The team at Galloping Ghost Arcade have thrown together another excellent event: Shang Tsung’s Fight Night! This event gives fans a chance to interact with some of the actors and developers who were a part the arcade classics and helped make the original arcade classics. This event had been growing until it got so big it had to be renamed Kombat Kon, although it was downscaled a bit this year and morphed back into Shang Tsung’s Fight Night.
This event also marks the first time that the staff members Scott Howell, D'arque Bishop, CCShadow, and ]{0MBAT (tabmok99) have gotten together in 10 years. Of course, joining us is our newest member, FataLKaDe. Prior to the actual event, we managed to have a little get-together with a couple of the people from Netherrealm Studios, such as John Vogel (at Level 257) and Rigo Cortes (at an undisclosed location), and fans like Anthony from the Book of Remembrance and Skitter Comic patron Matt Kittredge:
Naturally, the highlight was the event itself, held on-site at Galloping Ghost and joined by Mortal Kombat veteran actors Philip Ahn, John Parrish, John Turk, Brian Glynn, and Chris Alexander, and even a surprise appearance by Ed Boon himself!
During the event, we also encountered Richard J. Cook, the developer of Super Combat Fighter:
One of the fun things to do there was a real-life game of Test Your Might:
They also had tournaments for each of the Mortal Kombat games there, and ran livestreams using direct feed from the actual arcade cabinets:
There was even a free fan-created guide for the Sega Genesis port of the first Mortal Kombat:
Of course, the actors provided signed photos (the smaller ones were free, the larger ones were $10 apiece):
One of the exclusives that Galloping Ghost Arcade was able to offer was a set of realistic hand-painted statues of the characters from the first three Mortal Kombat games:
There was some artwork available by Brandon Diaz, including not only prints but also some Air Scorpion and Air Cage t-shirts:
There were also a couple of prints for sale of Mortal Kombat-themed Fortnite skins, done by DecayNRS:
The arcade itself has over 640 arcade games, so rather than show you all of them, here are a couple that are tangentially related to Mortal Kombat, such as NBA Jam, The Grid, and Judge Dredd:
Of course, Galloping Ghost was kind enough to let us set up our livestream and interview some of the actors. Here’s some behind the scenes pics of us setting up:
And of course, the livestream itself (with a surprise appearance by Ed Boon himself):
This event occurred during a very busy time. While Shang Tsung’s Fight Night was going on, NetherRealm Studios Community Manager Tyler Lansdown was at TwitchCon, friend of the site Total-MK won a Mortal Kombat II tournament at PAX Australia, and even Payne Train Gaming was at GamerFest Ireland. We hope everyone enjoyed themselves, whatever event they went to in their corner of the world!
