Эрмак: От ошибки до легенды Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat character

Ermac is a character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios. Debuting as an unlockable character in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1995), he is an amalgam of the souls of deceased warriors and possesses telekinetic abilities. The character originated from rumors alleging he appeared in the original 1992 game as a glitch, which were perpetuated by video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM). His name was derived from a diagnostics menu in the first game that displayed the text "error macro" as ERMACS. Although the rumors were false, growing interest led to him becoming an official playable character. Ermac has additionally appeared in alternate series media including the animated series Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm and the web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy. He has received positive reception for his special abilities, character development, and Fatality finishing moves, while his origins are considered among the most memorable legends of video gaming.

In the diagnostics menu of the 1992 original Mortal Kombat game, an audits screen displayed a macro created by Mortal Kombat co creator and programmer Ed Boon in order to log coding errors. It was spelled as ERMACS—a pluralized contraction of error macro—as in the number of times the program would execute. In early revisions of the game, it appeared on the audits screen beneath the counter "Shang Tsung Beaten" (in reference to the game's final boss fight). However, after Boon added the hidden character Reptile to the third revision, ERMACS was now listed below the counters "Reptile Appearances" and "Reptile Battles", which provoked players into searching for a second secret character called Ermac. Midway removed the ERMACS listing from the game's fifth and final update in March 1993, but speculation about the character intensified after Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) published a submitted screenshot from the game and a letter from "Tony Casey" that claimed he had played against a red ninja named Ermac and taken a Polaroid of the screen as evidence. Unbeknownst to the magazine, the photo was a doctored image of yellow ninja character Scorpion in the "Warrior Shrine" stage from the Super Nintendo version of the game that was tinted red with the added caption "Ermac Wins". With the still nonexistent Ermac now visualized as a red ninja, players then claimed sightings of a random glitch that would cause the game's ninja characters' graphics to flash red, with "Error Macro" or "Ermac" replacing their name in their energy bar, but such an occurrence was not possible as the macro counter could not increase in the event of a genuine glitch while no red palette for the character existed. In October 1995, two years after the EGM incident, Ermac was added to the selectable roster of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (an expansion of Mortal Kombat 3), as the developers felt that he had transformed from myth to urban legend and therefore warranted his inclusion in the series. and said he had kept the meaning of the ERMACS listing secret in hopes of stirring up fan speculation about the character. Mortal Kombat: Deception's training mode contained a message that read, "It is a little known fact that 'Ermac' is short for 'Error Macro'", an homage to his origins that was revived in Mortal Kombat X for a pre match introduction sequence between Ermac and series newcomer Takeda. He was an Easter egg boss hidden at the Warrior Shrine level in Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, a 2005 beat 'em up spinoff title that spans the events of Mortal Kombat II.

Ermac was played by actor John Turk in the digitized games Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and the 1996 compilation title Mortal Kombat Trilogy. As a palette swapped character, he was physically identical to the Mortal Kombat games' other male ninjas, save for his red coloring and darker skin tone. His Deception design was maintained for the 2011 reboot game, but with an increased black palette. For Mortal Kombat X, Ermac was designed with a slimmer figure and his mask exposing more of his face, revealing decaying skin. NetherRealm Studios explained his emaciated appearance as the result of his losing control of the souls inside his body, with a metal talisman modeled after his chest design from Deception affixed to his chest in order to keep his physical form intact. Chicago Reader spotlighted the finisher in an April 2015 article titled "Has Mortal Kombat Finally Gone Too Far? ", describing it as "an act of medieval torture as imagined by Tolkien." Response to his alternate media incarnations have been negative. Nathan Birch of Uproxx described him in Mortal Kombat Annihilation as a "forgettable red Scorpion clone" and his fight scene with Sonya in the film as "nondescript". Carl Lyon of Fearnet censured the character's design in Mortal Kombat: Legacy and his role therein as having "little development outside of an opponent that gets quickly dispatched", and while Gavin Jasper of Den of Geek noted Ermac's "pretty sweet fight scene" with Kenshi, he was also critical of his role in the storyline.