Info on the Old School MK Scene?

So we're discussing memories of Old School MK?
Alright.
Remember Tanya's kiss of death? GOAT.
I put in my 2 cents.

No but seriously I'm confused as hell
 
Ok, I'll start...

There was this one comic book store called The Red Planet or Red Planet in Tenant Station in a small town in the South Bay. Within walking distance was a bowling alley, a movie theater, a Mountain Mike's Pizza, and a Safeway. This was around August or September of 1992. All of these 5 locations had SFII World Warrior and SFII Champion Edition cabs. I was one of maybe three or four people playing SFII Champion Edition at Red Planet. Red Planet was the 1st out of the 5 locations I mentioned above to get an MK cab. The volume was set louder than most of the games in there. I saw about 10 to 15 people surrounding that game. The 3 to 4 of us were the diehard SF people. I told them that because of MK SF2 might be dying then about a second later I told the group surrounding the SF2 champion edition cab that this new game, MK is won't last long compared to SF. I was just a young whippersnapper then, when this was said. Lo and behold, my predictions came into fruition years later.

I tried it when the crowd died down around 8:00PM or 9:00PM on a Friday night, because most people went to the movie theater next door to watch movies. I 1st picked Sub Zero, and did SF tactics for special moves. Coincidentally found out how to do the ice ball because of doing the hadouken motion. Some guy mentioned fatalities. About an hour later, the only fatalities I saw were Sub Zero's and Kano's. I was under the assumption that only those 2 characters had fatalities along with most people huddled around the cab. Some guy came in about 5 minutes later and told everyone that everyone has fatalities. Another person tried the coin on a string trick but only managed to get 5 credits off of 1 coin. By the way, the 5 places I mentioned that were located in Tenant Station all used quarters, no tokens.

At about 9:45PM (I know, probably passed for a twelve year old), I decided to pick Scorpion, but could never get get Scorpion to throw the spear. Some could was like, "Just tap low punch repeatedly and tap the joystick back repeatedly." So, I tried it and got the spear to work finally. Nobody could pass all 3 endurance rounds successfully that night so we never go to see Goro or Shang Tsung. We did get to see Ruby and Diamond for the bonus stages though... More to follow later...




I also have a thread going here as well:

http://forums.shoryuken.com/discussion/195902/info-on-the-old-school-mk-scene
 
There was probably a scene for MK1, MK2 UMK3, and MK4 in the arcade era, but MK games were never taken seriously like the SF scene until MK9.
 
There was an arcade I remember frequenting back in the early 90's when my dad or mom would need to go to the mall (Tyson's Corner for those in the DC Metro area). They would leave me with $10 or $20 and I'd be in seventh heaven. TILT was the name of the spot and it was regarded as the spot with the best competition in the area as SF2 was reigning supreme as the most poplar game at the time.

Then one day my friend and I were there and SF2 was empty and a massive crowd around this one game, like 4-5 layers deep of semi circles. Mortal Kombat it was. They had the volume of the machine on max so all of the sounds drowned out the normal mix of pinball machines, "Hadoken" and the like. About 12 at the time, I went on my tip toes and caught the screen going dark and to see Raiden's Fatality followed by a choral like "Ooooooo" from the 20 people around the machine. Changed forever. I couldn't tell you who I played first, may have been Sub Zero only because I remember trying to understand the slide because there wasnt a button combination done like that in SF2 so it was like "WTF are they thinking?" But it was neat seeing the progression of gameplay and people getting combos done. Johnny Cage's Fatality glitch was weird and then seeing the tilt of the hat on that in MK2 was awesome.

I miss arcades in general. The sensory overload upon walking in, putting your quarter up on the machine for next game, the fact that you had to face someone in person and with a crowd around you. The pressure to perform was always dope. I always thought that home games put that wedge in physical interaction and the social aspect of games
 
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