God, when Mk3 first came out, the first version when Sektor's smash fatal was still back, back, back, hk, this guy came up to me and he had to be at least 22. I was 16 at the time, and he joins in the game without asking, and he picked Subzero, I picked Sektor. I beat him the first match, and he played again. Once again, I picked Sektor. It went on like that until he spent at least 3 dollars playing me. The last match, he picked Subzero again and I picked Sektor... he turns to me and screams "STOP PICKING THE DAMN ROBOT". I was scarred from that moment on. j/k

But it was pretty funny to say the least... btw, don't live in SA, I live in El Paso TX.

San Antonio Word up!!!

What part of SA Man? Im in leon valley.

i live close to where 1604 and 281 meet.. I think they only meet in one place.

I used to work at an arcade in Chicago where Midway always used to test their machines before they mass produced them......anyway, one night just after mk3 had been out ....a guy comes in, plays a few games, and then at the end when you could put in the ultimate code......he goes all crazy with both joysticks and holy shit......he unlocks smoke! The guy walks away and says "have fun with smoke" and walks right out the door.
I found out the next day from the owner that one of the Midway programmers was in that night watching how different people were playing the game. I don't know, I thought that was pretty cool.

I had almost an indentical experience once with MK3 and the Smoke code, a guy put it in, left, and said "Have fun" or something to that effect. I forget where I was exactly, it might have been Atlantic City.

The first time I ever saw Robot Smoke was in AC as a matter of fact, I really didn't even realize there was a hidden character in MK3 cause he was never unlocked anywhere I played it, and I didn't know the UKK or anything. I saw the Throat Bomb and Blow up the World fatalities and was like "Dude that's harsh."

I have a lot of arcade experiences for UMK3, most of which are just winning against a lot of people, and I was pretty young at the time, 14ish. The one experience I like to share most often is when I first played UMK3 ever, witha group of at least 10 people in the Freehold Mall in NJ. One guy was beating everyone with Sektor, they were using the new characters and getting beaten by teleport uppercuts pretty much and I couldn't believe it. So I finally got to play, picked Scorpion, owned the guy and everyone was like "Oh shit" and then I beat everyone else without exception and eventually had to leave. The coolest part of it was I played for a long time on one credit, used just about everyone, and then when I left there were still a lot of people around.

Matt

MK3 had just recently come out. My 10th grade biology class went on a field trip to Six Flags Great Adventure, and we split up into groups. Later in the day when we were waiting to meet back with everyone, we killed time in one of the arcades. Turns out they had one of those MK3's with the HUGE screens set up. I was stoked. I jumped in and had a nice 5-win streak against random people, with half of my high school class cheering me on. That was awesome! Unfortunately the new revision had just come out and I didn't know any of the new fatality commands yet... but I still got to please the crowd with some average combos and whatnot.

Later in the year my school had a skate night; I showed up and low and behold, there was UMK3 for the first time. My first experience sucked though... my brother and I put our quarters in, and I told him to try a Kombat Kode that I found in a magazine. It turns out it was that stupid code that puts you in danger right away. So one hit and the damn match was over. I played more of it though and it was sweet. My favorite part was actually figuring out Scorpion's fire fatality. Believe it or not, I actually guessed it being d,d,u,HK.... not sure how, I guess I was just playing around with variations of the move from MKII. I tried it out, and I was stunned when the screen actually went dark and he did the fatality! I think I saw the computer do the Scorpion Beatdown finisher later on... I thought that was so awesome.

Plenty of other memories, but I'm at work so I better hold off.

Here's some more, I know I have mentioned a lot of these things before, but I don't mind telling the same stories over and over, perhaps it's the Klingon in me.

A very broad memory is all the times I would play MK3 and UMK3 at the local video store. There was this one guy whom we called "Peeps" for some reason, and he would spend up to $5 at a time trying to beat me. After a while of the game being there I eventually drove most of the competition and DreemerNJ was really the only person who would still play me. My other friends would actually rather play pinball than play me in UMK3. When Children of the Atom arrived, another friend of mine promised to make that "His Game" like UMK3 was mine, so I let him have that. My area is pretty heavily populated with kids and the video store was sorta dead center of my town so the competition there was pretty good. It became a daily routine for all of us to go to West Coast Video and get soda, some candy bars, and play UMK3 til sundown.

I wish people would have played it at Keansburg Boardwalk because the locals there are infamous for their perpetually drunk behavior, so a lot of good stories had the potential of surfacing there, however no one ever played because I think the MK learning curve is beyond the average 'Burger aptitude.

Overall there were a lot of times when I would ask to play if someone was playing the CPU, they would lose, and then leave. I always hated that because I hated playing against CPU, not because it was difficult, but because I wasn't going to get any better or learn anything important.

There was a time at Hazlet Multiplex Cinemas where I played against a Robot Smoke player, I was using Sindel I believe, beat him the first round, and he proceeded to exclaim something to the nature of, "Alright, now you're gonna get it." And he switched to Human Smoke, but again, he was defeated, probably even more easily than before and he stormed off in a huff. DreemerNJ was there watching and he responded with "Humble pie?"

My friend The Prophet (from shoryuken.com) has a story he likes to share. He was at the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown, NJ, using Reptile playing against some guy, and after beating the guy a bunch of times he said "I bet you $10 you can't beat me without using Forecballs." So he destroyed the guy and he went into his pocket to pay up, but the Prophet did not accept the money. There was another story where he was using some cheap tactics and a guy threatened to take him outside and kick his ass if he did "that cheap shit one more time."

However, the most recent experience comes from this summer at ECC9 where this guy from Virginia who thought he was all that and a puff of Smoke, proceeded to lose so many times to me it wasn't funny. He then said to me "Man...no offense or anything but if we were on good sticks I'd be kicking your ass right now." Truly sad. The guy was nowhere near my ability and of course the shitty sticks only effected him and not me seeing as I had no more experience on them than he did. He probably thought the arcade was my home base and I was use to the machine, but regardless, he sucked, and I'll probably be playing him again in December. I also have a 14, and 10 win streak on that specific machine:

My initials are MRL, and the top 4 is Lex from Chicago, from ECC8. That picture was taken by a local player in response to a lot of trash talk that had been going on to show "Hey look at the top two players in terms of win streaks, Chicago, and New Jersey, not Virginia."

Matt

I have a few arcade stories for each game so enjoy!

When Mortal Kombat came out in 1992 my local movie store had the machine which was cool already. I used to play the game everytime that I went in there. I started to get really good with Scorpion and managed to get pretty far in the game as I practiced more and more. I was about 10 or eleven at the time and I was on a roll. Then a guy came up and said I was pretty good and asked if he could join in. I said sure. He wasn't much older than me and I thought I could beat him. Turns out, he must have been the neighborhood pro because he beat me pretty bad, ending my streak. Not the most exciting story but a story none the less. I knew I loved MK from that day on and ten years later I puchased an MK one cabinet and still have it running good.

Mortal Kombat 2 was tough to find because my local arcade had theft problems when MK 2 hit. I'll always remember that because the cabinets had to be locked. When my local arcade did get theft under control I managed to play MK II a lot. I thought the game was hard because I wasn't very good I guess. But I remember I was watching this guy play and he was beating everyone. He got past Kintaro and then on Shao Kahn he had to leave so he gave it to me to play. I was soooo nervous facing Shao Kahn but excited to be there. I was defeated quickly and that was probably the highlight of my MK II days. Again, I have such fond memories that 9 years later I was fortunated enough to purchase the arcade for a reasonable deal.

Mortal Kombat 3 I probably had the most exposure to in the arcades. The game was sooo huge that my arcade had multiple machines. I remember playing that game all the time. It was just a blast. Friends used to play and crowds use to gather which is always cool. I was actually the dominator in MK 3 with Kabal and SubZero. Fun times.

Ultimate MK 3. Thought it was very cool but didn't get much play with it in the arcade. I remember the "omg theres Rain" in the attract mode intro. Which was very cool. Ultimate was fun but really tough.

Mortal Kombat 4. I remember playing this and dominating this guy in the arcade round after round after round and then all his buddies showed up and I walked away for the fear of my life. Last time I went to the arcades I believe. LOL. I wish I owned the MK 4 cabinet. Quan Chi is my favorite!

My favorite MK arcade moment was when I was playing MK1 and using Scorpion (This was when I was relatively new to the series.) and after the match ended I did his toasty fatality, my first fatality ever, completely by accident. I was ecstatic. I couldn't beleive I had just pulled off one of the imfamous fatalities (because they were a huge secret back then, so it was a big deal to me. Those were the days...) and by accident. Unfortunately, none of my friends beleived I did it when I told them afterwards. And don't ask me how I pulled off that fatality by accident. I honestly don't know how I could have myself. I mean, for a fatality that requires exact distance and holding block to do, that was a one in a million chance happening there. Very, very cool moment for me. To this day it remains one of my most memorable....well, memories.

Midway should make another 2D arcade MK game, and make every attempt to prevent stuff from leaking to the internet. They could do this via contracts allowing torture, executions, financial depletion, etc, to random people if any info is given out.

This way, it would have all the mystique of the old MK games all over again.

Matt

this may sound stupid, but it was a great day that i can still remember vividly. mortal kombat 2 had just come out, and i would go up to the mall and wait at the arcade 2000, til' the gate was opened. 13 years old and standing outside of a metal gate, staring at two mortal kombat 2 machines. they were brand new, dedicated mk 2 cabs, and then it happened. all the games started to light up, and the gate started to lift. i ran to the change machine, got 5 dollars worth of tokens, and ran to one of the mk 2 machines. i started off pretty bad, but got better through the rounds. i ran out of tokens, and when i was getting ready to head back and get more, some older dude strolls in and starts a one player game with scorpion. he kicked absolute ass, and did the toasty fatality. i was in aw, and asked, how do you do that? he was more than greatful to give me all kinds of tips that not many knew about at the time. later that day i was stomping dudes older than me, and they ended up learning from me. so it was awsome. it is a day that will forever be etched in my memory. the damn good ol' days.

I wish these days would still exist, I wish there were arcades around here that people went to, I don't care if I have to kick 15 year old kids asses in MK, I'll still do it and be totally stoick about it like I was when I was younger. I miss those days so much, MK, and backyard wrestling was an enormous chunk of my life from 1994 to 1998.

Matt

Ahh the good old days. I remember scouring my house from front to back and cleaning my parents cars to find the loose change to go play MK at West Coast.

And I remember when that gentleman said that he would make that "His game" and I remember when I beat him at it and I remember when you beat him at it. And I don't remember him talking about it after that.

One of my favorite memories was at a movie theater in Jersey where I was playing some guy in UMK3 before a movie started and I beat him a few times and he was getting very pissed off and the movie was about to start to I let him win and started to leave and he taunted me so much. It was truly sad.

Then there was a short memory, when I was at the boardwalk, I was playing against the computer in UMK3 and a guy walked up and played me. I played as Human Smoke and right off the bat he jumped at me and I jump kicked, teleported, spear, popup, jump kick, air throw and he just left.

My absolute favorite memory of playing a stranger was at a video game store when Soul Caliber came out for DC. This big fat employee of the Babbages or whatever it was was standing there beating 7 year olds at the game and being mean to them afterwards, acting like he just beat a c.fierce with a taunt. So, I played him. He picked Kilik, and then actually did scorpion's victory pose from UMK3, both hands straight up, with a weird look on his face. I don't remember if I won or lost the first round, but I got perfect wins every round after that until I just stopped because he was pathetic. And that was the first time I played the game, so he must have sucked viciously.

I love reading these stories, great stuff. One moment that sticks out to me was, I was playing MK3 and I was in jr. high so I must have been 14 or 15 and this guy in his 20's comes over with one of his friends and I hear him say, "I'll be a few minutes I'm just going to beat this kid" I overheard that and got a little mad. He puts his tokens in and picks Sub-Zero, I pick Cyrax. Once I got him in a corner it was over, I was throwing bombs, nets and combos at his ass like it was meant to be Then after I beat him two rounds I finnish him with the chopper fatality. As he walked away I heard him say to his friend "Damn that kid's good" I couldn't help but smile.

I remember that day at the mall very well Mike. That guy was the drizzling shits. The very fact that he did Scorpion's victory pose from UMK3 made me cringe. He was the biggest, slimiest, greasiest, lump of emptiness I had seen in a long time. I wish there was an MKT available to play cause he obviously played MK and I would have destroyed him.

I don't remember that one boardwalk story, you did one combo and the guy just up and left? That's pretty freakin awesome.

That story about the guy confidently saying something to the effect of "Hold on while I'll beat this guy" brings back memories as well. I recall many times when I was younger when that token guy with the cigarette in his mouth and his buddies hanging around watching him beat people was playing, and I come up am pretty much discredited even by appearance, at the time I was a scrawney pale dude with long hair, well now I'm just not scrawney lol, but regardless, they always have the same reaction after losing.

They get nervous, put out the cigarette, usually on the console, whipe their hands off and sorta lean forward with this look of total focus and are kind like "Alright time to get serious."...and still lose.

Another similar situation is when "The tough guy" as in the guy who beats everyone, lets his buddy play for him the first round, as in like "If you want to play me, you have to beat my friend." This happened to me all the time in Atlantic City. I'll start by saying this, once UMK3 came out, there were two people who could beat me with any consistancy and that was DreemerNJ, and this guy Eric at the video store, and that's probably because they played me so often so they knew my tactics pretty well, but other than that, I don't really remember ever losing to anyone in UMK3 anywhere in the state of NJ. It makes me wish I could have spent some time in Chicago, but then I think about it seriously and realize it doesn't matter lol. Anyway back to my point, the guy let's his friend play, his friend loses miserably, and the tough guy will always try and take over, usually it goes "Yo dude you suck here let me." and the buddy is always like "Nah I can take em."...and loses. Then the tough guy plays and loses and they leave. I can't tell you how many times something like that happened to me, as I was always looking for competition in UMK3.

The only time I remember losing to any one person outside of the homebase of West Coast Video in UMK3 was in Atlantic City against these two quiet guys, they used Ermac and I wasn't really use to fighting against him. Their lift combos were shitty of course and they probably would have done a lot better had they known the 75% midscreeners, but I eventually made them leave via numerous defeats. I think I was into Robot Smoke at the time, but eventually moved onto Inhumane Smoke.

A few years ago I reevaluated my experiences, trying to figure out exactly what level the people I played were at, and it kinda dawned on me that the average MK player might just totally suck, because when I started playing against the Prophet he was beating me and none of my tactics would work, I had never experienced a real player I thought. Since then, I have had an epiphany and have tried to refine all the tactics I have learned and relearned and through real life tournaments and what not, I have met maybe a dozen people in my life who have given me a serious challenge, and that's counting all the people I've played online as well, and 2 of those people happen to be from Chicago. I wish more people would get into the game since it's so readily available and so much fun.

Matt

Ah, I get all misty-eyed reminiscing about such times. Arcade, we hardly knew ye. But wow, I gotta thank God for Kaillera. Props to MK2Kung and those who have helped turn me on to that stuff. For YEARS I have had only my friends to fight in Mortal Kombat, and the matches were so lopsided in my favor that they lost all interest. Now I can get stomped by experts in Germany, and the experience is truly refreshing. This is like, the fulfillment of all my time spent on MKO. So much reminiscing, discussing strategy and whatnot... for months, I had all this new knowledge, but still only the crap crap crap AI to feed my hunger. Now I get to fight people... PEOPLE... I've got human opponents at arms length. I can FINALLY play MK the way it was meant to be played. After nearly a decade of arcade inactivity, I get to live the scene all over again. It is the evolution of the arcade scene, really. They were dying, and something like this was bound to happen. It HAD to happen if these games were to continue to be relevant on any sort of grand scale.

So here I am fighting people now; most people who are still playing are experts and they thrash me routinely. But I do get a round in here and there, and by golly, I LEARN. And every now and then I'll host a game, and an average player shows up, at which point I get to go to town and play "expert" for that particular session. And boy, does that feel sweet.

Something new I played around with last night.... before one of those average players joined, I hit RECORD on the VCR (my desktop is split between a monitor and a TV). I "felt him out" in the first match, underestimated, and lost. Then I went on to have a sweet 7 or 8-win streak until he had to go. Good, good games, and to top it all off, I hit rewind and re-watched everything before I went to bed. It was way more entertaining than you would think (I had winamp going too, so each match played out like a little MK Music Video), and EDUCATIONAL. I am learning by watching my own tactics, and looking for ways I can improve. Like I'll get to take a second look at what that guy was doing, and be all like "hm, I coulda stuck out a HK over there, gotta remember that for next time!" I love this!

Yeah, I gotta thank MK2KB for setting me up with Mame too. Unfortunately I have not played him (or any MKO'er) yet, but will in due time (plus I forgot what your mame name is, the pm I had it in was purged during the switch to v7)

I agree w/ BU, the skill level for UMK3 online is very high, but i enjoy the challenge.

Also unfortunate is the fact that since MKD was released I have hardly played UMK3, so my game has suffered. I need to get back to the level I was at when I was playin MKT and mk3 daily (around '97). Once I am bored of Deception I will start playing Ultimate again, and hope to see u guys online then

I remember playing the original Mortal Kombat at the local Mini Mart.

I was a kid then....probably around 10, 11...something like that.

Im playing with subzero...minding my own business, when this really tall blonde kid comes up and throws in 50 cents. I thought nothing of it, because I had played a lot. I picked Rayden. What I kept doing was the teleport....down up, down up, down up, upper cut. He was getting pissed.

So, what does he do? Throws in another 50 cents, and another. Finally, I beat him a last time and he says, "you fu.., you spent all my smoke money!"

Classic.

Years later I ran into the same guy at a party for a wedding and told him the story.....he remembers this little punk at mini mart that took all his money.

Man the arcade days where just great i dont think arcades will ever make a comeback its to bad.Anyways i have alot of arcade memories of mk2 and 3 mostly.Honestly i wasnt to great with those games back then i never got comfortable with the joystick none the less i loved playing them.I remember the first time i saw mk2 i was amazed seeing barakas blade lift fatality was shocking at the time. I use to go at the mall early on weekends right when aladdins castle would open up i remeber mostly have 5 or 3 bucks in quarters.It always seemed like it was the loudest game at the arcades which made it so much more cool.For mk3 i went to a different mall most of the time to play it i remember the first fatality i did was cryaxs helicopter blade one.It felt so great i know that sounds sad but after the first time you do one its like ectasy at least it was back then.Those where truly awesome times i love to go back in time. You never know how good something was until its gone arcades where so hot back then i loved every minute of it.

I remember this one time my mom and I went to this arcade and UMK3 was there.She only had 50 cent so I used it and picked Scorpion.Half way through the 2nd round of my 1st match this guy comes up and says "Hey,I can make that guy take his mask off!"I was little at the time(5 or 6) so I just gave him the game then HE LOST!!!I'll never forget that.



Playing MK4 for the 1st time was just,I woke up early that Sunday and went to Holyoke Mall after my dad told me he saw the MK4 machine near there.I put in 50 cent and got owned by Raiden I think.After reading all of this

I wish the Arcade Scene was still alive.The Eastfield mall arcade is sorta alive.Every once in awhile I'll find someone to play.You might find a nice looking girl to cheer you on also

I might just go there tommorow.

Here in brasil this happened a lot there whore like this poor kids in the arcade i went they spended the day there and they always said " i can beat that dude for you" and they almost never did but we always toth "this time they'ill get it" maybe thats because i was 4 years old

I just played some UMK3 at 8 on the Break in Dunellen, NJ a couple weeks ago with DreemerNJ and a few other guys. We wound up playing over 100 total games, probably about 120, and I had 10, 14, 15, and 21 win streaks(as in streaks where I could my initials in). It brought back a lot of memories lol.

Matt

The only arcade MK I really played with a passion was MK4. I use to play it everytime I went to the arcade at the local mall. I remember the machine wasn't like a normal fighting game, it was more like a racing game, with like seats and crap. I was nine at the time. I was never really THAT good, but I use to win some, and mostly lose. There was this one guy I beat where I keep doing deep jump kicks, teleport, spear, auto combo with Scorpion, and he kept getting so pissed. And this one guy I played always did this little jump backwards thing to get away. I would just toss the sword, and follow up with a teleport, combo. The look on his face was priceless.