You would think that, with Square Enix's Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Party event last weekend and Sony's Gamer's Day 2007 earlier this week, I'd have something more compelling to write about than a port of a fourteen-year-old quarter quaffer, but you would think wrong.
While waiting for my hubby and Killa's Poptart to show up, Killa and I decided to play a few rounds of MK:II on the PS3 for old time's sake. Mortal Kombat II came out in the arcades when we were both preadolescent and we used to play all the time. I mean that seriously. We played on arcade machines at least once per week, for hours. When we went on family vacations, I would seek out MK:II machines in exotic locales and play those. The arcade inside Busch Gardens (Williamsburg) had a couple of MK:II machines with the blood and gore turned off; Disney World didn't have the game on their premises at all. I didn't care for MK:I before it. I didn't care for MK:III after it. As MK:II was phased out of the arcades in favor of its later iterations and the burgeoning lineup of 3D fighters in the mid-1990s, I phased myself out of the arcades in turn.
This is just another example of me and Killa growing up gaming.
Such was the background we brought with us as we commenced our first experience with playing online over PSN. You would think that this foray into the brave new world of the PlayStation Network would be the crux of this article, but, again, you would think wrong. Anyway, we signed in to my PSN account and proceeded to search for a game to join. Finding none, we set ourselves up as a host game and waited. And waited. I excused myself to use the restroom, and when I returned Killa had found a challenger and was going to town. We took turns playing against the first challenger for 20 or 30 minutes until he got fed up and left (presumably dishearted by our m4d ski11z). We were then dumped into single-player arcade mode but we only got through half of a round before a new challenger joined in. Subsequently we trounced a number of other challengers before meeting our match (and then some).
This guy random-selected his character every time and murdered us with every character. Even Johnny Cage! He knew every special move and every finishing move (apparently) with every character. Which brought us around to an overwhelming question: What has this guy been doing these past fourteen years? Is it possible that he's been playing Mortal Kombat II this whole time? Biding his time, always waiting for the second coming of the second coming of Mortal Kombat? That glorious day when he could finally emerge from his dark basement and once again feel the sun on his face? I wish I had his dedication, whoever he is. If I had had fourteen years of practice I'd be that good, too. If only I had known at the time that, fourteen years later, I'd be playing MK:II again. But this guy, he knew. Oh, he knew.
The only hitch I noticed in the online play was when I joined a game being hosted by someone else. There was tremendous lag and latency in the remotely hosted game. I imagine it's just that the host was playing with dial-up; I certainly hope this isn't the case whenever one joins a game that is hosted by someone else. I wasn't able to find any other games to join, so I can't be sure.
I've abandoned all of the other games I've been playing to brush up on my Kombat skills, so that when I meet this guy again I can krush him.
While waiting for my hubby and Killa's Poptart to show up, Killa and I decided to play a few rounds of MK:II on the PS3 for old time's sake. Mortal Kombat II came out in the arcades when we were both preadolescent and we used to play all the time. I mean that seriously. We played on arcade machines at least once per week, for hours. When we went on family vacations, I would seek out MK:II machines in exotic locales and play those. The arcade inside Busch Gardens (Williamsburg) had a couple of MK:II machines with the blood and gore turned off; Disney World didn't have the game on their premises at all. I didn't care for MK:I before it. I didn't care for MK:III after it. As MK:II was phased out of the arcades in favor of its later iterations and the burgeoning lineup of 3D fighters in the mid-1990s, I phased myself out of the arcades in turn.
This is just another example of me and Killa growing up gaming.
Such was the background we brought with us as we commenced our first experience with playing online over PSN. You would think that this foray into the brave new world of the PlayStation Network would be the crux of this article, but, again, you would think wrong. Anyway, we signed in to my PSN account and proceeded to search for a game to join. Finding none, we set ourselves up as a host game and waited. And waited. I excused myself to use the restroom, and when I returned Killa had found a challenger and was going to town. We took turns playing against the first challenger for 20 or 30 minutes until he got fed up and left (presumably dishearted by our m4d ski11z). We were then dumped into single-player arcade mode but we only got through half of a round before a new challenger joined in. Subsequently we trounced a number of other challengers before meeting our match (and then some).
This guy random-selected his character every time and murdered us with every character. Even Johnny Cage! He knew every special move and every finishing move (apparently) with every character. Which brought us around to an overwhelming question: What has this guy been doing these past fourteen years? Is it possible that he's been playing Mortal Kombat II this whole time? Biding his time, always waiting for the second coming of the second coming of Mortal Kombat? That glorious day when he could finally emerge from his dark basement and once again feel the sun on his face? I wish I had his dedication, whoever he is. If I had had fourteen years of practice I'd be that good, too. If only I had known at the time that, fourteen years later, I'd be playing MK:II again. But this guy, he knew. Oh, he knew.The only hitch I noticed in the online play was when I joined a game being hosted by someone else. There was tremendous lag and latency in the remotely hosted game. I imagine it's just that the host was playing with dial-up; I certainly hope this isn't the case whenever one joins a game that is hosted by someone else. I wasn't able to find any other games to join, so I can't be sure.
I've abandoned all of the other games I've been playing to brush up on my Kombat skills, so that when I meet this guy again I can krush him.
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