When was the character Kano introduced in the game Mortal Kombat?

Kano is a fictional character from the "Mortal Kombat" fighting game franchise. He is one of the series' original characters, having made his debut in "Mortal Kombat" in 1992. A calculating mercenary, and member of the international crime cartel known as the Black Dragon, Kano is also the top fugitive and persistent nemesis of Sonya Blade and Jax Briggs of the Special Forces, which has been his primary storyline throughout the course of his "Mortal Kombat" series appearances, and in "Mortal Kombat 3", he also becomes the general of Outworld emperor Shao Kahn's armies. In the 2011 series reboot, he additionally poses as a crooked Special Forces informant and serves as Kahn's arms dealer. His most recognizable feature is his cybernetic metal faceplate that houses an infrared eye laser.

Kano (Mortal Kombat)

Out of the seven original series characters, Kano has featured the least in the "Mortal Kombat" games, though he was among the eleven characters who represented the franchise in the crossover game "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe". He has appeared in alternate series media such as the first "Mortal Kombat" film, the animated series "" and the web series "", in addition to having a central role in the 1995 "Mortal Kombat" novel and featuring on official series merchandise. General and critical reception for the character has been mainly positive, but mixed in regards to his Fatality finishing moves.

First depicted in the "Mortal Kombat" canon as a Japanese-born American who was orphaned at a young age and fell into a life of crime, Kano is the leader of the Black Dragon criminal empire, having been deported from both Japan and the United States, and becoming a wanted man in thirty-five other countries. He made his first chronological series appearance in the 2000 platform game "", freeing fellow Black Dragon cohorts No Face, Tasia, Jarek and Tremor from a Special Forces security facility under the pretense that they would reform the organization, but really intending to use them as pawns to slow down any Special Forces agents who might pursue him. They killed an entire Special Forces unit at the site of the prison break, and Kano headed to Outworld where he recovered the Eye of Chitian, an artifact through which he would acquire incredible power. Jax gets hold of the object first and transports himself and Kano back to Earthrealm, but Kano soon escapes custody. It is additionally revealed in the game that Jax was responsible for the injury to Kano's eye that resulted in the installment of the faceplate.

Kano entered the "Mortal Kombat" tournament in the 1992 original game after hearing rumors that tournament host Shang Tsung's palace was filled with gold and other riches, with the intention of looting it for the Black Dragon, but he is fervently pursued by U.S. Special Forces officer Sonya Blade, who holds a personal grudge against Kano that is unspecified in the game's storyline. He evades capture by leaping onto Shang Tsung's junk bound for the tournament, and when Sonya tracks him onto his private island, she is captured and forced to compete. She and Kano were among the competition's few survivors, and during the final battle between Shang Tsung and Liu Kang, Sonya reluctantly teams up with Kano (along with Johnny Cage) to fight off Goro, enraged from his own loss to Liu Kang, but during their battle the island immediately self-destructs following Shang Tsung's defeat, trapping Kano and Sonya in Outworld. They are both captured and spend the events of "Mortal Kombat II" chained and on display in Outworld emperor Shao Kahn's arena.

In "Mortal Kombat 3" (1995), Jax finds and rescues Sonya, but also frees Kano in the process, enabling him to escape their clutches once again. Kano convinces Kahn to spare his soul at the outset of Kahn's invasion of Earth on the grounds that Kano can teach his armies how to use modern Earthrealm weaponry. However, Sonya tosses Kano to his apparent death from the roof of a highrise, but he survives and is found by Motaro, who healed and then imprisoned him. Motaro is then killed by Sheeva, who in turn frees Kano from his prison. During the events of "" (2002), he and Sheeva originally hatch a plan to assassinate Kahn, but Kano turns on Sheeva by preventing the attack, and as a reward was promoted to general of Outworld's rapidly shrinking army before the invasion was defeated. Even in the face of overwhelming odds, Kano stood ground and eventually managed to repel Princess Kitana and her Edenian-Shokan army. He returned to Kahn's palace just in time to watch from the shadows as Shang Tsung and Quan Chi spring their attack on the weakened emperor. After the battle, Kano declared his allegiance to the new rulers of Outworld, the Deadly Alliance. The two had Kano oversee the enslavement of a small village, who would construct a temple over Onaga's tomb to house the Soulnado. During its construction, Kano was assaulted by Li Mei, but Quan Chi intervened, as the Alliance had made a deal with the Red Dragon member Mavado: he would eliminate the swordsman Kenshi in exchange for the opportunity to fight and defeat Kano.

Kano returns with the series' entire playable roster in "" (2006), in which the game's main protagonist Taven sees that Kano has been held prisoner by the Red Dragon Clan for an extended length of time. Before escaping their facilities, Kano explains to Taven that the Red Dragon had been experimenting on him, as well as their own clan members, in an effort to create real-life genetically engineered dragons and human-dragon hybrids, all while mentioning that the Red Dragon were trying "something new" on him, although he leaves before he elaborates on what that "something" is.

Kano plays a minor role in the story mode of the 2011 "Mortal Kombat" reboot of the continuity of the first three games. He does not take part in any of the tournaments but is, as usual, pursued by Sonya and Jax; he is the Black Dragon leader who had duped the Special Forces by acting as an informant and deliberately feeding them false intelligence that led to the deaths of many of Sonya and Jax's comrades in ambushes. Kano first interacts with Sonya during the events of the Shaolin Tournament when he taunts her on the Pit bridge after she is weakened from a fight with Johnny Cage, who then defeats Kano in battle. Kano is later beaten by Sonya after Shang Tsung presents him to her as a challenge, but then forbids her to take him prisoner. Kano becomes Shao Kahn's arms supplier and tests rocket launchers with Shang Tsung in the Living Forest while Baraka is seen in the Armory handling crates loaded with pump action shotguns that are later used by the Tarkatan armies during Kahn's invasion of Earthrealm. After Kabal, a former Black Dragon member turned SWAT officer serving under Stryker's command, is severely burned by Kintaro, Kano takes him away to the Flesh Pits, where he and Shang Tsung restore his health, and Kano outfits Kabal with his mask and respirators and presents him with his old hookswords, all despite Kabal's defection from the Black Dragon. However, Kabal is mortified at his physical transformation and therefore furious at Kano for having sold the weapons used in the invasion, and bests him in combat and then forces him to lead him to Shao Kahn before knocking Kano out. Kano's last appearance is when he joins Goro and Kintaro in holding a group of soldiers hostage in a bell tower before being frozen by Sub-Zero. However, when Sub-Zero and most the soldiers Goro, Kintaro and Kano held hostage escaped, Kano manage to broke free and informed Noob Saibot about Sub-Zero's current state of breaking free from Sektor's control.

Kano returned as a playable character for the series' tenth installment, "Mortal Kombat X" (2015). His confirmation for the game was leaked by the German version of "GamePro", before his appearance was officially announced. He first appear in a comic book prequel, set after Netherrealm War ends, he follows Sub-Zero to infiltrate one of Red Dragon's base, using him to get the Kamidogu dagger for himself, in which Sub-Zero was tasked by Raiden to get the part of the dagger. Once Sub-Zero found the dagger, Kano appears from behind, took the dagger and injures Sub-Zero's right side of his face with a dagger, which is appears to be cursed containing a demon. However, the dagger possesses Sub-Zero and quickly injures Kano, leaving Kano to fall back as a now possessed Sub-Zero escape on keeping the dagger for his own and never return to Raiden. He later appears alongside Erron Black, being hired by Kotal and sending Jarek and Tasia to find and capture Johnny Cage and Sonya, and Jax's respective daughters, Cassie and Jacqui for a special treatments to them. Once capture Cassie and Jacqui, he and his fellow Black Dragon clansmen, and Erron was ambushed by the Red Dragon, led by Mavado. When Kano got injured from the battle, he retreats with one of his men. However, having acknowledged what Erron had done, namely being careful on taking Cassie and Jacqui alive as well, Kano decided to leave and betray the gunman to death. Sometimes after the comic book prequel, he infiltrated the Shaolin Temple to get Shinnok's amulet that contains Shinnok inside, replacing it with a replica without the Shaolin and Raiden knowing, then sold it to Mileena and assist her for a civil war against Kotal Kahn. He started acting as a weapon dealer for Kotal while one of Mileena's army set an ambush for Kotal. Though Mileena's ambush was successful, she and her army still lost to Kotal's strength of his own, leaving her army to retreat and Kano retreats to Earthrealm. He is later seen in an Outworld refugee camp, infiltrating the camp by assuming a guise as the female victim he killed, slicing her throat, only to be caught by Kenshi and Sonya thanks to Li Mei's knowledge about his involvement in Outworld, and Kano is finally taken to a custody.

Kano was among the eleven "Mortal Kombat" characters representing the franchise in the 2008 crossover fighter "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe". His official rival is The Joker, but he is not playable in the story mode. He also appears in the iOS game "" as an Easter egg fighting Batman in one of the levels. In the indie game Punch Club, a fighter named Jax, who is designed after the Mortal Kombat 3 incarnation of Kano makes an appearance in one of the game's gang turf war segments.

Kano was the final fighter to be added to the first game, where his role was to serve as the enemy of the female character Sonya. Kano originally had a large helmet with two red eyes, a concept that was dropped in favor of a smaller metal piece over his right eye. The eye piece was at first envisioned as a simple eyepatch, but then it was turned into a metal plate inspired by Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in "The Terminator". In his "" biography card, "Mortal Kombat" co-creator Ed Boon described how Kano's bionic eye in the first game was created by cutting out a piece of a plastic mask and painting it a silver color, then attaching it with spirit gum to actor Richard Divizio's face, with the infrared eye added digitally. For the first game he wore a simple gray tunic that was changed to red and black for "MK3"; Divizio said, "I thought, 'Good, get rid of that white karate outfit!'" and remarked that his versus-screen pose in the game represented his "mean Kano face." Kano's iconic heart-ripping finishing move was Divizio's idea inspired by the film "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" on which he insisted as a fan of "Indiana Jones".

Kano's "MK1" costume was revived as his alternate design for "Deadly Alliance" and "Armageddon," and his main costume in both titles has him shirtless with a black vest, while he wears a cord around his neck that has a tuft of Sonya's hair attached. His other constant in his series appearances, besides his eye, has been a bandolier worn across his chest that features a large glowing red implement; it has never served any purpose in the games, though it flashes a different color for each of his three gameplay variations for "Mortal Kombat X". For an intended series reboot tentatively titled "Mortal Kombat 8," former Midway Games concept artist Vincent Proce "dramatically revamped" Kano from a Black Dragon criminal into a "half Japanese, half U.S. military badass", complete with a more detailed faceplate and a simple white "gi" and red sash, while he went barefoot with his ankles heavily taped. The reboot was canceled with "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" developed in its stead, and Kano was included in the game with his Black Dragon origins left intact.

In all "Mortal Kombat" media from the first game up to "Armageddon" (save for the 1995 film), including the 1996 animated series and the 1995-96 theatrical show, Kano had either had a receding hairline or been completely bald (since Divizio had been going bald himself while filming for the first game and had shaved his head prior to shooting "MK3") and his facial hair had regularly consisted of nothing more than stubble. However, in "MKvsDC" and the 2011 reboot, Kano was given a full head of hair and beard, and a cosmetic addition in the reboot was two large solid-black dragon tattoos that started at his chest and snaked around his arms, while his outfits in both games were throwbacks to the two-dimensional titles. As a nod to Trevor Goddard's performance as Kano in the first "Mortal Kombat" film, the character's nationality was changed from American to Australian, beginning with the cartoon in which he spoke with an Australian accent, and continuing with Kano's redesign in "MKvsDC" and thereafter that served as a visual tribute to the actor.

In the original "Mortal Kombat," Kano's special moves were the Knife Throw, making him one of two characters in the game (besides Scorpion) whose projectile was a physical weapon, while his body-propel move, the Cannonball, saw him curl into a ball and launch himself at his opponent. "Sega Visions" called the Knife Throw "a strong distance weapon and easily thrown." Kano also possessed one of the more graphic Fatalities in the game, which involved him plunging his hand into his opponent's chest and ripping out their still-beating heart. In the censored SNES version, he instead fractures the opponent's sternum with a deadly punch. Boon claimed that Sub-Zero's "Spine Rip" Fatality from the same game stood out more, because Kano's finisher did not have a "mark left on the opponent's body." Kano was cut from the Game Gear version of "Mortal Kombat" due to memory constraints, while a still image of him wielding an automatic weapon in his arcade ending was removed from the Genesis version of the game.

Kano was not playable in "Mortal Kombat II"; according to series co-creator John Tobias in a 1994 interview with "GamePro," in the first game "Kano and Sonya were probably picked the least. We [Midway] still wanted to include them in the storyline, so we had them captured." He then confirmed that Kano and Sonya would return in a future installment. Indeed, Kano and Sonya were playable in "Mortal Kombat 3," where his moves from the first game were retained while he gained a new "Choke" maneuver where he lifted his opponents and then violently shook them. His Fatalities were far less graphic than in the first game, as he either exploded his opponent with a laser blast from his implant, or reached down their throat to pull out their entire skeleton and hold it aloft without any blood or gore present. The game featured the unplayable hidden character Noob Saibot, who was a silhouetted sprite of Kano before being switched to a traditional ninja palette swap in "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3" and the 1996 compilation title "Mortal Kombat Trilogy", the latter which featured the original "MK1" Kano as a selectable along with the then-current version.

Kano was the only one of the original seven characters who was omitted from "Mortal Kombat 4" (1997), with new character Jarek debuting in his place. His role in the game was as the last surviving member of the Black Dragon following Kano's apparent death, and was being pursued by Sonya and Jax for "crimes against humanity." Jarek copied Kano's special moves as well as his "Heart Rip" and "Eye Laser" Fatalities despite possessing no cybernetic enhancements. He was not as well-received as his predecessor, and has not featured as a playable in the series again with the exception of "Armageddon".

His eye laser is available as a special move in "Deadly Alliance", and he had a special with his knives called "Ear to Ear." This was a reference to a scene in the 1995 movie in which Kano tells Sonya that he had used his knife to slit her partner's throat "from ear to ear." One of his fighting styles in the game, ironically, is aikido, which is a defensive martial art that protects the attacker from injury. He was not included in "Mortal Kombat: Deception", in which Kabal takes over as the new leader of the Black Dragon after reforming it with new characters Kobra and Kira as they feud with rival faction, the Red Dragon, but returned in "Armageddon".

According to Prima Games' official guide for the 2011 reboot game, Kano’s " 'flinch and you will be comboed' style can be frustrating to play against, but if you are a die-hard Kano user back from the "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3" days, you will find that Kano completely fits your style." The guide also determined him to not be overly formidable nor at a great disadvantage in matches against the other characters.

In Malibu Comics' "Mortal Kombat" series, Kano appeared with all of the characters from the first game (minus Reptile) in the 1994 "Blood & Thunder" miniseries, the first issue of which borrowed liberally from John Tobias' "MK" comic in detailing his evading of Sonya and the Special Forces and getting into an altercation with Johnny Cage onboard Shang Tsung's ship before Cage knocks him out. In the second issue, during one of only two organized tournament fights that commenced in the entire Malibu run, Kano kills Lance, Sonya's cybernetically armed partner who had accompanied her onto the island, by way of his "Heart Rip" Fatality. He later breaks into Shang Tsung's quarters and steals his mythical tome, the Tao te Zhan, which he manages to hide on his person just before he is caught by Goro and imprisoned in a dungeon with the rest of the series characters. They all are pummeled by Goro in the following issue until Raiden comes to their rescue and breaks them out of the dungeon, but they wind up scattered throughout Outworld, and as a consequence, Kano is joined by Liu Kang, and their personalities clash from the start. Kano is still in possession of the book until it is taken by Scorpion; anxious to get it back, Kano attempts to ditch Liu Kang by scheming with a group of Outworld mutants into fighting them as a distraction, enabling him to stab his knife into Liu Kang's back and leave him for dead. In the sixth issue, he defeats Sub-Zero but is then beaten in battle by Sonya. The storyline ends with the Earth warriors victorious over the Outworlders and Kano taken into custody by Sonya and Jax, but he escapes, as detailed in a mini-story titled "Breakout" that was included in the first installment of the 1995 two-issue miniseries "U.S. Special Forces", in which Kano was not featured, as the main villain therein was an original Black Dragon character named Rojack. That same year, Kano was also featured in a three-issue miniseries titled "Rayden & Kano," in which Raiden presents Kano with a magical sword called "Ebbonrule", in hopes that he would kill Shao Kahn with it in the name of personal redemption, but the opposite occurs as Kano gives the sword to Kahn instead in exchange for godlike powers.

Kano was a featured character in the 1995 noncanonical "Mortal Kombat" novel written by Jeff Rovin, which is set before the events of the first game. He and several Black Dragon members (all originals exclusive to the book) are hired by Shang Tsung to locate a mystical amulet hidden somewhere in China. They come across a remote village in which Kung Lao resides, and Kano forces Kung Lao to accompany him on the journey. Unbeknownst to him, one of the Dragons is Sonya working undercover, as she has a personal interest in apprehending him after he had killed her fiancé several years earlier. However, Shang Tsung, Goro and Raiden interrupt the search, and Kano's Black Dragon cohorts are killed while Shang Tsung merges Kano with Kung Lao and sends the combined being to locate the amulet. After he and Kung Lao are returned to normal, Kano takes the amulet to Shang Tsung's palace, though he is assaulted by Goro after making physical contact with Shang Tsung. He then brawls with Sonya near the conclusion but the fight is inconclusive when he flees after she is momentarily distracted, therefore evading her capture.
In the 1995 "Mortal Kombat" movie, Kano was played by Trevor Goddard. The film expanded upon Kano's rivalry with Sonya from the games; she now sought vengeance against Kano for killing her (unnamed) partner, for which Shang Tsung hires Kano to lure Sonya into the Mortal Kombat tournament, promising to reward Kano's efforts after he presumably defeats Sonya, while demanding that she is "not to be harmed, only humiliated." Kano baits Sonya into boarding Shang Tsung's ship, and is later spotted by Cage, Sonya and Liu Kang conversing with Goro. When Sonya and Kano meet in battle, his earlier plan with Shang Tsung goes astray when he is defeated, and Shang Tsung betrays Kano by goading Sonya into finishing him; she complies by breaking his neck. Kano is described as wearing a business suit during the dining scene in the movie novelization, which also featured a detailed opening scene of an unsuccessful joint mission of arresting Black Dragon members by the Special Forces and an international task force, which culminates in Kano killing the task force's lieutenant who is designated therein as Sonya's murdered partner. Kano is spared by Sonya in their fight, as she refuses to fall prey to Shang Tsung's scheme while declaring that nobody "owned" her, and at the end of the book, he is captured and handcuffed by Sonya. Kano's wardrobe is minimalist in the film, as his game design was eschewed in favor of the character going shirtless with a simple brown vest, while he wears only a pair of pinstriped slacks, a metal choker and combat boots when he fights Sonya. The companion book published by Prima Lifestyles prior to the film's release said in his character profile: "A strapping Australian talented in all forms of martial arts, he's particularly skilled with a knife. He seems to enjoy his cat-and-mouse game with Sonya, which began after he murdered her partner."

Kano was a main character in "Mortal Kombat: Live Tour", and was portrayed by martial artists Joseph "Eddie" Acavedo and Mark Chemeleski. The character appeared twice in the animated series "," and was voiced by Michael Des Barres. In the sixth episode ("Familiar Red"), he works with Shao Kahn in fooling the Earthrealm defenders into chasing phony dimensional rips across the globe, while a flashback scene (shown from Sonya's perspective and narrated by Jax) depicting Kano's offscreen killing of Sonya's Special Forces partner Wexler prior to the first tournament was shown; this segment included a continuity violation as Kano was shown with his "MK3" design. He confronts Kabal for the first time in the ("Amends") since Kabal's defection from the Black Dragon and his turn to the side of good, and his consequential disfigurement at the hands of Kahn's forces. Kano's Black Dragon comrades received a generic design of shaved heads and facial tattoos, and were operating an underground generator used for opening portals. They are easily disposed of by the Earth warriors at the conclusion and Kabal detonates the machine with a bomb, but Kano manages to escape.

British actor and martial artist Darren Shahlavi portrayed Kano in three episodes of the 2011 first season of director Kevin Tancharoen's "" web series. He and the Black Dragon are shipping stolen robotics to an undisclosed location under the name "Cyber Initiative", and Kano takes Sonya hostage after she is caught infiltrating the large warehouse where the Dragons carry out their operations, and plans to kill her when the facility is raided by a SWAT team led by Jax and Stryker. During the assault, Kano engages Jax in combat but is defeated, taking a vicious punch to the temple from Jax in the process that dislodges his eye. He is later recovered by his henchmen and has his cybernetic eye surgically attached. Kano makes one last appearance in the ninth episode, which precedes the aforementioned events; the receiver of the robotics from the Black Dragon in the first episode was revealed to be the Lin Kuei headquarters.

Along with the original series characters, Kano was highlighted on an individual track from The Immortals' 1994 album "". Titled "Use Your Might", it features a female vocalist singing the character's praises from a first-person perspective, citing him as "the strongest of them all" out of the other Mortal Kombat contestants.

Hasbro released a 4" Kano action figure in 1994, packaged with a "Kombat Cycle" vehicle. Jazwares released a Kano action figure that was part of their 2006 "Shaolin Monks" toyline (despite the figure sporting Kano's costume from "Deadly Alliance"), in addition to a six-inch twentieth-anniversary Kano figure in 2012. Kano was one of twenty "MK" characters featured on 2.5" x 3.5" collectible magnets released by Ata-Boy Wholesale in 2011, and licensed replicas of his "Raptor" knife from the first film, which was designed by Gil Hibben, were made available for purchase.

Kano makes a brief appearance in the 2012 animated film "Wreck-It Ralph", voiced by Brian Kesinger. He performs the "Heart Rip" on "House of the Dead" zombie character Cyril while attending a "Bad-Anon" support group that featured villains from various classic video games.

Kano placed 24th in UGO.com's 2012 selection of the series' top fifty characters, and the site had additionally ranked him in 2011 as the seventh best cyborg character of all time, ahead of RoboCop and "Star Trek" character Seven of Nine. Den of Geek placed him seventeenth in their 2015 ranking of the series' characters, commenting that "Kano is a special kind of scum, and the series is better for him existing... [but] he probably wouldn’t rank quite as high if not for Trevor Goddard’s rocking performance in the first movie." Josh Wirtanen of Cheat Code Central listed Kano as the fifth best "Mortal Kombat" character while Game Revolution's Anthony Severino included in his 2011 "Top 10 Old School Mortal Kombat Characters" feature. Saldana praised the character as "such a scene-stealer in the movie that the "MK" team retconned everything about Kano to fit that portrayal", but Chris Buffa of Modojo.com included Kano in his "worst list" of characters from "MK3" without explanation, and IGN described him only by saying that he "sucks." Fans ranked Kano as the 27th best "MK" character in a 2013 online poll hosted by Dorkly that rated the series' entire character roster.

Kano is most notable for his Fatalities, which are regarded by various sources as among either the best or the worst in his series appearances. UGO Networks rated the "Heart Rip" from the original "Mortal Kombat" second in their 2011 listing of the "Top 11 Mortal Kombat Fatalities", crediting it as singlehandedly "herald[ing] the birth of anti-video game violence advocates" and describing it as "ripping the beating heart out of an opponent's chest like he's some sort of Mola Ram." Prima Games ranked it runner-up to Sub-Zero's "Spine Rip" in their 2014 list of the series' top Fatalities. "GamePro", in 2008, rated the doctored version of the finisher from the censored Super NES version of the game, in which Kano instead smashes the opponent's rib cage with a deadly punch, first in their list of the series' twelve "lamest" Fatalities. ScrewAttack ranked his "Skeleton Removal" from "Mortal Kombat 3" sixth on their "Top 10 Mortal Kombat Fatalities", but Dan Ryckert of "Game Informer" included it among the most confusing "MK" finishers.Kano's "Stomach Pounce" Fatality from "Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe" has been particularly criticized for its tameness in a "Mortal Kombat" title negatively received for its toned-down violence. It led to his second appearance on "GamePro's" "Top 12 Lamest Fatalities" listing (fifth), with the magazine commenting that "absolutely no effort was put in [by the developers in] creating it." "Game Informer" rated it among the series' worst finishers, and Game Rant chose it as the series' worst Fatality, adding that it had no connection to the character. David Saldana of 1UP.com listed it among his selection of the "MK" series' worst Fatalities (seventh). ScrewAttack used the "Stomach Pounce" as the representative of all of "MKvsDC's" finishers topping its 2011 list of the series' worst Fatalities. Adam Blampied of WhatCulture rated it third in his 2015 list of the "10 Worst Fatalities in Mortal Kombat History", commenting "it brings shame to the name ‘Fatality.’ It’s the weakest in the game, possibly of all time."

"We Got this Covered" rated his "Heart Transplant" Fatality from the 2011 "Mortal Kombat" reboot—in which Kano barehandedly decapitates his opponent and then rips out their heart before shoving their head into their chest cavity—among the series' top finishers, and Tony Searle of WhatCulture ranked it 18th in his 2014 list of the series' "20 Horrifically Stomach-Churning Fatalities." However, his "Knife to See You" Fatality from "Mortal Kombat X" led to his second appearance on WhatCulture's 2015 list of the series' worst finishers, coming in at the top spot.

Divizio is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Kano in the original "Mortal Kombat" in 1992. He also appeared in "Mortal Kombat II" as Baraka, and reprised the role of Kano for both "Mortal Kombat II" in 1993 (as a chained up prisoner) and "Mortal Kombat 3" in 1995, making his playable return. In "MK3", he also played the masked hook swordsman Kabal and the shadowy fighter Noob Saibot. In 1997, he portrayed Quan Chi in both the game and full motion video sequences in the platform title "", and provided motion capture footage for the character as well in "Mortal Kombat 4". He returned to the series in 2002, contributing to "" as a motion capture actor.

Richard Divizio

Richard Divizio (born September 6, 1968 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American actor best known for his work in the "Mortal Kombat" video game series. He holds a degree in computer graphic design from the American Academy of Art in Chicago, of which "MK" co-creator and former Midway employee John Tobias was an alumnus. Richard Divizio is also a martial artist, trained in the ways of 7 Star Preying Mantis, Chinese Kung Fu, and Wushu.

He was the only actor who appeared in all of the digitized "Mortal Kombat" games, and the characters he portrayed were concealed under masks or makeup. Kano's infrared implant was attached to his face with spirit gum for filming in the first and third games.

Divizio and his fellow "MK" actors became minor celebrities during the height of franchises success with "Mortal Kombat II". They appeared in costume on the cover of the January 1994 issue of "Video Games", which featured the group in an extensive profile three months later. Divizio made several appearances at trade shows dressed as Scorpion, despite not having played him in any of the games; this was because Daniel Pesina, who had played Scorpion during filming for "MKII", regularly suited up as Johnny Cage.

In the 2002 martial arts movie "Book of Swords", he portrayed a crime boss named Taz, who was out for a magical tome called The Book of Swords. The movie also starred three other "Mortal Kombat" actors in Katalin Zamiar, Ho Sung Pak, and Daniel Pesina. In a nod to his "Mortal Kombat" alter ego, Divizio's character was very similar to Kano in looks and storyline, and the other three actors are also seen in "MK" referencing clothing/roles throughout the picture. Divizio can also be seen as a background thug in the 2008 film "The Dark Knight", also with another "Mortal Kombat" alumni John Turk.


What was the first video game ever released?

Following the 1947 invention of the cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game as well as the first to use an electronic display, the first true video games were created in the early 1950s. Initially created as technology demonstrations, such as the "Bertie the Brain" and Nimrod computers in 1950 and 1951, video games also became the purview of academic research. A series of games, generally simulating real-world board games, were created at various research institutions to explore programming, human–computer interaction, and computer algorithms. These include "OXO" and Christopher Strachey's draughts program in 1952, the first software-based games to incorporate a CRT display, and several chess and checkers programs. Possibly the first video game created simply for entertainment was 1958's "Tennis for Two", featuring moving graphics on an oscilloscope. As computing technology improved over time, computers became smaller and faster, and the ability to work on them was opened up to university employees and undergraduate students by the end of the 1950s. These new programmers began to create games for non-academic purposes, leading up to the 1962 release of "Spacewar!" as one of the earliest known digital computer games to be available outside a single research institute.

Early history of video games

The history of video games spans a period of time between the invention of the first electronic games and today, covering a long period of invention and changes. Video gaming reached mainstream popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, when arcade video games, gaming consoles and home computer games were introduced to the general public. Since then, video gaming has become a popular form of entertainment and a part of modern culture in most parts of the world. The early history of video games, therefore, covers the period of time between the first interactive electronic game with an electronic display in 1947, the first true video games in the early 1950s, and the rise of early arcade video games in the 1970s ("Pong" and the beginning of the first generation of video game consoles with the Magnavox Odyssey, both in 1972). During this time there were a wide range of devices and inventions corresponding with large advances in computing technology, and the actual first video game is dependent on the definition of "video game" used.

Throughout the rest of the 1960s, digital computer games were created by increasingly numerous programmers and sometimes sold commercially in catalogs. As the audience for video games expanded to more than a few dozen research institutions with the falling cost of computers, and programming languages that would run on multiple types of computers were created, a wider variety of games began to be developed. Video games transitioned into a new era in the early 1970s with the launch of the commercial video game industry in 1971 with the display of the coin-operated arcade game "Galaxy Game" and the release of the first arcade video game "Computer Space", and then in 1972 with the release of the immensely successful arcade game "Pong" and the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, which launched the first generation of video game consoles.

The term "video game" has evolved over the decades from a purely technical definition to a general concept defining a new class of interactive entertainment. Technically, for a product to be a video game under early definitions, there must be a video signal transmitted to a cathode ray tube (CRT) that creates a rasterized image on a screen. This definition would preclude early computer games that outputted results to a printer or teletype rather than a display, any game rendered on a vector-scan monitor, any game played on a modern high definition display, and most handheld game systems. From a technical standpoint, these would more properly be called "electronic games" or "computer games".

Today the term "video game" has completely shed its purely technical definition and encompasses a wider range of technology. While still rather ill-defined, the term "video game" now generally encompasses any game played on hardware built with electronic logic circuits that incorporates an element of interactivity and outputs the results of the player's actions to a display. Going by this broader definition, the first video games appeared in the early 1950s; they were tied largely to research projects at universities and large corporations, though, and had little influence on each other due to their primary purpose as academic and promotional devices rather than entertainment games.

The ancestors to these games include the cathode-ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game as well as the first to incorporate a cathode ray tube screen. The player simulates an artillery shell trajectory on a CRT screen connected to an oscilloscope, with a set of knobs and switches. The device uses purely analog electronics and does not use any digital computer or memory device or execute a program. It was patented by Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. and Estle Ray Mann in 1947. While the idea behind the game was potentially to use a television set as the display and thus sell the invention to consumers, as Goldsmith and Mann worked at television designer DuMont Laboratories, the patent, the first for an electronic game, was never used and the device never manufactured beyond the original handmade prototypes. This, along with the lack of electronic logic circuits, keeps the device from being considered the first video game. Around the same time as the device was invented, the earliest known written computer game was developed by Alan Turing and David Champernowne in 1948, a chess simulation called Turochamp, though it was never actually implemented on a computer as the code was too complicated to run on the machines of the time. Turing tested the code in a game in 1952 where he mimicked the operation of the code in a real chess game against an opponent, but was never able to run the program on a computer.

The earliest known publicly demonstrated electronic game was created in 1950. "Bertie the Brain" was an arcade game of tic-tac-toe, built by Josef Kates for the 1950 Canadian National Exhibition. To showcase his new miniature vacuum tube, the additron tube, he designed a specialized computer to use it, which he built with the assistance of engineers from Rogers Majestic. The large metal computer, which was four meters tall, could only play tic-tac-toe on a lightbulb-backed display, and was installed in the Engineering Building at the Canadian National Exhibition from August 25 to September 9, 1950. The game was a success at the two-week exhibition, with attendees lining up to play it as Kates adjusted the difficulty up and down for players. After the exhibition, "Bertie" was dismantled, and "largely forgotten" as a novelty. Kates has said that he was working on so many projects at the same time that he had no energy to spare for preserving it, despite its significance.

Nearly a year later on May 5, 1951, the Nimrod computer—created by engineering firm and nascent computer developer Ferranti—was presented at the Festival of Britain, and then showcased for three weeks in October at the Berlin Industrial Show before being dismantled. Using a panel of lights for its display, it was designed exclusively to play the game of Nim; moves were made by players pressing buttons which corresponded with the lights. Nimrod could play either the traditional or "reverse" form of the game. The machine was twelve feet wide, nine feet deep, and five feet tall. It was based on an earlier Nim-playing machine, "Nimatron", designed by Edward Condon and built by Westinghouse Electric in 1940 for display at the New York World's Fair. "Nimatron" had been constructed from electromechanical relays and weighed over a ton. The Nimrod was primarily intended to showcase Ferranti's computer design and programming skills rather than entertain, and was not followed up by any future games. Despite this, most of the onlookers at the Festival of Britain were more interested in playing the game than in the programming and engineering logic behind it.
Around this time, non-visual games were being developed at various research computer laboratories; for example, Christopher Strachey developed a simulation of the game draughts, or checkers, for the Pilot ACE that he unsuccessfully attempted to run for the first time in July 1951 at the British National Physical Laboratory and completed in 1952; this is the first known computer game to be created for a general-purpose computer, rather than a machine specifically made for the game like "Bertie". Strachey's program inspired Arthur Samuel to develop his own checkers game in 1952 for the IBM 701; successive iterations developed rudimentary artificial intelligence by 1955 and a version was shown on television in 1956. Also in 1951, Dietrich Prinz wrote the first limited program of chess for the University of Manchester's general-purpose Ferranti Mark 1 computer, one of the first commercially available computers. The program was only capable of computing "mate-in-two" problems as it was not powerful enough to play a full game, and it had no video output. Around the same time in the early 1950s, the RAND Corporation developed a series of combat simulation games of increasing complexity, where the player would enter orders to intercept enemy aircraft, or set up their forces to counter an enemy army invasion. These simulations were not yet true video games, as they required human intervention to interpret the player's orders and the final results; the computer only controlled the paths that the enemies would take.

In 1952, Alexander S. Douglas created "OXO", a software program for the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) computer, which simulates a game of tic-tac-toe. The EDSAC was one of the first stored-program computers, with memory that could be read from or written to, and filled an entire room; it included three 35×16 dot matrix cathode ray tubes to graphically display the state of the computer's memory. As a part of a thesis on human–computer interaction, Douglas used one of these screens to portray other information to the user; he chose to do so via displaying the current state of a game. The player entered input using a rotary telephone controller, selecting which of the nine squares on the board they wished to move next. Their move would appear on the screen, and then the computer's move would follow. The game was not available to the general public, and was only available to be played in the University of Cambridge's Mathematical Laboratory, by special permission, as the EDSAC could not be moved. Like other early video games, after serving Douglas's purpose, the game was discarded. Around the same time, Strachey expanded his draughts program for another mainframe computer, the Manchester Mark 1, culminating in a version for the Ferranti Mark 1 in 1952, which had a CRT display. Like "OXO", the display was mostly static, updating only when a move was made. "OXO" and Strachey's draughts program are the earliest known games to display visuals on an electronic screen.

The first known game incorporating graphics that updated in real time, rather than only when the player made a move, was a pool game programmed by William Brown and Ted Lewis specifically for a demonstration of the University of Michigan-developed MIDSAC computer at the University of Michigan in 1954. The game, developed over six months by the pair, featured a pool stick controlled by a joystick and a knob, and a full rack of 15 balls on a table seen in an overhead view. The computer calculated the movements of the balls as they collided and moved around the table, disappearing when they reached a pocket, and updated the graphics continuously, forty times a second, so as to show real-time motion. Like previous video games, the pool game was intended primarily to showcase the computing power of the MIDSAC computer.
While further games like checkers and chess were developed on research computers, the next milestone in video games came in 1958 with "Tennis for Two". Perhaps the first game created solely for entertainment rather than as a technology demonstration or a research tool, the program simulated a game of tennis. Created by American physicist William Higinbotham for visitors at the Brookhaven National Laboratory to be more entertaining for visitors on their public day than the usual static exhibits about nuclear power, the game ran on a Donner Model 30 analog computer and displayed a side view of a tennis court on an oscilloscope. The players controlled the angle of their shots with attached controllers, and the game calculated and simulated the trajectory of the ball, including the possibility of hitting the net. The game was first shown on October 18, 1958. Hundreds of visitors lined up to play the new game during its debut. Due to the game's popularity, an upgraded version was shown the following year, with enhancements including a larger screen and different levels of simulated gravity. Afterwards, having served its purpose, the game was dismantled for its component parts. While the game had no innovations in game design or technological development, its status as an entertainment-focused game, rather than an academic project or technological showpiece, has led it to be considered one of the first "real" video games as they are generally thought of today.

Over the next few years, during 1957–61, various computer games continued to be created in the context of academic computer and programming research, particularly as computer technology improved to include smaller, transistor-based computers on which programs could be created and run in real time, rather than operations run in batches. A few programs, however, while used to showcase the power of the computer they ran on were also intended as entertainment products; these were generally created by undergraduate students, such as at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where they were allowed on occasion to develop programs for the TX-0 experimental computer. These interactive graphical games were created by a community of programmers, many of them students affiliated with the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) led by Alan Kotok, Peter Samson, and Bob Saunders. The games included "Tic-Tac-Toe", which used a light pen to play a simple game of noughts and crosses against the computer, and "Mouse in the Maze". "Mouse in the Maze" allowed users to use a light pen to set up a maze of walls on the monitor, and spots that represented bits of cheese or glasses of martini. A virtual mouse was then released and would traverse the maze to find the objects. Additionally, the wargame simulations from the early 1950s by the RAND Corporation had expanded into more complicated simulations which required little human intervention, and had also sparked the creation of business management simulation games such as "The Management Game", which was used in business schools such as at Carnegie Mellon University by 1958. By 1961, there were over 89 different business simulation games in use, with various graphical capabilities. As the decade ended, despite several video games having been developed, there was no such thing as a commercial video game industry; almost all games had been developed on or as a single machine for specific purposes, and the few simulation games were neither commercial nor for entertainment.

By 1961, MIT had acquired the DEC PDP-1 minicomputer, the successor to the TX-0, which also used a vector display system. The system's comparatively small size and processing speed meant that, like with the TX-0, the university allowed its undergraduate students and employees to write programs for the computer which were not directly academically related whenever it was not in use. In 1961-62, Harvard and MIT employees Martin Graetz, Steve Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen created the game "Spacewar!" on the PDP-1, inspired by science fiction books such as the "Lensman" series. The game was copied to several of the early minicomputer installations in American academic institutions, making it potentially the first video game to be available outside a single research institute.

The two-player game has the players engaged in a dogfight between two spaceships set against the backdrop of a randomly generated background starfield. The game was developed to meet three precepts: to use as much of the computer's resources as possible, to be consistently interesting and therefore have every run be different, and to be entertaining and therefore a game. The game was a multiplayer game because the computer had no resources left over to handle controlling the other ship. After the game's initial development, members of the TMRC worked to improve the game, adding an accurate starfield and a gravitational body, and spread it to the couple dozen other institutions with a PDP-1, a process which continued over the next few years. As the computer was uncomfortable to use for extended periods of time, Kotok and Saunders created a detached control device, essentially an early gamepad. "Spacewar" was reportedly used as a smoke test by DEC technicians on new PDP-1 systems before shipping, since it was the only available program that exercised every aspect of the hardware. Although the game was widespread for the era, it was still very limited in its direct reach: the PDP-1 was priced at US$120,000 and only 55 were ever sold, many without a monitor, which prohibited "Spacewar" or any game of the time from reaching beyond a narrow, academic audience. Russell has been quoted as saying that the aspect of the game that he was most pleased with was the number of other programmers it inspired to write their own games.
Although the market for commercial games—and software in general—was small, due to the cost of computers limiting their spread to research institutions and large corporations, several were still created by programmers and distributed by the computer manufacturers. A number of games could be found in an April 1962 IBM program catalog. These included board games, "BBC Vik The Baseball Demonstrator", and "Three Dimensional Tic-Tack-Toe". Following the spread of "Spacewar", further computer games developed by programmers at universities were also developed and distributed over the next few years. These included the Socratic System, a question and answer game designed to teach medical students how to diagnose patients by Wallace Feurzeig in 1962, and a dice game by Edward Steinberger in 1965. Mainframe games were developed outside of the IBM and DEC communities as well, such as the 1962 Polish "Marienbad" for the Odra 1003.

The creation of general programming languages like BASIC, which could be run on different hardware types, allowed for programs to be written for more than one specific computer, in turn letting games written in them to spread to more end players in the programming community than before. These games included a baseball simulation game written in BASIC by John Kemeny in 1965; a BASIC bingo game by Larry Bethurum in 1966; a basketball simulation game written in BASIC by Charles R. Bacheller in May 1967; another baseball game that simulates the 1967 World Series written in BASIC by Jacob Bergmann in August 1967; "Space Travel", written by Ken Thompson for a Multics system in 1969 and which led in part to the development of the Unix operating system; and "Hamurabi", a text-based FOCAL game written by Doug Dyment in 1968 and converted to BASIC by David H. Ahl in 1969, and one of the first strategy video games ever made. "Hamurabi" and "Space Travel" were among several early mainframe games that were written during the time, and spread beyond their initial mainframe computers to general-purpose languages like BASIC.
At the beginning of the 1970s, video games existed almost entirely as novelties passed around by programmers and technicians with access to computers, primarily at research institutions and large companies. The history of video games transitioned into a new era early in the decade, however, with the rise of the commercial video game industry. In 1971, Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck developed a coin-operated computer game, "Galaxy Game", at Stanford University using a DEC PDP-11 computer with vector displays. The pair was inspired to make the game by "Spacewar"; Tuck had remarked in 1966 while playing the game that a coin-operated version of the game would be very successful. Such a device was unfeasible in 1966 due to the cost of computers, but in 1969 DEC released the PDP-11 for US$20,000; while this was still too high for a commercially viable product, as most games in arcades cost around US$1,000 at the time, the pair felt it was low enough to build a prototype to determine interest and optimal per-game pricing. Only prototype units were ever built, though the second prototype was adapted to run up to eight games at once; a few months before the initial installation at Stanford in November 1971, the pair met with Nolan Bushnell, who informed them of his own game he was making for a much lower price.

That game was "Computer Space", developed by Bushnell and Ted Dabney. They had found the Data General Nova, a US$4,000 computer that they thought would be powerful enough to run four games of "Spacewar" at once; the computer turned out to not actually be powerful enough for the project. While investigating the concept of replacing some of the computer with purpose-built hardware, however, the pair discovered that making a system explicitly for running such a game, rather than general programs, would be much less expensive: as low as $100. By 1971 when Bushnell met with Pitts and Tuck, a prototype version had been successfully displayed for a short time in August 1971 in a local bar, the design was nearly finished, and the pair had founded a company around it called Syzygy. Bushnell had also found a manufacturer for the game, Nutting Associates, who would make the final game cabinets and sell them to distributors. Bushnell felt that "Galaxy Game" was not a real competitor to "Computer Space", due to its high price. Pitts and Tuck believed, however, that despite the economic argument their game was superior, as they felt that "Galaxy Game" was a true expansion of "Spacewar", while "Computer Space" just a pale imitation. Some players at the time, however, believed "Galaxy Game" to actually be just a version of "Spacewar!". "Galaxy Game"s prototype installation was very popular, though at a low price-per-game, and the pair developed a second version to display at the same location; they were never able to enter production, though, as they eventually had to abandon the idea after spending US$65,000 developing it due to the high cost and lack of business plan.
Around the same time as "Galaxy Game"s prototype installation, "Computer Space" was released. It was the first coin-operated video game to be commercially sold (and the first widely available video game of any kind). While it did well in its initial locations near college campuses, it performed very poorly in bars and arcades where pinball and other arcade games were typically placed; while it was commercially successful and made over US$1,000,000, it did not meet the high expectations of Nutting, who had expected to sell more than 1,500 units. Bushnell and Dabney immediately started work on another game, using the same television set design as "Computer Space", as well as founding their own company Atari, Inc. to back their projects. While initially this game was to be a driving game that Bushnell planned to design, their first employee, Allan Alcorn, took a prototype ping-pong game suggestion of Bushnell's and expanded on it to create a game the company immediately seized on. They were unable to find a manufacturer, but on the evidence of the success of their prototype installation, decided to produce the game cabinets themselves. "Pong" was released in 1972, a year after "Computer Space". It was immensely commercially successful, selling over 8,000 units. It inspired copycat games to be sold in America, Europe, and Japan, and led to the popularization of the medium.

That same year saw the release of the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console which could be connected to a television set. The inventor, Ralph H. Baer, had initially had the idea in 1951 to make an interactive game on a television set. Unable to do so with the technological constraints at the time, he began work on a device that would attach to a television set and display games in 1966, and the "Brown Box", the last prototype of seven, was licensed to Magnavox to adapt and produce. They announced the console in May 1972, and it went on sale that September. The console and its games featured numerous innovations beyond being the first video game device for home consumers: it was the first game to use a raster-scan video display, or television set, directly displayed via modification of a video signal; it was also the first video gaming device to be displayed in a television commercial. It sold for US$100 and shipped with several games, including "Table tennis", which Bushnell had seen a demo of and which "Pong" had been based on. The Odyssey sold over 100,000 units in 1972, and more than 350,000 by the end of 1975, buoyed by the popularity of the table tennis game, in turn driven by the success of "Pong". "Pong" and the Odyssey kicked off a new era of video gaming, with numerous other competitors starting up in the video game industry as it grew in popularity.


What's the speed limit on the A6 motorway?

The speed limit for most of the length of A6 is default 90 km/h (outside city limits). The section from Kaunas to Jonava has been upgraded to a dual carriageway with at-grade junctions and traffic-lights. The remaining sections are roads with one lane in each direction, leading through towns like Ukmergė, Utena and Zarasai.

A6 highway (Lithuania)

The A6 highway is a highway in Lithuania (Magistralinis kelias). It runs from Kaunas to the Latvian border near Zarasai. From there, the road continues to Daugavpils as A13. The length of the road is 185.40 km.

This route is a part of International E-road network (part of European route E262).