jamessmk
I am your god
Old vs new age gaming
After entering my first MK tournament in almost 20 years. The scene has changed in many ways. Some of these ways better and some not so.
** I have met many of the new age gamers and must admit, while many of them are great guys, others are the arrogance in which caused me
to leave the gaming world.*
*Guys like Shocker, 9.95, Crazy Dominican, of guys like Summoning and LIJoe "the little kid on da milk crate" and of course Bill "Tom Brady". *These guys are the sole reason people like Ed Boon and crew are still employed. They kept the Mortal Kombat series alive, when during the 3D days it should have been put out into the field and shot. Now that WMS is now defunct and NRS has taken over they finally returned to the roots of what made*
MK series great. Time will only tell if the can keep the torch lit.*
For myself it all began in late 1991. I was working for Acclaim Entertainment out on Long Island,NY. *I was currently working on games like Aliens, WWE, and Krusty's Fun house.*
*At the time arcades were on a second run of popularity, games like Street fighter 2,**Neo geo, and classics were top games.
** One day while working on some titles a delivery man had place a large arcade cabinet in from of
my cubicle. While busy on my titles ignored my surrounding. With, that said a few hours later we were told we had acquired exclusive rights to WMS titles. Before , to long all the employees had come down to see what this game was, they had ask
me to plug the game into my cube and power it up. Within seconds i had heard the first BONG, sound of the board and romm boot checking. After a few minute there was a look of amazement when people had gotten there first glimpse of
Mortal kombat .*
*I must admit I was not immediately attracted to it, for I was a SF 2 player.
The game had gained popularity in
the office so much people from other *departments were coming down to Product Dev just to play. As time went on my work was suffering due to the obnoxious people playing 24/7
**My solution was to get so *good at the game and make people not want to play more, allowing me to continue to work in peace.
**I began to play the game 24/7. The key to the game quite simple beat up your opponent and get the final hit*to humiliate your opponent
One particular night I was fighting a friend and when finish him
Came on screen I did a reverse
Fireball with low punch and the screen had gone dark, Kano had put his hand into sub-zero chest and pulled out his heart. That was the first experience of a*Fatality . From that point on my goal had simply been to figure out all the fatalities. I would play every chance I had in order to find all the fatalities.*
*Through much trial and error not only did I find all the fatals, but learned moves could be chained into combos unlike street fighter, these combos were earned no a given. You had to perform each move
Individually in order to combo.
So as time went on I began to get pretty good at the game. It had gotten to the point I would play people one handed and still win, or even give 1 and 1/2 rounds before I would begin to play.*
*
*Now the game had finally been release publicly to the arcades and my company at the time Acclaim and their Marketing group wanted me to go out. And promote the game to the public. So I started by going to various location on Long island to play. The first was a place called Garden city bowling a 24/7 bowling alley which had the game.*
*This is the first time I had met a guy name Mike a 20 something year old stoner who lived on the game. We would play all night to the wee hours of the morning. I suggested we go to other location to play and we set out to a place that would become famous for the best MK players around.*
** * * * *Once their I met a lot of good players and together we kind of formed a mash up of cultures. We were comprised of whites, Asians, blacks, Indians, rich and poor kids.
**Westbury nathans had now become the best place to play the best MK players. *I would be able to sit on the machine and rack up 50 wins in a row, and our posse would be able to do the same.
Back in the day unlike, today you valued your win more because it actually cost you money, not some free online crap of today. Where you yell on a mic and say "you cheat and suck"
Nor could you just walk into an Arcade and just start whooping ass in games and not expect the local guys to try an rob or sight you. There were 5 rules to follow
1. Never ever go to and arcade without you friends.
2. Do no mouth off to a guy who
Looked like he would fuck you up
3. If you were going to hustle for money do it a a group, solo leads you *open for and ass whooping NY style
4. Always put your quarter on the machine and count. Never cut somebody who already had their quarter ahead of you
5. NY rule only pussies throw, if you did it you gave it back. Never understood theory. Reasoning was because throws do so much damage that it took the level of skilled playing away
If you followed these rules then odds are not only did you walk from the
Arcades, fight free but also maybe with more MK friends.
Now by this time I was working on the home versions of MK. Nintendo from the get go made it clear no blood and no head removals . Then at the absolute minute they said Kano could not rip out a heart. That is why there is no heart in his hand u was never satisfied with final version of the Snes version.
Sega which may have not looked a pretty but played much better. For this all they asked was for a code to turn of blood. I at the time was big int U2 and Genesis, came across a song from genesis called abacab. I thought since the system was called genesis what a perfect code. !"
Not satisfied with nintendo version I work with Sculpture Software on a version which would be known as MK nitro. This would be a version in which blood was crystals, Shang , Goro, and reptile were all playable, with the addition of the original Kung Lao from the main story. Unfortunately, WMS was already at working on *MK 2 and thought it would cut into sales so it was rejected.
****more to come if interested****
Next chapter of story will consist of the beginning of down fall. MK2, the Internet and IRC, and gaming secrets
After entering my first MK tournament in almost 20 years. The scene has changed in many ways. Some of these ways better and some not so.
** I have met many of the new age gamers and must admit, while many of them are great guys, others are the arrogance in which caused me
to leave the gaming world.*
*Guys like Shocker, 9.95, Crazy Dominican, of guys like Summoning and LIJoe "the little kid on da milk crate" and of course Bill "Tom Brady". *These guys are the sole reason people like Ed Boon and crew are still employed. They kept the Mortal Kombat series alive, when during the 3D days it should have been put out into the field and shot. Now that WMS is now defunct and NRS has taken over they finally returned to the roots of what made*
MK series great. Time will only tell if the can keep the torch lit.*
For myself it all began in late 1991. I was working for Acclaim Entertainment out on Long Island,NY. *I was currently working on games like Aliens, WWE, and Krusty's Fun house.*
*At the time arcades were on a second run of popularity, games like Street fighter 2,**Neo geo, and classics were top games.
** One day while working on some titles a delivery man had place a large arcade cabinet in from of
my cubicle. While busy on my titles ignored my surrounding. With, that said a few hours later we were told we had acquired exclusive rights to WMS titles. Before , to long all the employees had come down to see what this game was, they had ask
me to plug the game into my cube and power it up. Within seconds i had heard the first BONG, sound of the board and romm boot checking. After a few minute there was a look of amazement when people had gotten there first glimpse of
Mortal kombat .*
*I must admit I was not immediately attracted to it, for I was a SF 2 player.
The game had gained popularity in
the office so much people from other *departments were coming down to Product Dev just to play. As time went on my work was suffering due to the obnoxious people playing 24/7
**My solution was to get so *good at the game and make people not want to play more, allowing me to continue to work in peace.
**I began to play the game 24/7. The key to the game quite simple beat up your opponent and get the final hit*to humiliate your opponent
One particular night I was fighting a friend and when finish him
Came on screen I did a reverse
Fireball with low punch and the screen had gone dark, Kano had put his hand into sub-zero chest and pulled out his heart. That was the first experience of a*Fatality . From that point on my goal had simply been to figure out all the fatalities. I would play every chance I had in order to find all the fatalities.*
*Through much trial and error not only did I find all the fatals, but learned moves could be chained into combos unlike street fighter, these combos were earned no a given. You had to perform each move
Individually in order to combo.
So as time went on I began to get pretty good at the game. It had gotten to the point I would play people one handed and still win, or even give 1 and 1/2 rounds before I would begin to play.*
*
*Now the game had finally been release publicly to the arcades and my company at the time Acclaim and their Marketing group wanted me to go out. And promote the game to the public. So I started by going to various location on Long island to play. The first was a place called Garden city bowling a 24/7 bowling alley which had the game.*
*This is the first time I had met a guy name Mike a 20 something year old stoner who lived on the game. We would play all night to the wee hours of the morning. I suggested we go to other location to play and we set out to a place that would become famous for the best MK players around.*
** * * * *Once their I met a lot of good players and together we kind of formed a mash up of cultures. We were comprised of whites, Asians, blacks, Indians, rich and poor kids.
**Westbury nathans had now become the best place to play the best MK players. *I would be able to sit on the machine and rack up 50 wins in a row, and our posse would be able to do the same.
Back in the day unlike, today you valued your win more because it actually cost you money, not some free online crap of today. Where you yell on a mic and say "you cheat and suck"
Nor could you just walk into an Arcade and just start whooping ass in games and not expect the local guys to try an rob or sight you. There were 5 rules to follow
1. Never ever go to and arcade without you friends.
2. Do no mouth off to a guy who
Looked like he would fuck you up
3. If you were going to hustle for money do it a a group, solo leads you *open for and ass whooping NY style
4. Always put your quarter on the machine and count. Never cut somebody who already had their quarter ahead of you
5. NY rule only pussies throw, if you did it you gave it back. Never understood theory. Reasoning was because throws do so much damage that it took the level of skilled playing away
If you followed these rules then odds are not only did you walk from the
Arcades, fight free but also maybe with more MK friends.
Now by this time I was working on the home versions of MK. Nintendo from the get go made it clear no blood and no head removals . Then at the absolute minute they said Kano could not rip out a heart. That is why there is no heart in his hand u was never satisfied with final version of the Snes version.
Sega which may have not looked a pretty but played much better. For this all they asked was for a code to turn of blood. I at the time was big int U2 and Genesis, came across a song from genesis called abacab. I thought since the system was called genesis what a perfect code. !"
Not satisfied with nintendo version I work with Sculpture Software on a version which would be known as MK nitro. This would be a version in which blood was crystals, Shang , Goro, and reptile were all playable, with the addition of the original Kung Lao from the main story. Unfortunately, WMS was already at working on *MK 2 and thought it would cut into sales so it was rejected.
****more to come if interested****
Next chapter of story will consist of the beginning of down fall. MK2, the Internet and IRC, and gaming secrets