Mortal Kombat, a series so wrapped up in hidden treats and in-jokes that one became a canonical character, is still being excavated for secrets decades after release. Late last year, secret menus were discovered in the first four Mortal Kombat arcade games. This week, footage of those menus was published online courtesy YouTube user Your MK Arcade Source.

To unlock the menu, a player must input a lengthy combination — available on The Cutting Room Floor — that involves rapidly bouncing back and forth between the block buttons. The codes have to be input quickly and precisely, which has prevented someone from accidentally triggering the menus over the years. In Your MK Arcade Source's video, the sequence takes a couple tries before the menus appear.

The menus, which appear in Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, have been dubbed EJB menus after the game's creator, Ed Boon. The menus can be used to launch the arcade cabinet's diagnostic test, manually change initials on the leaderboard, and show each character's ending bit of story. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3's menu also includes options to unlock hidden characters, a demonstration of the game's fatalities, and a secret Galaga-clone (shown at the 9:30 mark).

The trick makes me nostalgic for Midway Games. Smash TV, NFL Blitz, NBA Jam, and Cruis'n USA featured codes and Easter eggs from an era with smaller development teams and fewer rules.

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