OC HIGH / STUDENT NEWS & VIEWS : Video Game Review : Mortal Kombat : <i> By Acclaim for Super Nintendo, Genesis ($74.99); Game Gear ($44.99); Game Boy ($34.99)( </i>

In all the hoopla and hollering about blood and gore in Mortal Kombat, something has been lost.

Like the fact that it’s a pretty good video game.

Acclaim’s Mortal Kombat has been lambasted because the Genesis version contains some rather grisly “finishing” moves in which combatants can remove vital organs and body parts from their defeated enemies.

But those moves are such a small part of the game, reachable only after wading through round after round of combat and entering a (not so) secret code, that many gamers may never even see them.

Meanwhile, Mortal Kombat on the 16-bit systems is a solid translation of the popular arcade version and a worthy competitor for Capcom’s smash hit Street Fighter II and its various permutations.

I actually preferred MK in the SNES version, mainly because the graphics are sharper and smoother than the Genesis version.

But both provide exciting hand-to-hand fighting.

The premise: The Shaolin Tournament for Martial Arts, for centuries a respected gathering of warriors, has been corrupted by the evil Shang Tsung, who claims the souls of his defeated opponents. Aided by his four-armed pupil Goro, Tsung has dominated the tournament.

Now, the contest begins anew . . . .

Mortal Kombat has been designed to take the fighting game a step beyond current offerings, and it works well. Perhaps the most interesting feature is the use of actual actors as digitized combatants, rather than cartoon drawings.

The basic game remains faithful to the genre--in each round, you must win two out of three fights to move on.

You play as one of seven fighters, and you must beat all the others--and also yourself, in a “mirror” match--before advancing to the next step. That’s “endurance,” where you must fight three rounds against two fighters in quick succession with the same life force you have for single combat.

Get through that competition and you earn a shot at Shang Tsung--if you can get past the flailing limbs of the 8-foot-2, 550-pound Goro.

The game is easily customized using the option screen. You can choose from five levels of difficulty, select a normal match or hand-to-hand, in which all special moves are disabled, and even a handicap setting in the two-player mode, in which you can select the amount of damage your fighter receives from each blow.

Mortal Kombat suffers from the same problem as most other fighting games--humans come with just two hands, each with five fingers. Although the regular punches and kicks are simple to summon, some of the special moves require so many different button pushes that by the time you complete them, your fighter has been pureed.

Graphics are worth seeing; the backgrounds are solid, the fighters excellent. Sound, including effects and the voice announcing each fight, are great.

So forget the hype about blood and gore; you’ll see more on any TV cop show. Get Mortal Kombat because it’s a great fighting game--and don’t forget to duck.

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One of the most frustrating things about games such as Mortal Kombat is the difficulty involved in pushing 14 buttons at once to call up the most punishing “special” moves.

Now Tyco has solved that problem--and others you didn’t even know you had--with a great new gaming gadget called the Power Plug.

Power Plug ($39.99 for Super Nintendo and Genesis) should be available next month. It plugs in between your deck and controller and allows a number of great things to happen.

For you Street Fighter fans, it even has the best--and hardest--moves pre-programmed. Using the Thrash setting, you can summon Ryu’s fireball attack, or Guile’s sonic boom--or any of the other devastating blows normally available only with a finger-snarling combination of button pushes--with a tap on one controller button.

The same ability can be programmed into the Power Plug for Mortal Kombat or other games requiring an inhuman amount of manual dexterity, using the Pro Thrash setting.

The Power Plug has a variety of other tricks up its plastic sleeve, too. The power steering button smooths control of driving, flying or sports games. There’s a slow-motion setting, an auto setting that keeps any controller button on for continuous action and a turbo button that speeds any controller button to its fastest rate.