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Mortal Kombat vs The 2008 Beijing Olympics

Like Mortal Kombat, The Beijing Olympic Games are no stranger to controversy. In the run-up to this year's event, the Chinese government has stepped up its efforts to stop its citizens from saying anything that might cause trouble or attract the wrong kind of attention from Western media. Recently the country's internal censorship systems have become so strict that bloggers have started writing their text backwards so that their messages can slip past the authorities' word-filtering software. It is important to salute these valiant efforts to defend free speech.

When early versions of the MK games arrived on home consoles, Nintendo forced the developers to tone down some of the fatalities and to remove the blood; on the SNES this resulted in a strange situation where characters sprayed grey and beige pixels every time they were hit - it looked a bit like the fighters were vomiting sand. More recently, however, Ed Boon and Midway have been striving to make sure that Mortal Kombat vs DC remains as violent as possible. If they get their way, the final game will allow you to MURDER BATMAN. No other game has ever allowed you to do that! In years to come, this will be regarded as a milestone in the evolution of democracy. They'll teach kids about it in schools. Probably.

Verdict: Mortal Kombat wins

Yes, the Olympic Games are an important part of our cultural heritage - but they don't let you cut people in half, melt them with acid or throw them into a pit of spikes. If these features were included in the competition, far more people would watch or attend. Plus the whole event would be a lot cheaper, as you'd only have to give out medals to athletes who actually survived their events.

Next up: what not to wear

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