Hmm...maybe your Mame doesn't read data files.

Find everything to why there are different versions at MAWs (www.mameworld.net/maws)

The early versions were development of the game. It was missing a few things that got added in the next version and so on.

There are usually a lot of small differences between the versions. In the earlier versions of MK2 there was lots of crazy stuff you could do, like scissor takedown people out of air and stuff. In version 1.1 of UMK3 there were glitches that reset the game that were taken out in 1.2, but a bunch still stayed in 1.2.

Pretty much that is how they work out the kinks they dont have time to find before the game is released. That's the main reason, I believe, why MKDA and MKD were so badly broken. They didn't have the large number of updates they would have had had they been released for the Arcade.

Hell, even MKT for PSX had a few versions. MKT for N64 had 2 versions, that didn't seem to fix anything.

Most games go through a few revisions before they finally move on to the next.

Check these links (it's the same thing you'll find in the MAME history.dat file)

http://datobase.arcadehits.net/rom.php?x=ahw&zip;=mk
http://datobase.arcadehits.net/rom.php?x=ahw&zip;=mk2
http://datobase.arcadehits.net/rom.php?x=ahw&zip;=mk3
http://datobase.arcadehits.net/rom.php?x=ahw&zip;=umk3

What bothers me is that he took a snapshot of what seems to be his Mortal Kombat roms section. In Mame you are able to view the data info of each individual game by clicking the option tab.

My suggestion. Grab only the best versions

MK1 - Revision 5.0 T-Unit
MK2 - Revision 3.1
MK3 - Revision 2.1
UMK3 - Revision 1.2

ALso, if you're not concerned about being competitve and just want to screw around a bit, I'd recommend MKII versions 2.1 and 9.1. Version 2.1 has all that finisher weirdness with multiple babalities... this was great for me, because I had been longing to play the 2.1 version for YEARS just so I could do that. Back when 2.1 was out in the arcades I was really new to Mortal Kombat, I couldn't even do fatalities until after 3.1 came out so I never got to try the mutliple babalities until I found out about MAME.

And 9.1 is a hack. A comic store near my house used to actually have that version. Lots of crazy stuff in that one; again if just wanna play around it is a highly recommended download.

There's not much noticeable difference in the other revisions, other than basic glitch fixes, damage adjustments, stuff like that. But yeah, unless you're a completists you only need the parent ROMs, plus those other two I mentioned (just if you feel like screwing around).

My reccomendations too:

Mortal Kombat II ver3.2 (European) is the best version, ever!

* At the demo screen, Kitana followed by Mileena starts off. I like that.
* Everything added. Well it looks complete to me.
* Somewhat easier to control.

Mortal Kombat T-Unit ver 5.0 is the best version, ever!

And Mortal Kombat 4