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The Nostalgia Thread (aka...I remember that!)


Phillyman

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I don't remember the PS1 demo discs, but I saw/played Mortal Kombat II for the first time at a Pizza Hut.

The one that comes to mind was in 1998, had a demo for Spyro, Medieval, and Metal Gear Solid. Might have had a couple other demos on it, but those were the ones that I recall vividly.

We must have spent HOURS screwing with the guards in MGS. Sneak sneak sneak, punch in the back, then dive in the box. Still makes me laugh, typing it. :P

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man, i LOVED my Muscle Men when i was a kid. always liked the colored ones better than the fleshtone ones tho.

tried google to find a picture of my favorite one, but didn't see it in the dozens of group shots i looked at. he was purple, tho.

It's cool that you called them "Muscle Men". That was my name for them while growing up as well. I actually always preferred the fleshies to the colored ones, I guess because they were the first, but some of the colored figures looked really great as well. If you can get a purple figure of the hand creature (my favorite in the line since day one) you've got some money on your hands

I don't remember the PS1 demo discs, but I saw/played Mortal Kombat II for the first time at a Pizza Hut.

Oh MAN, some of my all-time best memories of MKII were at a Pizza Hut. I played that game all the time - we're talking almost every day for months - at every arcade that I could find it at. I traded movelists and tactics with other kids, freaked out whenever a new revision of the game would change the control scheme, impressed crowds with fatalities and the "kill the baby" babality glitch of 2.1...ah man, memories.

Anyway in 1994 my mom worked at a Pizza Hut that was about fifty feet away from a place called "Ron's Sports Cards" which happened to have an MKII machine in the back room. I can't count how many summer days I spent hopping on a bus, going to my mom's Pizza Hut for free buffet, then heading over to play MKII with my buddies for hours.

For years I've fondly looked back upon 1994 as the summer of girls, Pizza Hut, and MKII. It was the best summer of my life.

The one that comes to mind was in 1998, had a demo for Spyro, Medieval, and Metal Gear Solid. Might have had a couple other demos on it, but those were the ones that I recall vividly.

We must have spent HOURS screwing with the guards in MGS. Sneak sneak sneak, punch in the back, then dive in the box. Still makes me laugh, typing it. :P

Yep, I had that very demo disc. It was the first time that I'd ever played Metal Gear Solid, and my time with it unfolded pretty much the same way that yours did, lol. I think the demo ended after you got onto the elevator, or maybe once you reached the building at the other side of that first snow field. I don't recall, I just remember that it was short (but very easy to get a lot of amusement from, as well as see how good the final product would be). I believe that Tomb Raider II was another game on the disc.

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The one that comes to mind was in 1998, had a demo for Spyro, Medieval, and Metal Gear Solid. Might have had a couple other demos on it, but those were the ones that I recall vividly.

We must have spent HOURS screwing with the guards in MGS. Sneak sneak sneak, punch in the back, then dive in the box. Still makes me laugh, typing it. :P

Not to condone piracy, but it looks like the first two Pizza Hut demo discs have been dumped.

http://redump.org/disc/12699

http://redump.org/disc/3042

(These links are merely a record of the dumps and don't contain any copyright files.)

There's plenty being sold on eBay as well.

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/pizza-hut-demo

Anyone remember the Xbox advergames Burger King sold back in 2006? There were 3, but my favorite was PocketBike Racer. My buddy and I played it for hours. The disc was pretty neat, in that it could play on both the original Xbox and Xbox 360.

Oh MAN, some of my all-time best memories of MKII were at a Pizza Hut. I played that game all the time - we're talking almost every day for months - at every arcade that I could find it at. I traded movelists and tactics with other kids, freaked out whenever a new revision of the game would change the control scheme, impressed crowds with fatalities and the "kill the baby" babality glitch of 2.1...ah man, memories.

Anyway in 1994 my mom worked at a Pizza Hut that was about fifty feet away from a place called "Ron's Sports Cards" which happened to have an MKII machine in the back room. I can't count how many summer days I spent hopping on a bus, going to my mom's Pizza Hut for free buffet, then heading over to play MKII with my buddies for hours.

For years I've fondly looked back upon 1994 as the summer of girls, Pizza Hut, and MKII. It was the best summer of my life.

I was already a huge MK fan after the first game, which I used to play at my mom's work (a small market up valley) in 1993. I was aware that MKII was coming out soon thanks to EGM and GamePro, so it was just a matter of when and where. Then I happened upon it during a chance visit at Pizza Hut with the fam. I was ecstatic. I remember this one dude doing Johnny Cage's torso rip and Jax's head clap fatalities, but wouldn't tell anyone how to do them (a common theme back in those days). I sneaked a peak at his controls and learned how to do one of them. From there, I had the local vending machine company put a machine at the bowling alley (they were cool like that). I spent $20 on it every Friday, which lasted me a good 6-7 hours if other people were playing. Made some friends along the way. Online gaming just isn't the same. :\

Remember these?

595809.jpg

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one of my all time favorite shows. probably #2 behind Seinfeld.

easily the best sketch comedy show of all time.

man, i LOVED my Muscle Men when i was a kid. always liked the colored ones better than the fleshtone ones tho.

tried google to find a picture of my favorite one, but didn't see it in the dozens of group shots i looked at. he was purple, tho.

It was a amazing show no doubt about it. Acting, writing, the style just a amazing show. And one of my Favorites. I would have liked it if it went on longer for a few more years but in the end it was short and sweet and one hell of a show.

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Yep, I had that very demo disc. It was the first time that I'd ever played Metal Gear Solid, and my time with it unfolded pretty much the same way that yours did, lol. I think the demo ended after you got onto the elevator, or maybe once you reached the building at the other side of that first snow field. I don't recall, I just remember that it was short (but very easy to get a lot of amusement from, as well as see how good the final product would be). I believe that Tomb Raider II was another game on the disc.

It was the first two screens of MGS in the demo versions. The dock with the elevator, and the helipad. Demo ended if you try to progress past that. I actually have a version of that demo with all the voices in Japanese, as well as the possibly more common English language version.

Anyone remember the Xbox advergames Burger King sold back in 2006? There were 3, but my favorite was PocketBike Racer. My buddy and I played it for hours. The disc was pretty neat, in that it could play on both the original Xbox and Xbox 360.

I was already a huge MK fan... I spent $20 on it every Friday, which lasted me a good 6-7 hours if other people were playing. Made some friends along the way. Online gaming just isn't the same. :\

I remember the BK games, but that year a friend of mine rented a rather regal looking costume, and had me buy a King mask off of Ebay for him. There were some, uhhh... shenanigans that halloween. :P

As for arcade versus online, I totally agree. There is something to be said for tangible experiences. A parallel, if I may. I'm a car guy, and I love driving. I have a pretty sweet setup for Gran Turismo, that is probably about as good as it gets without spending money that you could buy an actual CAR for. As much fun as driving in that game with that setup is, you lack the sounds (even with a good audio system), the smells, the heat, the g-forces... So even though I can "experience" cars that I could never realistically expect to afford in one lifetime, it is still sadly, not as fun as a spirited drive through the mountains in my mundane by comparison every day Miata.

That's how I feel about online gaming. It scratches an itch, sure, but it can't touch the ambiance of an arcade.

It was a amazing show no doubt about it. Acting, writing, the style just a amazing show. And one of my Favorites. I would have liked it if it went on longer for a few more years but in the end it was short and sweet and one hell of a show.

You know, some things are best left at their peak. Take Cowboy Bebop for example. One of the biggest anime series ever, and yet... rather than milk it to death, it was one season, and a movie. That was all. They didn't take the chance of ruining a good thing, and I appreciate that.

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Anyone remember the Xbox advergames Burger King sold back in 2006? There were 3, but my favorite was PocketBike Racer. My buddy and I played it for hours. The disc was pretty neat, in that it could play on both the original Xbox and Xbox 360.

I was already a huge MK fan after the first game, which I used to play at my mom's work (a small market up valley) in 1993. I was aware that MKII was coming out soon thanks to EGM and GamePro, so it was just a matter of when and where. Then I happened upon it during a chance visit at Pizza Hut with the fam. I was ecstatic. I remember this one dude doing Johnny Cage's torso rip and Jax's head clap fatalities, but wouldn't tell anyone how to do them (a common theme back in those days). I sneaked a peak at his controls and learned how to do one of them. From there, I had the local vending machine company put a machine at the bowling alley (they were cool like that). I spent $20 on it every Friday, which lasted me a good 6-7 hours if other people were playing. Made some friends along the way. Online gaming just isn't the same. :\

Remember these?

I definitely remember "Sneak King", the ridiculous BK stealth where you have to hide in weeds and treehouses and port-o-potties and other oddball things in order to jump out and surprise hungry citizens with tasty, tasty BK goodness. It was exactly as entertaining and dumb as I wanted it to be.

Lol your first MKII experience was much different than mine. I first fell in love with MK in the summer of '93, when I finally got to play the arcade machine at a place called Wisconsin Dells (a huge waterpark city / amusement land). I loved it and played it all the time, but had no idea that a sequel would be coming soon. Because I got into the first game so late, it didn't take long for MKII to show up at the arcade not far from my house. Just boom, there it was, one random Friday I was there with my friends and saw a horde of people crowded around the new machine.

By the time I finally waited in line and got a chance to play, I was amazed by the whole experience. The booming sound, the crisp graphics, the legion of new characters. I saw Reptile and chose him immediately. "Awesome!!!" I thought, "it's Reptfile from MK1!!! He has the moves of Sub-Zero AND Scorpion! I can't lose!!!"

Needless to say I lost quickly, highly confused as to why none of Sub and Scorp's moves were working like they should, and leaving my opponent equally confused as to why I would have chosen what I would later learn to be the worst character in any fighting game ever. But over the following months I stuck with the game, doing everything from skipping school and spending lunch money on it to getting in with the arcade management and doing odd jobs for free tokens, and soon enough I was something of a local expert. Nigh unbeatable except for that one Hispanic family who all knew how to dominate with Scorpion. Those jerks!

But yeah I definitely remember the days of having to peek at move combinations because smug players wouldn't want to share their fatality secrets. I remember the first time that I saw a friendship - it was Liu Kang's - and because I had no idea that such a thing was in the game, I was left highly amused but completely befuddled. I asked the guy if that was somehow Liu's fatality and he said, matter of factly, "it's his friendship!" as if that explained anything. Man, good times. You're right, and I've said it before myself: online gaming just isn't the same.

I do NOT remember those official MKII magazines but now I know that I need every one of them.

It was the first two screens of MGS in the demo versions. The dock with the elevator, and the helipad.

You know, some things are best left at their peak. Take Cowboy Bebop for example. One of the biggest anime series ever, and yet... rather than milk it to death, it was one season, and a movie. That was all. They didn't take the chance of ruining a good thing, and I appreciate that.

Oh right, it was a helipad. That's what I was trying to explain when I said that I thought it ended with the first snowfield. Man, they sure didn't give you much of a game. But hell, that was enough to convince ME to buy it.

Going out on top. That's how I feel about Breaking Bad.

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I definitely remember "Sneak King", the ridiculous BK stealth where you have to hide in weeds and treehouses and port-o-potties and other oddball things in order to jump out and surprise hungry citizens with tasty, tasty BK goodness. It was exactly as entertaining and dumb as I wanted it to be.

Lol your first MKII experience was much different than mine. I first fell in love with MK in the summer of '93, when I finally got to play the arcade machine at a place called Wisconsin Dells (a huge waterpark city / amusement land). I loved it and played it all the time, but had no idea that a sequel would be coming soon. Because I got into the first game so late, it didn't take long for MKII to show up at the arcade not far from my house. Just boom, there it was, one random Friday I was there with my friends and saw a horde of people crowded around the new machine.

By the time I finally waited in line and got a chance to play, I was amazed by the whole experience. The booming sound, the crisp graphics, the legion of new characters. I saw Reptile and chose him immediately. "Awesome!!!" I thought, "it's Reptfile from MK1!!! He has the moves of Sub-Zero AND Scorpion! I can't lose!!!"

Needless to say I lost quickly, highly confused as to why none of Sub and Scorp's moves were working like they should, and leaving my opponent equally confused as to why I would have chosen what I would later learn to be the worst character in any fighting game ever. But over the following months I stuck with the game, doing everything from skipping school and spending lunch money on it to getting in with the arcade management and doing odd jobs for free tokens, and soon enough I was something of a local expert. Nigh unbeatable except for that one Hispanic family who all knew how to dominate with Scorpion. Those jerks!

But yeah I definitely remember the days of having to peek at move combinations because smug players wouldn't want to share their fatality secrets. I remember the first time that I saw a friendship - it was Liu Kang's - and because I had no idea that such a thing was in the game, I was left highly amused but completely befuddled. I asked the guy if that was somehow Liu's fatality and he said, matter of factly, "it's his friendship!" as if that explained anything. Man, good times. You're right, and I've said it before myself: online gaming just isn't the same.

I do NOT remember those official MKII magazines but now I know that I need every one of them.

I used to frequent the market my mom worked at back in 1993. They had two arcade machines side by side, one of which was SF2. My brother and I were really into SF2 at the time, so we were always playing that. The machine next to it happened to be MK1. I had never heard of it before, but I remember being impressed by the graphics. Nothing more, though. One day, I happened to glance over at MK1 during its attract mode as Scorpion and Liu Kang were battling it out, when all of the sudden Scorpion throws his spear at Liu Kang, followed by a ton of blood, "Get over here!", and an uppercut that sends Liu Kang flying 20 feet in the air. My jaw hit the floor. That was the moment I knew I had to play this game.

I went home and thumbed through all of my video game mags to find anything I could about the game. Fortunately, I ended up finding a moves list in the December 1992 issue of EGM (some of the moves ended up being wrong, but it was better than nothing). I ripped the pages out so I could take them with me to the store (something I would later regret; I ended up obtaining another mint copy just a couple years ago). The rest is pretty much history. I've been obsessed ever since. The series has had its fair share of ups and downs, but I've stuck with it.

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This was another example I was gonna mention. Can you imagine them trying to squeeze out a sixth season?

Nope, because the second part of the fifth season was pretty much flawless from start to finish. :)

I used to frequent the market my mom worked at back in 1993. They had two arcade machines side by side, one of which was SF2. My brother and I were really into SF2 at the time, so we were always playing that. The machine next to it happened to be MK1. I had never heard of it before, but I remember being impressed by the graphics. Nothing more, though. One day, I happened to glance over at MK1 during its attract mode as Scorpion and Liu Kang were battling it out, when all of the sudden Scorpion throws his spear at Liu Kang, followed by a ton of blood, "Get over here!", and an uppercut that sends Liu Kang flying 20 feet in the air. My jaw hit the floor. That was the moment I knew I had to play this game.

I went home and thumbed through all of my video game mags to find anything I could about the game. Fortunately, I ended up finding a moves list in the December 1992 issue of EGM (some of the moves ended up being wrong, but it was better than nothing). I ripped the pages out so I could take them with me to the store (something I would later regret; I ended up obtaining another mint copy just a couple years ago). The rest is pretty much history. I've been obsessed ever since. The series has had its fair share of ups and downs, but I've stuck with it.

That's funny, SF2 was my own transition into MK. I was flipping through the pages of EGM sometime in the summer of 1993 (don't know how the game eluded me that whole time. I guess it's because I wasn't really reading EGM in '92) when I started noticing how cool the game looked, and my curiosity to play it grew. While preparing for the aforementioned trip to Wisconsin Dells (knowing that its many arcades would guarantee at least one MK machine), I looked through the EGM issue in my possession that had the move list and memorized a few characters. I quickly honed in on Sub-Zero. Not only did he seem like the coolest character to me (no pun intended), his moves were just like Ryu's, my favorite character from Street Fighter. Sub's freeze was executed just like a hadoken, and his spine rip fatality was executed just like the dragon punch. I played my first game of Mortal Kombat pretty much knowing how to handle my favorite character right from the beginning. And sure enough, in my second or third fight, I pulled off my first fatality.

Interesting that you and I had such a similar history with Mortal Kombat, and that we were each drawn to the game by its two most iconic characters. I was crazily, intensely, feverishly obsessed with MKII in 1994 and really dug MK3 in 95 and 96. Lots of great late teenage memories of those two games. While I burnt out on the series with 4, and missed the few subsequent games that came afterwards, I got back into things with Armageddon and (of course) the love letter to fans of MK 1-3, Mortal Kombat 9.

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That's funny, SF2 was my own transition into MK. I was flipping through the pages of EGM sometime in the summer of 1993 (don't know how the game eluded me that whole time. I guess it's because I wasn't really reading EGM in '92) when I started noticing how cool the game looked, and my curiosity to play it grew. While preparing for the aforementioned trip to Wisconsin Dells (knowing that its many arcades would guarantee at least one MK machine), I looked through the EGM issue in my possession that had the move list and memorized a few characters. I quickly honed in on Sub-Zero. Not only did he seem like the coolest character to me (no pun intended), his moves were just like Ryu's, my favorite character from Street Fighter. Sub's freeze was executed just like a hadoken, and his spine rip fatality was executed just like the dragon punch. I played my first game of Mortal Kombat pretty much knowing how to handle my favorite character right from the beginning. And sure enough, in my second or third fight, I pulled off my first fatality.

Interesting that you and I had such a similar history with Mortal Kombat, and that we were each drawn to the game by its two most iconic characters. I was crazily, intensely, feverishly obsessed with MKII in 1994 and really dug MK3 in 95 and 96. Lots of great late teenage memories of those two games. While I burnt out on the series with 4, and missed the few subsequent games that came afterwards, I got back into things with Armageddon and (of course) the love letter to fans of MK 1-3, Mortal Kombat 9.

That is interesting. Prior to my chance encounter with MK1 in 1993, I was always playing SF2/CE/Turbo at 7-Eleven before school (when they allowed loitering), and remember the day my brother and I got SF2 for SNES at Kmart. Good times. As much as I loved SF2, though, I never felt a strong connection to it. I can't really explain what it is I love about MK so much, but I have a lot of fond memories associated with it. It also got me through some tough times during my adolescence. I felt like that 12-year-old kid again when the MK9 announcement trailer hit the internet. Have you played MKX? There's a lot of things I like about it (gameplay, hidden Brutalities, gore tech 2.0, etc.), but a lot of things I don't (the roster, lack of stage fatalities, some of the character designs, etc.). It's definitely fun to play, though. I'm curious to see where they go from there.

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On the subject of nostalgia, does anyone see arcades ever making a comeback in any meaningful way?

Think about it. What did arcades offer that the home experience didn't at the height of their popularity? They offered experiences you just couldn't quite get at home. The arcade version of any game (Tekken notably excepted) played smoother, looked better, sounded better, and just generally... was better.

Now take the modern systems we have. I doubt that an arcade could really top the experience that many dedicated gamers have put into their home setups. For my love or racing games, I have a chair on a frame that my wheel mounts to. As a fan of driving in real life, the experience only lacks the tangible, the sensory. The visual sensation is about 90% as good now, but you lack the smell, the heat, the g-force.

Could we have arcade simulations that make you smell the cars, the tracks, feel the heat, and move your temporary cockpit around the way an actual car would? I know there are some REALLY impressive simulator setups out there, but the cost? I was told I might as well part ways with my dream to own an exotic if I wanted one of those simulators, not to mention I'd have to dedicate a room to it... and run 240v power to said room. So yeah, while I doubt that I would spend the $40k or whatever it was for something like that, do you think we could have something like that in an arcade? I could see myself spending $100 or so to play something like that for a while.

And what of VR? Seems the new tech, but who is gonna spend the money for a home setup? Would you rather be able to try it out at an arcade, on your favorite shooter, or fighting game? I remember playing a VR setup at the AZ state fair back in oh... 1995? Might have been '96. Either way, it was... clunky, but really cool at the same time. I think it's time for a comeback. :)

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Also since we're on the subject of MK2 first stories, I recall seeing the game for the first time in a truck stop Dunkin Donuts in Kingman, Arizona. We were headed down to Phoenix to visit my aunt, stopped for breakfast, and there it was. Not sure who was fighting, but the stage was that creepy forest.

Weird how that little memory stuck in my head like that, twenty some years later.

I think it was this same gas station that I saw a low slung, black sports car pull in when I was filling up on a much later trip through there. At first I thought it was a Z32 300z, but it turned out to be a Ferrari 355... and I'm thinking I might be the only one on here who would really care about the cars in question. :P

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That is interesting. Prior to my chance encounter with MK1 in 1993, I was always playing SF2/CE/Turbo at 7-Eleven before school (when they allowed loitering), and remember the day my brother and I got SF2 for SNES at Kmart. Good times. As much as I loved SF2, though, I never felt a strong connection to it. I can't really explain what it is I love about MK so much, but I have a lot of fond memories associated with it. It also got me through some tough times during my adolescence. I felt like that 12-year-old kid again when the MK9 announcement trailer hit the internet. Have you played MKX? There's a lot of things I like about it (gameplay, hidden Brutalities, gore tech 2.0, etc.), but a lot of things I don't (the roster, lack of stage fatalities, some of the character designs, etc.). It's definitely fun to play, though. I'm curious to see where they go from there.

I actually really did dig Street Fighter, thought it wasn't quite the obsession that MKII was for me. I played the arcade game a lot, got SF2 for the SNES and then a year later the SNES version of SF2 Turbo while living in a Holiday Inn hotel. My dad and I were there for three months because our house had caught fire and half burned down, and my parents split up around that same time. I would wind up having my first kiss at the hotel with a girl named April (whose last name, it tortures me, I'll never remember) and started high school a year early that fall. So SF2 was definitely there for some of the most prominent memories of my young life.

Not like MK though. I loved the first game and was (again, quite literally) OBSESSED with the sequel. I could never really explain it either: the gameplay wasn't as deep, but what was there was just so satisfying. I thought that the characters and mythology were fascinating, and of course I loved all the gonzo blood and gore. It wasn't just the surface-level blood that held my interest though. It was the vibrant color, the booming sound, and all those secrets. Man, months and months of secrets. I used to charge the arcade hangers-on fifty cents to make copies of my half-completed fatality lists, lol.

I anxiously awaited MK9 and loved it, surprised that we now had a Mortal Kombat game that both looked great AND had depth. As a fan of the original trilogy first and foremost, it was pretty much exactly the fighting game that I wanted. I couldn't get behind some of the weird things about it though, like the fact that changed some of the move inputs for some reason. I also found some of the fatalities awkward - while Sektor's scarecrow is the stuff of legend - straightforward and right to the point - others, like the one where Stryker electrocutes his opponent and then shoots them, just feels....Idunno, uninspired. In Stryker's case I'd say that it's because he got no development attention because everyone hates him, but I've always kicked crazy ass with Stryker so I'm not going to knock my boy. :)

Never did play MKX. I'm kind of a weirdo - the roster is so different that it's off-putting to the point of... I'm not sure... inaccessibility? I have no idea who all the new faces are and I kind of don't care to know, which is kind of a silly reason to not play a game but I guess there it is. I had something of the same problem with MK Armageddon: Because I hadn't played most of the games after MK4 I didn't know who most of the "new" characters were, and that caused me to use them very infrequently. I guess I'm kind of a stodgy old fuddy-duddy who doesn't embrace change the way he used to, lol.

...*Clears throat*. Sorry for the "Mike's History With Mortal Kombat" book reading session, everybody.

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I loved the first game and was (again, quite literally) OBSESSED with the sequel. I could never really explain it either: the gameplay wasn't as deep, but what was there was just so satisfying. I thought that the characters and mythology were fascinating, and of course I loved all the gonzo blood and gore. It wasn't just the surface-level blood that held my interest though. It was the vibrant color, the booming sound, and all those secrets. Man, months and months of secrets. I used to charge the arcade hangers-on fifty cents to make copies of my half-completed fatality lists, lol.

That's pretty much how I felt about it. The DCS sound system was pretty rad. I remember some of the machines I played on having it cranked up. It was really distinctive among the other games at the time. Being that I didn't have the internet back in 1993, I probably would've been one of those kids who paid you for a copy of your list, lol. In fact, I paid this one kid to walk over to a grocery store just across the way and make me photocopy of his list off Usenet (which sounded foreign to me at the time). He was doing things I hadn't seen before, so I knew it was legit. At first I thought he was going to end up ripping me off, but it all worked out. Relying on monthly magazines wasn't practical for the latest info, so I felt like I hit the jackpot. I still have that paper in my MK box, too. :D

Never did play MKX. I'm kind of a weirdo - the roster is so different that it's off-putting to the point of... I'm not sure... inaccessibility? I have no idea who all the new faces are and I kind of don't care to know, which is kind of a silly reason to not play a game but I guess there it is. I had something of the same problem with MK Armageddon: Because I hadn't played most of the games after MK4 I didn't know who most of the "new" characters were, and that caused me to use them very infrequently. I guess I'm kind of a stodgy old fuddy-duddy who doesn't embrace change the way he used to, lol.

I don't blame you. As fun as MKX is to play on a gameplay standpoint, it lacks certain things that MK is known for. Funny you mention Armageddon. I played Deadly Alliance and Deception, but I skipped Armageddon completely. Never even bought it when it was released, which was the first time I hadn't purchased a new MK game. I ended up getting that 3-pack with Deception, Armageddon and Shaolin Monks for PS2 just a few years ago, but I have yet to play Armageddon.

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On the subject of nostalgia, does anyone see arcades ever making a comeback in any meaningful way?

Think about it. What did arcades offer that the home experience didn't at the height of their popularity? They offered experiences you just couldn't quite get at home. The arcade version of any game (Tekken notably excepted) played smoother, looked better, sounded better, and just generally... was better.

Now take the modern systems we have. I doubt that an arcade could really top the experience that many dedicated gamers have put into their home setups. For my love or racing games, I have a chair on a frame that my wheel mounts to. As a fan of driving in real life, the experience only lacks the tangible, the sensory. The visual sensation is about 90% as good now, but you lack the smell, the heat, the g-force.

Could we have arcade simulations that make you smell the cars, the tracks, feel the heat, and move your temporary cockpit around the way an actual car would? I know there are some REALLY impressive simulator setups out there, but the cost? I was told I might as well part ways with my dream to own an exotic if I wanted one of those simulators, not to mention I'd have to dedicate a room to it... and run 240v power to said room. So yeah, while I doubt that I would spend the $40k or whatever it was for something like that, do you think we could have something like that in an arcade? I could see myself spending $100 or so to play something like that for a while.

And what of VR? Seems the new tech, but who is gonna spend the money for a home setup? Would you rather be able to try it out at an arcade, on your favorite shooter, or fighting game? I remember playing a VR setup at the AZ state fair back in oh... 1995? Might have been '96. Either way, it was... clunky, but really cool at the same time. I think it's time for a comeback. :)

What made arcades so great back in the day was how advanced the hardware was in comparison to consoles and desktop computers. You couldn't get the same experience on either of those, which was evident by all the poor console and PC ports. Sadly, now that consoles and computers (they're pretty much one in the same now) are so powerful, nobody here in the states wants to go to an arcade anymore. With the exception of a few successful arcades here and there, such as Galloping Ghost (http://www.gallopingghostarcade.com), I just don't see arcades making a comeback here in North America. :( From what I've heard, they're still pretty much alive in Japan, though. To what extent, I don't know.

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That's pretty much how I felt about it. The DCS sound system was pretty rad. I remember some of the machines I played on having it cranked up. It was really distinctive among the other games at the time. Being that I didn't have the internet back in 1993, I probably would've been one of those kids who paid you for a copy of your list, lol. In fact, I paid this one kid to walk over to a grocery store just across the way and make me photocopy of his list off Usenet (which sounded foreign to me at the time). He was doing things I hadn't seen before, so I knew it was legit. At first I thought he was going to end up ripping me off, but it all worked out. Relying on monthly magazines wasn't practical for the latest info, so I felt like I hit the jackpot. I still have that paper in my MK box, too. :D

I don't blame you. As fun as MKX is to play on a gameplay standpoint, it lacks certain things that MK is known for. Funny you mention Armageddon. I played Deadly Alliance and Deception, but I skipped Armageddon completely. Never even bought it when it was released, which was the first time I hadn't purchased a new MK game. I ended up getting that 3-pack with Deception, Armageddon and Shaolin Monks for PS2 just a few years ago, but I have yet to play Armageddon.

Oh believe me, I wish that I had the internet back when I was playing MKII. The only reason why I was charging other arcade-goers for copies of my fatality list was to make up for the money that I spent buying it from someone else! :)

Speaking as you were about monthly magazines, if you followed EGM during the height of the MKII craze you may have actually come away with more info than you would have expected. There was a stretch there in the summer of 1994 when literally every issue of the magazine had a little blurb on the bottom of the cover saying stuff like "ALL-NEW MOVES AND FATALITIES FOR MKII REVISION 2.1!!!" It was crazy how much they obsessed over the game like I did. But again, it really kind of summarizes the exciting experience of not just Mortal Kombat but also arcade life and the quest to find the latest game information and moves, whether by watching other players, scouring the magazines or keeping an eye out for fatality lists. I'm not entirely sure if I still have the tattered work-in-progress MKII list that I carted around and copied for others back in 1994. It's pretty awesome that you've still got your own souvenirs from that period.

Funny that you never played Armageddon, yet it's the only one from that post-MK4 that I DID play (until MK9). Having not played the others that came before it I can't weigh in on whether it's better or worse, though I can say that the "create-a-fatality" system was a lazy wash. Create-a-character was pretty great though, as was having something like 60 characters to choose from. That reminds me of how excited I was about MK Trilogy, and how disappointed I was that it ran off of the broken Ultimate MK3 engine and did NOT feature every version of every character from the first three games (for example, allowing you to play MKII Liu Kang versus MK1 Sub Zero), which is what I somehow allowed myself to expect.

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Oh believe me, I wish that I had the internet back when I was playing MKII. The only reason why I was charging other arcade-goers for copies of my fatality list was to make up for the money that I spent buying it from someone else! :)

Speaking as you were about monthly magazines, if you followed EGM during the height of the MKII craze you may have actually come away with more info than you would have expected. There was a stretch there in the summer of 1994 when literally every issue of the magazine had a little blurb on the bottom of the cover saying stuff like "ALL-NEW MOVES AND FATALITIES FOR MKII REVISION 2.1!!!" It was crazy how much they obsessed over the game like I did. But again, it really kind of summarizes the exciting experience of not just Mortal Kombat but also arcade life and the quest to find the latest game information and moves, whether by watching other players, scouring the magazines or keeping an eye out for fatality lists. I'm not entirely sure if I still have the tattered work-in-progress MKII list that I carted around and copied for others back in 1994. It's pretty awesome that you've still got your own souvenirs from that period.

Funny that you never played Armageddon, yet it's the only one from that post-MK4 that I DID play (until MK9). Having not played the others that came before it I can't weigh in on whether it's better or worse, though I can say that the "create-a-fatality" system was a lazy wash. Create-a-character was pretty great though, as was having something like 60 characters to choose from. That reminds me of how excited I was about MK Trilogy, and how disappointed I was that it ran off of the broken Ultimate MK3 engine and did NOT feature every version of every character from the first three games (for example, allowing you to play MKII Liu Kang versus MK1 Sub Zero), which is what I somehow allowed myself to expect.

I'll have to scan that paper and share it here when I got time. I'm pretty sure it's based on revision 2.1 (the revision that allowed baby bashing). If you still have yours somewhere, I'd love to see it. I was an avid EGM and GamePro reader during the MK1-MK3 heydays, but waiting an entire month for new information was excruciating. I often relied on social interaction for that sort of thing. EGM and GamePro merely filled in the gaps for me. It was always fun to read anything about MK, though. And you're right, EGM was a huge advocate for MK back in the day. Unfortunately, that changed somewhere around the time the series ventured into the 3D era and certain people replaced the staff members that left. I've always regretted it, but perhaps it was a blessing when I stopped buying video game mags altogether somewhere around 1997 when I started dating.

The create-a-fatality system in Armageddon is precisely why Armageddon didn't appeal to me, and for the reason you stated. Deadly Alliance was pretty bare bones in terms of content: One fatality per fighter and no stage fatalities. However, it was something to go on, and much better than MK4 where gameplay was concerned. Then came Deception, which raised the bar exponentially. Believe it or not, Deception was to Deadly Alliance what MKII was to MK1 in terms of content. This time around, it featured two fatalities and a Hara-Kiri per fighter, interactive/multi-tiered stages (many with 'death traps'), and even a couple of extra game modes in the form of the Kombat Chess mini-game and the RPG-style Konquest mode. Roster size aside, Armageddon seemed like a huge step back, almost as if they ran out of ideas. Motor Kombat and the create-a-fighter seemed pretty cool, though.

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Re: Arcades in Japan, they're a lot more feasible of a business model there. Consider the density of the population. You have something like 30 million people in a space about half the size of California. Thanks for sharing the link for Galloping Ghost though, that place sounds amazing. If for some reason I ever find myself in Chicago (which is VERY unlikely) I'll have to stop by.

Re: MK Trilogy, my only real complaint about it was the PS1 load times. Other than that, I loved that game. Still... uh, still have it I think. Yep, just checked the cabinet, it's still there.Strangely enough, Trilogy and MK3 for the Genesis were the only MK games I bought. I rented MK1 for the Genesis enough that I should have just bought it haha.

Re: MK4 onward, I thought 4 was really... meh. Didn't feel nearly as special as 3 did, and it came out the same year as Tekken 2 or 3, both of which were substantially better. Deadly Alliance, while it was neat to see MK return to then-modern consoles, felt like an entirely different game Combat (Kombat?) was not fluid at all, compared to the earlier games. Deception was better, like you said, and I rather enjoyed killing time with the Konquest mode for some reason. Not that it was a great game or anything, but something about it, I liked. As for Armageddon, while I played it, I can't say I remember anything from it. That was a time in my life that I had a lot of personal issues to sort out, so gaming kinda took a back seat.

Which one had the puzzle fighter knock off? That was fun, especially considering that SPF2 was kinda expensive to find a copy of back then.

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What made arcades so great back in the day was how advanced the hardware was in comparison to consoles and desktop computers. You couldn't get the same experience on either of those, which was evident by all the poor console and PC ports. Sadly, now that consoles and computers (they're pretty much one in the same now) are so powerful, nobody here in the states wants to go to an arcade anymore. With the exception of a few successful arcades here and there, such as Galloping Ghost (http://www.gallopingghostarcade.com), I just don't see arcades making a comeback here in North America. :( From what I've heard, they're still pretty much alive in Japan, though. To what extent, I don't know.

We've got a small arcade in Austin, TX that is pretty cool (http://arcadeufo.com/). For some reason they removed the game list from the site (it was outdated anyway). They are more focused on the fighting game scene, but they've got a nice mix of older titles (TMNT, etc.) in there as well.

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I'll have to scan that paper and share it here when I got time. I'm pretty sure it's based on revision 2.1 (the revision that allowed baby bashing). If you still have yours somewhere, I'd love to see it. I was an avid EGM and GamePro reader during the MK1-MK3 heydays, but waiting an entire month for new information was excruciating. I often relied on social interaction for that sort of thing. EGM and GamePro merely filled in the gaps for me. It was always fun to read anything about MK, though. And you're right, EGM was a huge advocate for MK back in the day. Unfortunately, that changed somewhere around the time the series ventured into the 3D era and certain people replaced the staff members that left. I've always regretted it, but perhaps it was a blessing when I stopped buying video game mags altogether somewhere around 1997 when I started dating.

The create-a-fatality system in Armageddon is precisely why Armageddon didn't appeal to me, and for the reason you stated. Deadly Alliance was pretty bare bones in terms of content: One fatality per fighter and no stage fatalities. However, it was something to go on, and much better than MK4 where gameplay was concerned. Then came Deception, which raised the bar exponentially. Believe it or not, Deception was to Deadly Alliance what MKII was to MK1 in terms of content. This time around, it featured two fatalities and a Hara-Kiri per fighter, interactive/multi-tiered stages (many with 'death traps'), and even a couple of extra game modes in the form of the Kombat Chess mini-game and the RPG-style Konquest mode. Roster size aside, Armageddon seemed like a huge step back, almost as if they ran out of ideas. Motor Kombat and the create-a-fighter seemed pretty cool, though.

Yeah, I have to admit that as much as I enjoyed Armageddon there was a noticeable gap in entertainment when fatality time came. You have to kind of untrain yourself to expect an awesome death move unique to the character you're playing and instead just generically rip out a heart, tear off some arms, etc. I can only imagine that they didn't have character-specific fatalities because of the huge roster, but then again it's not like the game was released in the 90s. Couldn't technology handle it? Anyway I believe Armageddon also had a fairly lengthy quest mode, which was decent, but yeah I don't really remember the other little minigames.

I kept up a subscription of PSM from about late 97 until the early 2000s but other than that magazine (and it was a really great magazine) I didn't really read any of the other rags at the end of the 90s either. You're right, as much as EGM kept on top of all the MK news it wasn't the same as getting firsthand info in a matter of days (or hours). I remember a rumor for MK3 that they were going to release versions of the game with different move commands in different parts of the country to stifle the quick dissemination of info through the internet.

Heh, I think that my MKII move list was from 2.1 as well. That or 1.4.

Re: MK Trilogy, my only real complaint about it was the PS1 load times. Other than that, I loved that game. Still... uh, still have it I think. Yep, just checked the cabinet, it's still there.Strangely enough, Trilogy and MK3 for the Genesis were the only MK games I bought. I rented MK1 for the Genesis enough that I should have just bought it haha.

Re: MK4 onward, I thought 4 was really... meh. Didn't feel nearly as special as 3 did, and it came out the same year as Tekken 2 or 3, both of which were substantially better. Deadly Alliance, while it was neat to see MK return to then-modern consoles, felt like an entirely different game Combat (Kombat?) was not fluid at all, compared to the earlier games. Deception was better, like you said, and I rather enjoyed killing time with the Konquest mode for some reason. Not that it was a great game or anything, but something about it, I liked. As for Armageddon, while I played it, I can't say I remember anything from it. That was a time in my life that I had a lot of personal issues to sort out, so gaming kinda took a back seat.

Which one had the puzzle fighter knock off? That was fun, especially considering that SPF2 was kinda expensive to find a copy of back then.

Trilogy was an outstanding idea on paper, I just hated the way it was executed. That Ultimate MK3 engine that it used was just awful: A few fighters in and you'd be contending with expert AI that would counter every attempt at an attack with inhuman precision. That plus the fact that the game didn't include every version of every character from games 1-3 made it feel like a real missed opportunity to me. There's a hack called something like "Ultimate Mortal Kombat Trilogy" that DOES include every version of the MK 1-3 cast, which is awesome, but it's a hack of a Genesis game so it's not the best quality.

Yeah I thought that MK4 was more or less garbage. The 3D felt like nothing more than a gimmick, most of my favorite characters were missing to make room for a bunch of uninspired jobber goons, the endings were unbelievably awful, and the game just didn't have the "magic" that the first 3 MK games had. It's hard to explain - I guess I can just say that the game completely failed to hook me like the original trilogy did.

Lol I forget about those MKT load times sometimes. It's 1996 and we haven't developed a system strong enough yet to handle Shang Tsung morphing without stopping to load the character data.

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Re: Arcades in Japan, they're a lot more feasible of a business model there. Consider the density of the population. You have something like 30 million people in a space about half the size of California. Thanks for sharing the link for Galloping Ghost though, that place sounds amazing. If for some reason I ever find myself in Chicago (which is VERY unlikely) I'll have to stop by.

Re: MK Trilogy, my only real complaint about it was the PS1 load times. Other than that, I loved that game. Still... uh, still have it I think. Yep, just checked the cabinet, it's still there.Strangely enough, Trilogy and MK3 for the Genesis were the only MK games I bought. I rented MK1 for the Genesis enough that I should have just bought it haha.

Re: MK4 onward, I thought 4 was really... meh. Didn't feel nearly as special as 3 did, and it came out the same year as Tekken 2 or 3, both of which were substantially better. Deadly Alliance, while it was neat to see MK return to then-modern consoles, felt like an entirely different game Combat (Kombat?) was not fluid at all, compared to the earlier games. Deception was better, like you said, and I rather enjoyed killing time with the Konquest mode for some reason. Not that it was a great game or anything, but something about it, I liked. As for Armageddon, while I played it, I can't say I remember anything from it. That was a time in my life that I had a lot of personal issues to sort out, so gaming kinda took a back seat.

Which one had the puzzle fighter knock off? That was fun, especially considering that SPF2 was kinda expensive to find a copy of back then.

No problem. Fun fact: GGA has the only known *working* Primal Rage 2 prototype available to play.

Trilogy was great. It was extremely broken, though. Between the PSX and N64 versions, the PSX version was my favorite. Though, the N64 version has some pretty cool combo possibilities in comparison to the PSX version. More backgrounds, too.

I was just talking to my brother tonight about Tekken 7. We played a lot of Tekken 2 and 3 for PSX back in the day and had a blast with it. I've been itching to play another Tekken, as I haven't played one since then.

As for what MK game featured Puzzle Kombat, it was Deception. I completely forgot about that.

We've got a small arcade in Austin, TX that is pretty cool (http://arcadeufo.com/). For some reason they removed the game list from the site (it was outdated anyway). They are more focused on the fighting game scene, but they've got a nice mix of older titles (TMNT, etc.) in there as well.

That's cool. Do they host any fighting game tournaments?

Yeah, I have to admit that as much as I enjoyed Armageddon there was a noticeable gap in entertainment when fatality time came. You have to kind of untrain yourself to expect an awesome death move unique to the character you're playing and instead just generically rip out a heart, tear off some arms, etc. I can only imagine that they didn't have character-specific fatalities because of the huge roster, but then again it's not like the game was released in the 90s. Couldn't technology handle it? Anyway I believe Armageddon also had a fairly lengthy quest mode, which was decent, but yeah I don't really remember the other little minigames.

I kept up a subscription of PSM from about late 97 until the early 2000s but other than that magazine (and it was a really great magazine) I didn't really read any of the other rags at the end of the 90s either. You're right, as much as EGM kept on top of all the MK news it wasn't the same as getting firsthand info in a matter of days (or hours). I remember a rumor for MK3 that they were going to release versions of the game with different move commands in different parts of the country to stifle the quick dissemination of info through the internet.

Heh, I think that my MKII move list was from 2.1 as well. That or 1.4.

Trilogy was an outstanding idea on paper, I just hated the way it was executed. That Ultimate MK3 engine that it used was just awful: A few fighters in and you'd be contending with expert AI that would counter every attempt at an attack with inhuman precision. That plus the fact that the game didn't include every version of every character from games 1-3 made it feel like a real missed opportunity to me. There's a hack called something like "Ultimate Mortal Kombat Trilogy" that DOES include every version of the MK 1-3 cast, which is awesome, but it's a hack of a Genesis game so it's not the best quality.

Yeah I thought that MK4 was more or less garbage. The 3D felt like nothing more than a gimmick, most of my favorite characters were missing to make room for a bunch of uninspired jobber goons, the endings were unbelievably awful, and the game just didn't have the "magic" that the first 3 MK games had. It's hard to explain - I guess I can just say that the game completely failed to hook me like the original trilogy did.

Lol I forget about those MKT load times sometimes. It's 1996 and we haven't developed a system strong enough yet to handle Shang Tsung morphing without stopping to load the character data.

I have a huge box of PSMs that my brother gave to me. He used to be really into them. I need to index what I got some time. From what I've thumbed through, it was pretty good.

You know, it's quite possible that my paper is based on 1.4. I'll have to see if I can identify what revision the moves are based on, which should be fairly easy (in theory) being that Friendships and Babalities, Reptile's slide, and the Pit II/Kombat Tomb stage fatalities were added in 2.1. If my paper contains any of those, then I'll have my answer. I'm positive it pre-dates 3.1.

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You know, it's quite possible that my paper is based on 1.4. I'll have to see if I can identify what revision the moves are based on, which should be fairly easy (in theory) being that Friendships and Babalities, Reptile's slide, and the Pit II/Kombat Tomb stage fatalities were added in 2.1. If my paper contains any of those, then I'll have my answer. I'm positive it pre-dates 3.1.

I just checked. My list includes some Friendships and Babalities, which means it's likely 2.1.

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MK2 was my first *REAL* exposure to the series. i had heard of Mortal Kombat, but no place near me had the arcade machines, and none of my friends had it.

it seemed like MK2 was EVERYWHERE though, and i instantly fell in love. Scorpion and Johnny Cage were always my favorites.

MK3 was a let down for me because of the roster. both of my favorite characters, along with Reptile, were nowhere to be found. never played Ultimate MK3.

got back into the series with Trilogy (N64 at the time, though i now own both versions). having all the characters from the outset was all i cared about. just purchased MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero off eBay. i remember LOVING the idea of it when it came out, but was pretty underwhelmed by the actual game. a friend had it, i never owned it, so i thought it was time to re-evaluate.

i have literally not played a MK game newer than Trilogy. the move to 3d turned me off and the constant influx of new characters makes it damn near impossible to jump back in.

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on the candy tip:

not really that old, maybe 10 years ago, but i've really had a hankering for these lately:CC_Nestle-Willy-Wonka-Oompas-fruit-flavo

i only remember the 7-up version of this, but maybe others remember the rest:

sodag1.jpg

can't remember if this has been mentioned or not:

nintendo-cereal-system-box.jpg

and finally, one of my favorite commercials ever:

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