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NeoRussell, "if they plan to travel overseas, the opponent they play will not be as nice" Angola

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As many of you know, NeoRussell went on a trip to Angola, Africa back in October to meet his girlfriend's family. While there, one of Russell's goals was to meet up with the countries fighting game community "scene" and see what it was all about. Russell goes in to great detail concerning the trip and is a must read for anyone who would someday be interested in making the same journey to the country.

Regarding the players and the community, Russell states that Capcom and Namco players were nowhere to be found and that the scene the town called "Natgil" had consisted of Mortal Kombat players who went by the "Mortal Kombat Titans". Russell describes their community as being "honest with their gameplay". Read Russell's blog in full below:

Being the awesome person that I am, I’ve had the great pleasure of visiting my beautiful girlfriends country of Angola last month, October 2012. Being an avid gamer, first thing I did was to find out if there was a fighting game scene there. Read more after the break.

Hey guys, my name is Russell. I’m from Toronto Canada. I am the Director of TorontoTopTiers.com. You may have recently watched TORYUKEN or T13 this year. Those majors were created by TTT. I wrote this article to highlight the Angola’s MK Community.

Note: If you want to just skip directly to my exploits with the MK Angolan Community, just scroll down to “NeoRussell Plays MK Angolan Community” .

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My girlfriends family have been saying to me for years now that I should visit Angola. I knew I was gonna be there to meet my gf’s long list of family members but being an avid gamer, I had to atleast find a community I can play games with for a few hours. That’s what I do in other countries, check out the other communities. I recommend vacation players do the same.

2 months ago, knowing that I was gonna go for vacation in Angola, I started searching for a gaming community in that country. Looked around Facebook to see if such a community exists. I’m lucky enough to be versed in all fighting games (that’s not a brag) so my options were open when it comes to communities.

Checked for Capcom players, nope.
Checked for Namco players, nope.
Checked for AirDashers, nope.

I finally found a game that had a community and that was Mortal Kombat. I’ll be honest, I was actually surprised to see actual players for this game in Angola. I would think that with SF’s history, that game would stand out but Angolan players have awesome taste for fighting games, i guess *wink*. I requested to be added in “Mortal Kombat Titans” group and was met with Eddy Wang. I told him that I will be vacationing there on October and started discussing a meet up once I get there. He was a great person to talk to. He warned me that not everyone in the group spoke English and that the group would certainly be happy to have me.

I will never forget his first post to introduce me.

“Ok guys, we have a special guest in the group, i give you Russell. he is a CD jr’s friend on Facebook, and he will come to Angola in mid october ( i dunno the reason) but he will check our MK Scene as he stays here, lets give him our warming welcomes.”

He introduced me as a facebook friend of CDjr. I found this funny not because he used CDjr to introduce me but because he wanted to grab the players attention. So that’s the secret guys. If you are going to another country to play MK, just tell them you know CDjr. I feel like creating a “I know CDjr” T-Shirts now. Then wear them in every major I attend to. Luckily enough, I do know CDjr personally so it was not a lie. LOL. In any case, the loving people of the group poured in and we started our conversation.

Getting the necessary papers to get to Angola was certainly not easy. Plus the flight delay that grounded me and my girl for 2 days in Addis Ababa was not cool. When the plane finally reached Angola, I thought I was home free but the country says “Russell, it’s not over yet”. I was then placed in a detention centre waiting to be cleared to enter the country in the airport. Apparently my $200 Visitor Visa I got from Canada was not enough. I ended up waiting for 3 hours there until my Brother-In-Law signed some papers to get me cleared. Please don’t let this discourage you from entering Angola. It’s just one of those secretive Country I guess. I heard China is worst.

I finally got out of the Airport. My next nemesis stared me in the face. He was called “Traffic”. The one thing that boggled my mind was why their Airport was in the downtown core. You heard me right, their airport is located in the heart of their Downtown Luanda. So just imagine 3p on a Friday trying to get out of the area. All in all, I promised myself that I will not complain. I am here and I will enjoy the culture shock that is Angola.

I’m not gonna go in details with my actual trip. I’m just gonna say that I finally reached Angola and went through the process of meeting my girlfriend’s family. I already knew this trip was exactly that, to meet her family. All I got to say is that over the course of my week and a half there, I’ve met around 30-40 people and got many kisses on the cheeks. The women kiss on the left and right cheek to say hi. My girlfriend then shocks me by saying that I’ve only met half of her family. I guess we’ll meet all of them next time. Angola was a great country. The people were nice and helpful. I didn’t have to talk, just point at things and pay. The locals spotted me a mile away because I had a different hairstyle than the ordinary men. Or I had hair on my head since 99% of the men had shaved heads. They never saw a Sexy Filipino guy before *wink*.

I was adamant in playing someone even if it was only for an hour. I need to check their MK scene before I left. That was very important to me since I would have regretted coming back to Canada without knowing how their scene is.

Over the course of the week I was in Angola, I was looking for the best and appropriate time to meet them. I just couldn’t find the time with all the meeting of the family. We stayed far away from the city and having no car made it impossible to reach the place. I had no other alternative but to beg my Brother-In-Law to please please please drop me off in a place called Natgil to meet with them. Even if only for an hour. He was very understanding and knew how important my request was. So we were able to plan a Friday night gathering. Luckily enough, he had to go to a wedding in that area. It worked out perfect on my end.

NeoRussell Plays MK Angolan Community

I reached a place called Natgil. It is a very comfy and nice place for a gamer like me to geek out. My first impression of the place is that it’s not a gaming station. It is a functioning lounge that services different types of groups. I didn’t care as much for the other rooms since I just wanted to play. LOL. I knew I didn’t have lots of time to play them so I just went directly at it.

They requested that we do a ft5 with me and I was more than happy to obliged. Knowing fully well that my time was limited in Natgil, we cut it down to ft2 instead. I played a long set of warm-up first to make sure I give them a good match. Not having to practice for 2 weeks ever since T13 ended made me a little rusty.

This was also my way of scoping out who was the best in their group. There were roughly 15 players in the community present when I came. They couldn’t believe that I was using Jade. She is just not a popular character. lol. I figured, i’d rush to Kitana once I get into a bind. Only 3 people beat me in the warmups. Agapito (Cage), Kappa G (Reptile) and Eddy Wang (Skarlett).

We proceeded with the ft2 after that. Again, not a lot of time for me so had to go through it.

Here are the videos of the Gauntlet I went through:




I placed match notes in the youtube description. Feel free to comment and subscribe to my channel for new videos of my gameplay.

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Over the 3.5 hours I was in Natgil, I do have to say that the MK Angolan Community made me feel right at home. About 5 of them asked if I needed to rest or if I needed a drink. Ary Dias provided my Girlfriend (who was very patient just watching on the side. Love her.) a drink. Then talked to her about what Natgil is about and how everyone is happy to have an international player come to play with them. Most of them asked about the popular players of America. CDjr, Maxter, Reo, Pig and many more. They request that I bring them with me next time, “especially Reo” as one member of the community mentioned.

My Impression Of The MK Angolan Community’s Gameplay:

Being around since MK9 came out, I got to say that they are honest with their gameplay. Let me explain what I mean. I fought a Smoke player that did not use Resets. I fought a Cage that did not take advantage of f3. Kabal or any top characters were nowhere to be found. It was an honest gameplay. I commended them for being too nice with their characters but also made them aware that if they plan to travel overseas, the opponent they play will not be as nice. So I mentioned that even though resets in my opinion are not honorable wins, it is still a win. Those godlike moves are part of the game and players should use what is available to them. Hell, winning is better than losing, right? That is my honest observation of MK Angola.

I will never forget this experience and I would certainly recommend anyone visiting Angola to play these great players. They all treated me as if I was part of their community. My games with them will be a memory that I will never forget.

Thank you for listening to my story. I feel that we are all connected by the game we play. My trip just proved that no matter where you are, there will be an MK player to give you a warm welcome. We as a community can only be a great community by providing quality friendships towards EVERY MK player. Or any other game for that matter.

Check out the blog in full with photos go here!
 

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9_Lives

Noob
Epic! That's what MK should be like everywhere. Also, props to being one of the few non-jaded Jade players! So rare that I dropped the character since all I ever found in the forums was nothing but complaints and long since discovered OTG tech.
 

B Pryme

Noob
Man that is awesome, and im proud to be apart of this community. Cool to see the game getting love over there. Btw their setup looks legit!!
 

BenGmanUk

Get staffed bro
'Honest with their gameplay' huh. I like it. Great read and fair play for seeking out the MK scene there. That's hardcore.
 

THTB

Arez | Booya | Riu48 - Rest Easy, Friends
Good read! Can't wait to see some of the Angolan players make it over to the States sometime. :)
 

SZSR

Noob
@CDjr, improving international relations since 1992.

This was really cool Russell, i'm happy we have players like you to go out of your way to meet the rest of the community.
 

CrazyBread

Princess Diana
It's a small world after all...well when you've got MK9 in the mix. Reading this and watching the vids made me feel like I was there. Very cool!
 

DarkSlayerSmith

Fundamentals in real life
We thank you all for the love! BTW NeoRussell we wanna see you again next year we are all looking foward for the battles that we could not fought(because of the short time your had to stay with us),there is so much we left unsaid.
PS:some of our friends here back home started playing with jade(weeks after your departure), coz in some way you inspired us to not look down on FEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHH:eek: TIER!
PEACE!!;)
 

Essay

Noob
I literally had a dream several months back that I made the exact trip Russell did from Canada to Angola and played MK with Eddy Wang. Way to live my dream, NeoRussell. It's just too bad you hadn't been studying Portuguese for the last three years like I have been. :p
 
awesome post Russell, it's nice to know how fighting game communities flourish in other countries.

a little off-topic though: but when will you visit the Philippines again? being a Rocket Raccoon mainer in marvel, i would LOVE to see your Coon tech in person. also marcus and the rest of MKPH would definite love to meet you :)
 
Russell we had a good time during your short stay and we welcome any players to visit us :). Awesome post and Kudos for making us have some visibility out there.