The fighting game genre has many notable franchises. One of the earliest to earn iconic status is Mortal Kombat. It punched its way onto the arcade scene in 1992 and quickly found its way to the home console market, wowing players with at-the-time realistic visuals and controversial over-the-top gore. That controversial content ushered in the now-industry standard ratings system, but Mortal Kombat's legacy has been defined by much more than that. For over 11 mainline installments, the series built gameplay innovations and an ever-growing roster atop its core 1-on-1 fighting system.

Ahead of the series returning to-and recreating-its "roots" with Mortal Kombat 1, now is an amazing time to look at how it evolved through the eras.

Anyone remember Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy? If not, it was a promising game with good reviews that didn't exactly do too well in the retail market. It seemed to be all but forgotten, until a screenwriter noticed strange similarities between his work (titled Psi-ops) and the previously mentioned game. Accusing Midway of plagiarism, the man is suing for $1.5 million USD. Midway has not commented on this situation.