, perhaps especially parents that can relate to the same kinds of struggles. The question of nature vs. nurture will likely never be entirely answered but I think there’s more than a good chance that “both/and” is the case. Around the midpoint of the film, Frank agrees to disown the child and sign it over for medical experimentation if caught or killed. Lenore and the older son Chris (Daniel Holzman) seek to nurture and teach the baby, feeling that it is not a monster, but a member of the family.
It’s Alive takes these ideas to an even greater degree in the fact that the Davis Baby really is a monster, a mutant with claws and fangs that murders and eats people. The late ’60s and early ’70s also saw the rise in mass murderers and serial killers which heightened the nature vs. nurture debate. Obviously, these people were not literal monsters but human beings that came from human parents, but something had gone horribly wrong. Often the upbringing of these killers clearly led in part to their antisocial behavior, but this isn’t always the case. It’s Alive asks “what if a ‘monster’ comes from a good home?” In this case is it society, environmental factors, or is it the lead, smog, and pesticides? It is almost impossible to know, but the ending of the film underscores an uncomfortable truth—even monsters have parents.
As the film enters its third act, Frank joins the hunt for his child through the Los Angeles sewers and into the L.A. River. He is armed with a rifle and ready to kill on sight, having divorced himself from any relationship to the child. Then Frank finds his baby crying in the sewers and his fatherly instincts take over. With tears in his eyes, he speaks words of comfort and wraps his son in his coat. He holds him close, pats and rocks him, and whispers that everything is going to be okay. People often wonder how the parents of those who perform heinous acts can sit in court, shed tears, and defend them. I think it’s a complex issue. I’m sure that these parents know that their child has done something evil, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still their baby. Your child is a piece of yourself formed into a whole new human being. Disowning them would be like cutting off a limb, no matter what they may have done. It doesn’t erase an evil act, far from it, but I can understand the pain of a parent in that situation. I think It’s Alive does an exceptional job placing its audience in that situation.
Despite the serious issues and ideas being examined in the film, It’s Alive is far from a dour affair. At heart, it is still a monster movie and filled with a sense of fun and a great deal of pitch-black humor. In one of its more memorable moments, a milkman is sucked into the rear compartment of his truck as red blood mingles with the white milk from smashed bottles leaking out the back of the truck and streaming down the street. Just after Frank agrees to join the hunt for his baby, the film cuts to the back of an ice cream truck with the words “STOP CHILDREN” emblazoned on it. It’s a movie filled with great kills, a mutant baby—created by make-up effects master Rick Baker early in his career, and plenty of action—and all in a PG rated movie! I’m telling you, the ’70s were wild. It just also happens to have some thoughtful ideas behind it as well.
Which was Larry Cohen’s specialty. Cohen made all kinds of movies, but his most enduring have been his horror films and all of them tackle the social issues and fears of the time they were made. God Told Me To (1976), Q: The Winged Serpent (1982), and The Stuff (1985) are all great examples of his socially aware, low-budget, exploitation filmmaking with a brain and It’s Alive certainly fits right in with that group. Cohen would go on to write and direct two sequels, It Lives Again (aka It’s Alive 2) in 1978 and It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive in 1987 and is credited as a co-writer on the 2008 remake. All these films explore the ideas of parental responsibility in light of the various concerns of the times they were made including abortion rights and AIDS.
Fifty years after It’s Alive was initially released, it has only become more relevant in the ensuing years. Fears surrounding parenthood have been with us since the beginning of time but as the years pass the reasons for these fears only seem to become more and more profound. In today’s world the conversation of the fathers in the waiting room could be expanded to hormones and genetic modifications in food, terrorism, climate change, school and other mass shootings, and other threats that were unknown or at least less of a concern fifty years ago. Perhaps the fearmongering conspiracy theories about chemtrails and vaccines would be mentioned as well, though in a more satirical fashion, as fears some expectant parents encounter while endlessly doomscrolling Facebook or Twitter. Speaking for myself, despite the struggles, the fears, and the sadness that sometimes comes with having children, it’s been worth it. The joys ultimately outweigh all of that, but I understand the terror too. Becoming a parent is no easy choice, nor should it be. But as I look back, I can say that I’m glad we made the choice we did.
I wonder if Frank and Lenore can say the same thing.
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