I have so many MK memories it's really quite insane.

My earliest MK memory is when MK1 came out on SNES and Genesis. I wasn't into fighting games other than Street Fighter 2. I didn't really think there was anything else. My friends and I have always been big wrestling fans, so we were about 11ish at the time and in my yard beating up on this gigantic New York Giants teddy bear, it was almost the size of us so wrestling moves were fun to do with it. One of my friends came over and said he had just rented MK1 for Genesis. He described Goro and I thought it sounded neat, he mentioned the blood and fatalities and stuff, and the Thunder God Raiden etc. Still, this did not spark my interest quite that much, but in time I went over and pretty much watched them play it.

The next big memory was being surprised by the Pit 2 Fatality at a local video store, and this was what started it all. I got MK2 as soon as it came out for SNES and it began from there. I thought I was so cool cause I memorized all the fatalities and morphs and stuff. I printed them out for people in school but after a short time, I could beat all my friends in MK2 and no one except one friend would ever play me.

MK3 rolled around and I was right on top of it. DreemerNJ and I were scouting the EGMs and Game Pro Magazines for every new tidbit that came out and I thought the game seemed kind of strange with all the new characters, but once it came out at our video store, the local competition became pretty fierce. There was one guy who was far and beyond the king of the hill, and I couldn't beat him.

He disappeared for a while and UMK3 came out, this is where the memories are really vivid. The guy Eric came back for one more go around and I slaughtered him. He had gotten into Tekken apparently and my defense had gotten better, but that was it. I still see the guy in the super market I work at from time to time, but I don't think he recognizes me.

The very first time I ever played UMK3 was at the Freehold Mall, in NJ, which is about 45 minutes from here with traffic. I saw a huge crowd around a video game right at the entrance to Time Out and I knew what was there waiting for me. It was UMK3 on a big screen cab with the sticks set out a good distance from it, extra wide. The perfect formula for destruction. I watched as this guy beat everyone with Sektor and teleport uppercuts. I was saddened by this because I knew the competition wasn't at my level and I was only 14 years old. I stepped up and ended his reign rather quickly with Scorpion. There was no question about it, the fire within was ignited and my thirst for UMK3 competition still has not died out. I remember the very first thing that happened in the match, he did a homing missile, and then a teleport uppercut, as if I was going to just let it all hit. But I blocked both and did a HP harpoon, to 4 hit combo (HP HP HK B+HK). Mind you I had never played UMK3 before so the instant acknowledgement of the controls happened there. There was something very right about it, I don't know how to explain it.

I played so many people that night and never lost. Eventually the point where my mother came over to me after she finished shopping and said she wanted to leave, so I beat the person I was playing and told the kid behind me to "take my game" and I left a champion.

I played UMK3 in Atlantic City NJ sometime after that, and for the first time I started experiencing things like anti air HK's more and more, the competition was a lot better down there, but still not enough. Two guys played against me and took turns, and I remember the first guy winning the first round, and the second guy losing, the fisrt guy getting pissed and taking back over, and then he lost and they left. I always hated that.

Another time at the Hazlet Movie theater, also in NJ, I played a guy who surely knew he was going to beat me. DreemerNJ was there right behind us, I believe the guy picked Robot Smoke, but then exclaimed his superiority and changed to Human Smoke and proceeded to lose badly. Dreemer said "Humble pie?" as he left and I never saw him again. This is very similar to a situation at another mall where Dreemer played Soul Calibur for the first time ever, against a guy who was beating up on 5 year olds, he selected Kilik I believe and raised his arms up like Scorpion and this of course is a display of ability, or lack thereof because Dreemer destroyed the guy rather easily with no experience in the specific game.

As time went on, there was less and less competition, and eventually it was no longer at West Coast Video either so the local competition was gone as well.

The only time I ever played MKT was with DreemerNJ and that was pretty much everyday for hours on end for an entire summer.

After sometime a guy by the name of The Prophet started working at the same grocery store as me, we talked about MK out of the blue one day and he said he was very good at the game, so we played MKT for PSX and I had never been challenged like this before, he knew all the tricks, didn't fall for anything, could predict timings for run under uppercuts like it was going out of style. We didn't get to play often enough for me to adapt to his style up until I'd say a year ago, but by then we had developed a counter-cocounter style to eachother where now it's just completely back and forth madness. We are still adapting out game to this day.

The first time I ever played MK4 was at another mall in NJ, I was totally disappointed by it and never had the urge to play it again, although I did many times. Just a big let down.

A couple years ago at a tournament in Philly I played MKDA, I didn't terribly, but I only had a couple hours of game time in and most of the guys playing had already broken the game beyond belief even in the short time it was out.

Woof that was a lot of memories, that's all for now.

Matt

im only gonna mention one that takes the cake for me.

it was 1994 and i was for and i just got done playing mk2 and iwas playing as subby for some reason. anyway i got done and i was pretending to be fighting either kahn or scorpon cant remember. so i was pretending to fight one of them and i did a karate kick and i yelled out hiya. when i said hiya ibit a huge hole through my tongue. i couldnt eat solid food for weeks.

Nice stories so far! I'll continue with the last bits of my MK1 memories;

So the next day my brothers had hockey, and being morons, they always woke me up at 6am so I was bored, playing with my toys in the living room, I looked over to see the Genesis with the Mortal Kombat cart sticking out. I had to try it, so I turned on the TV and pushed "Start."

I immediatly went to the Kombatant Select screen, and looked for the yellow ninja. I found him and selected. I next saw my characters portrait going down a long list of guys, the only particular guy to catch my eye was that of "Goro" normally, I would be scared of anything demonic or scary looking, but Goro sparked my curiosity and made me determined. My first opponent was Raiden/Rayden. I was horrible, standing thjere doing low kicks and the like leaving my opponent to decimate me, noticing there was no blood, I became disappointed. Round two started and I began going all out, I remember me winning with a roundhouse kick. The third round was nothing really, a few simple moves and done with. I went for about 2 hours playing until my brothers came home and "forced" me off of it (which results in a tombstone piledriver). So they played for a half hour doing unimpressive things, until they decided to try single "Kombat." I watched as they decimated 3 opponents in a row, and I saw the screen darken as a dazed Sonya Blade was gripped by her throat by Sub-Zero and her head being ripped off with the spine still attached! I was in complete awe once again knowing I just HAD to do that. The next round was going to begin but then I saw the mysterious green ninja jump down from the screen saying words which I cannot decipher (I think it was "La Luna"). I asked if he was playable and they didn't know and continued playing. Head rip after head rip finally into endurance matches. My brother was going nuts doing slides, freezes, roundhouse kicks. He tore through the competition and was one match away from Goro himself! I got up fromn my seat watching and praying he won against the team of Kano/Liukang. He took care of Kano, but was only 4 hits away from death! He froze, slided, froze before he got up and did two sweeps. He repeated this and got the win. I was overwhelmed with joy knowing we can't lose now! He defeated them easily and went onto Goro, and before we could goto the Tower screen, Goro jupmed down and immediatly punched the living crap out of Zero, and threw him killing him in one hit. The next round began and Zero stood no chance getting dominated.

The next I have is just bits and pieces, I do remember Goro dying and getting to "Shang Tsung" the old man whom I've never seen before. I was very impressed by his morphing to characters, but watched as he was easily dispatched by Sub-Zero. So after this my brothers lost interest in Mortal Kombat day after day, until they returned the game, and I was sick of it too. We never got to fight the mystery ninja, and that left me disappointed (to this day I STILL haven't fought Reptile).

But it all resparked again while looking at a Gamepro magazine months upon months later....

To be continued

I don't remember any funny stories about me playing MK, but I'll share when I first played each game from MK1-MK4:

MK1 ~ My class was on a field trip to Granada Studios, and we had just finished an 'Aliens' simulator ride. We were allowed a little time in the arcade area afterwards and me an a friend went and played an arcade game. Well one or two machines to our left was this aracade cabinet where there was cool fighting and cool sounds comingf out of it. It was in the middle of the day so NO ONE was there except my class, so we left whatever game we were playing and went over to this new game. WOW!!! never played anything like it, plus it was unlimited gameplay, no money or tokens, cus it was part of the tour. So we just kept playing one another over an over. I think I picked Johnny Cage first, but I'm not 100% sure (I've never picked him since) The teachers had to almost drag us away when it was time to leave, cus we just wanted to play over and over. I've been hooked on MK ever since...

MK2 ~ I was, hmmmm 7? and had bought MK1 for Amiga (good version with all the blood) and played the hell outta it, then MK2 was released. Well I asked for it for my 8th b-day, and was sooo pumped up for it. I was doing Judo at school at the time, and I remember a dream I had the night before my Bday. I was sparring in front of my class with my Sensai, I was losing badly and I morphed into Reptile (who I was most hyped about playing as) and 'finished him.' Awesome dream...

MK3 ~ Nothing special, I had just moved to Canada and it was the first game I bought when I bought my new Playstation.

MK4 ~ I had followed this game for AGES! I still have all the old gaming mags with any article on MK4 I could get. Still have a good Tips and Tricks about the MK4 Road Tour. And I was at the movies witha friend who didnt really like MK. We came out of the movie and went to the arcade bit, I almost crapped myself, cus it had JUST been released in arcades and I was gonna play it. Well he didnt want ot play, so he went and played something else. I put in my quaters and picked Sub Zero (perennial 1st choice). I was sooo excited, then I started to play...wasn't too impressed. But I won my first 2 or 3 matches. THEN the friggin joystick stopped working I was like wtf? So I lost, and I played again, won 2 matches and the same shit happened! WTF, I still dunno why (unless it was rigged to do that??) Bastard machine...

I kinda blew off MK1. But for some reason I really got excited for MKII when a kid on my school bus told me it was coming out. Word got out that a neaby Nathan's had the game, so I was really stoked. On a Friday night I was gonna go to that Nathan's, but earlier in the day I actually ended up seeing the game at Golden Memories Comics, just a few blocks away from my house. There was a whole crowd... I squeezed my way through and saw MKII in action for the first time. The match was Kung Lao vs. Jax, in The Armory... that was over ten years ago and I'll never forget it. Later that night I still went to Nathan's and I got to see it more. I remember seeing someone beat Kintaro by just punching the air until time ran out.

Back then the arcade scene was thriving. Within walking distance alone, I had three places I could go to play MKII. My little brother and I would walk down Hempstead Turnpike to Six Star Video and play MKII (where they actually offered $10 to the first person who beat the game). I remember one day specifically where we were watching the 2.1 version of the game at Six Star, then we walked down to Golden Memories and they just got 3.1 and I saw Shang's Kintaro fatality for the first time. I was flipping out!

I wasn't that good at it, just good enough to beat all my friends. A different Nathans had a MKII tournament once and I got killed in the second match by someone using Johnny Cage. That's actually how I learned to use turnaround jumpkicks, by paying attention carefully to how that guy kicked my ass. That same Nathan's offered a free MK t-shirt to anyone who beat the game. By then I was good enough to beat the game without much effort, so I scored some nice merch!

I could go on for hours about this (I love these kind of posts) but I'll skip ahead to my favorite MK3 moment. In 10th grade my class went on a field trip to Six Flags Great Adventure. The group I was in was waiting to meet everyone else in one of the arcades. When lo and behold, they had MK3 on a giant screen. I started playing and beat five strangers, with my class cheering me on. Unfortunately the 2.1 version of the game had just come out, so I didn't know any of the new fatality commands at the time (all finishing commands except Stryker's had been changed since 1.0). But it was still an amazing feeling, playing the brand new MK3 on a huge screen with an "audience" of your friends. Great times!

oh....it was so amazing when i saw Mk for the first time....it was in the arcades like 12 yars ago.seeing a game with digitized fighters,blood....but obviously waht caught my eye was when i saw the "Fatality",i don't remember very well which one but maybe it was Scorp's Toasty,i was like wtf!!???,it was totally amazing!!!!!.i couldn't believe that,i told a friend of mine and he was caught too....then the time passed and MK 2 came out,that was the shit!!!!!!....i was in that arcade and there were a big crowd surrounding an arcade machine,in fact it was MK2,my eyes pop out,and more of this come when i see the over the top fatalities and all the stuff,and the story goes with the other games.it was fun too when my friend and i were spending hours playing MK on sega genesis....i could tell a lot more but i'm a little lazy now.

this is some of my memories....i know this is just a game,but with the years has become a great part of my life and my heart....thanks!!!!

Mortal Kombat Rules Supreme!!!!!!!

fear the Noob....

When MK1 came out, my neighbor bought it for Genesis, and he brought it over to my house. We played it for awhile, but I didn't really like it. We didn't turn on the blood cheat, and we didn't do any fatalities of any kind. But, I did like the game for its music, I thought it was the greatest. I'm talking about the Genesis version too. I don't know why I liked the music so much.

MK2 was a little better, but it didn't really kick start the series for me. The gameplay was still the same. But, I saw the first fatality on MK2. When I was Kung Lao, my neighber (the same neighber with MK1) told me to press F, F, F, LK. I did, and my eyes widened when the screen darkened, and Kung Lao sliced Scorpion in half. I thought it was pretty cool, and he showed me all the fatalities. But, still, MK wasn't for me.

MK3 was MUCH better than the other two, because of the combos. I loved the combos, they were so cool. But, the amount of characters didn't impress me.

UMK3, was my favorite game, and it still is to this day. All the characters, added combos to the old characters, more stages, and it was just kick ass. When I figured out you can start a combo with a Jump Punch/Kick, I got much better. I had the Genesis version, and I played it about 5 hours after school, and the whole day on the weekend. I was 8 and 9 at the time, so it was awesome.

My first arcade experience with MK was after I had gotten pretty good with UMK3. I went to an arcade when I moved to Georgia, and I saw UMK3. I nearly knocked down the machine I ran to it so fast. This guy was playing against Motaro, so I let him finish the game. He looked pretty good, but he needed 3 chances to beat Shao Kahn. I applauded him, and he said "Thank you, thank you!" I said I wanted to play him, and he said sure. He laughed at me 9 year old self, and said "You're gonna lose little dude." I chose Kabal, and he was Scorpion. He beat the game with Scorpion, so I was in for a challenge. It was the best match I ever had against anyone, and I beat him in the third round with a flawless victory. He got pretty damn mad. He cursed and punched the screen. I went on to the Endurance match, lost it, and then I had to go.

MK4 was pretty good. I got it for my N64. I thought they were the best graphics ever. I played it a lot, and the Maximum Damage was pretty annoying, but I got over it.

MKDA is my second favorite MK, because I absolutely love the new gameplay. It's awesome, and I still play it everyday. The Konquest mode and the Krypt are awesome as well.

I just recently got MKT for my N64, I don't know why I waited so long to get it. I play it a lot, and my brother and I are trying to make match videos for you guys and gals to see.