Hello everyone, I've returned with another article. In my youth I played tons and tons of video games. I feel they are an essential part of my life being that I still play them and I will til the day I die. So let me begin with Part 1.

-Fighting games

I wasn't big on fighting games, because I didn't understand what was so fun about them. I tried playing them but I usually got my ass whooped by the CPU for every game that I played. My two uncles played them alot and would know how to do moves for every character that they played. Not every instruction booklet would divulge that kind of information. Normally, you had to ask other people.



Anyway, the first fighting game I ever played was Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis, since I was a die-hard Genesis fan. I picked up a few moves for Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and Liu Kang. With this newfound knowledge, I quickly put it to work. I may have not been the best but at least those games were finally beatable...on Very Easy, hehe.

I was always intrigued though by one certain character. He was elusive. He was green. His words did not make any sense at all. His name, was Reptile.



At the time he first appeared on screen, I asked my uncle who he was, and I kept asking how you could unlock and play him, but he did not know, unfortunately. He did tell me that he would appear if I turned on the blood codes (because this wasn't the SNES version which already had blood...) but he wouldn't tell me how to put them in. My parents didn't like the games during the controversy so they took it away from me, sadly. I did get to see the movie once it was out on VHS and I thought he was AMAZING.



It was then a couple years later I got my hands on Mortal Kombat II since I rented it on SNES when I was over at my grandma's one day. I was SO excited because I finally got to play Reptile! Unknowingly, I did not know that it would scare me. That's when I saw my first fatality. My brother had started the game up and his first opponent was Baraka.

He was pretty creepy to me at the time. The first fight was on the Dead Pool level and I thought it looked cool, but as my brother was defeated, I watched Baraka uppercut Reptile into the acid and saw his skeleton pop up. I never played that game again, that was until about 5-6 years ago because I emulate old consoles (DISCLAIMER: I just have them because I don't have my old consoles that I so desperately wish I had now, so until then, I emulate).

I never got to play MK3 because my mom wouldn't let me rent it. Then finally, I saw this somewhere:



I was in the 6th grade when it came out! I was like OMG NO WAY! IT'S 3D TOO! My mom let me rent it...once. It was so cool. I loved all the levels and the cutscenes at the end of each character's campaign. I told my mom there was a way to turn blood off because that's why she agreed to rent it for me. But it got revoked once Nintendo posted on their site how to do the fatalities. My dad took it away from me because he knew full well that we weren't allowed to do them or have the blood on.

He was an asshole, but a couple nights later I had nightmares because I did those fatalities. So, I vowed never to play another Mortal Kombat game because they scared me so much. I didn't watch horror movies for kinna the same reason, but it wasn't because of MK, I mostly just wanted to sleep well.

Now, I play those Mortal Kombat games no matter how b loody or how brutal. They're just games. It's like how I am with horror movies now. I'll cringe sometimes with those (SAW series, but it ain't enough to scare me, hehe). Now I can tell what sucks and what doesn't.



It wasn't until that same year that I got my hands on Street Fighter II' Turbo - Hyper Fighting. I probably would've liked the game more if I knew how to do the moves. It didn't occur to me to look them up, but the internet was still young. I didn't full get into the SF series until I saw Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. That rocked. That was also taken away because my Dad walked in during the scene when Vega and Chun-Li are fighting to the death in her apartment when she's in nothing but night garb.



I mostly liked playing Chun-Li for that reason and because she has that kick that turns into multiple kicks - Lightning Kick a.k.a Hyakuretsukyaku. I'd use that to win almost every match. My brother would play either Ryu or Ken and try to use Hadokens, Shoryukens, and Hurricane Kicks on me. But, to no avail he couldn't beat me.

I wish I could go into more, but I didn't play fighting games as much as I do now. I wish that I had gone into more arcades when I was a kid since you can't find them now. I'm full blown Super Street Fighter IV, and currently anticipating Mortal Kombat (2011) and Marvel vs Capcom 3. I play all my fighting games with a SFIV TE2 MadCatz stick to get that arcade experience that I didn't have growing up. If I could go back now, I'd kick every kid's ass at all iterations of Street Fighter II and III.

Stay tuned for Part II - as I'll go into another genre that everyone can identify with, platformers! Hope you liked it!