The Mortal Kombat series is notorious for its over-the-top violence, blood and gore.

Developers seem to take these criticisms in stride and make no attempts to curb the fighting game's extreme violent content.

Among its loudest critics have been adults, particularly older adults, who worry about the numbing effect it might have on kids who are often allowed to play it by parents and friends. But those judgments are always made without having any actual experience playing the game themselves.

So the folks over at the React channel on YouTube decided to find out what senior adults would think of the game after playing it themselves.

They assembled a group of eight willing participants, gave them controllers and basic instructions, and pitted them against one another in a mini championship.

And the results are... kind of surprising, actually.

Predictably, the senior citizens who took on Mortal Kombat X aired their concerns at the beginning of the video. But then they took up the controllers and pulled no punches. Most of them really got into it, enjoying punching and slashing at one another and celebrating when they emerge victorious.

In other words, they dug it. A lot. And then when they were done playing, they talked again about how unnecessarily violent it is.

So what's the lesson here? If a game is fun enough, nonviolent folks will forget their qualms and find a way to enjoy it regardless?

Hmm.

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