April 13th is an important day for me. It was the day we buried my grandpa back in 1997. On a lesser scale, it was also the same day in 1997 of ECW's first PPV "Barely Legal" which was probably the high water mark of the original ECW promotion.
April 13th, 2015 will be another landmark for this date as it is the day I will sign the closing papers on my first house and officially become a homeowner. What should I feel on day like today?
Should I feel happy that I've supposedly achieved the so-called American dream?
Should I feel relief that this nearly 4 month process is finally over?
Thing is, other than some relief that this process is indeed over and I can move onto other things, I don't really feel too much happiness. In many ways, I feel sad because of where this house is located (Kalamazoo, Michigan). For all intents and purposes, I refuse to call this my "home" because yes, it is my dwelling, but it isn't my true home and it never will be. To me, my true "home" is one of two locations. Either on Strawberry Rd in Reidsville or likewise, Harrison Crossroad Loop in Reidsville. No matter how long I live here, I will never refer to Kalamazoo, or my house, as my actual home as I just can't justify lying to myself on that level.
I also feel sad because of what was given up for the sake of this house. Most people know that I sold my Gi Joe collection in January 2014 after more than 20 years of collecting with the intention of using the money from that as a down payment on a home. This is exactly what's occurred and for all intents and purposes, it all went according to plan that my wife and I laid out in 2012 when we first started making our relocation plans from North Carolina to Michigan. With the transfer of the money that was paid for my Gi Joe collection, my childhood is officially gone and it's a feeling that I've felt since that day in January when Corey Stinson drove off with my collection but now it's only magnified.
I would be very hard pressed to say I'd prefer having this home to having my Gi Joe collection back. In fact, I would be afraid to answer the question if ever asked because I'm reasonably sure I'd answer it wrong seeing as how there is a definitive "right" and "wrong" answer to such a question.
Most people who know me know that I don't typically adjust to radical changes very well and it takes me a while to adjust to them if I ever do at all. I've been in Michigan almost a year now and if I had to put a number describing my adjustment level, I'd say it's probably 15% out of 100%. With the exception of Sweetwaters Donut Mill here in town, if I eat out, I typically go to places that I could've found at home or at least in Greensboro or Danville. Even with Sweetwaters, I've considered simply going to Walmart here and just buying Krispy Kreme doughnuts just for that little bit of home. I've looked at pictures of home on Google Maps or even the very few pictures I have of Reidsville and struggle to do so without being reduced to tears.
This in turn presents a big problem because I looked forward to getting out of Reidsville for so long even though I never dreamed it would be a successful venture. Make no mistake about it, there are lots of things there that I do not miss such as the narrow-mindedness, the ass-backwards thinking on progressive social issues, nor the terribly hot weather and the lack of actual seasons. But there are people and places there that I miss dearly and truly can't wait to see again in July when I visit home again for the first time in 14 months.
It's actually raining here now (which isn't surprising since I don't believe there's a place in the continental US that it rains more than it does here perhaps other than Seattle) and I feel like it matches my mood very well. Darrell Waltrip said at Rockingham the week after Dale Earnhardt Sr. died that the rains were tears from Heaven and for some honest reason, I feel a similar way today that the rain falling matches the tears falling from my own eyes right now and the internal tears that have flowed pretty much since the day we arrived here.
How do I describe my feelings on the day I am to officially become a homeowner? Heartbroken.
Monday, April 13, 2015
Friday, May 23, 2014
My innermost feelings and a brief history of the last 12 years
I use this blog for postings on sports and pop culture normally but this one is vastly different. I typed up basically what I have been feeling and what is going through my mind during what is rapidly turning into one of the most trying periods of my life. Ultimately, these following paragraphs are me simply pouring out how I feel and what is going on because at this point, I just felt that I might feel better to get things out. Here we go.
I remember a time long ago that it seemed I had something of a future to look forward to. I was about to start college and I had made the decision to go into television. That was 2002. I wanted to work in something I’d really liked since I was very young and with work and time, I graduated 4 years later with my degree in communications. More time passed and by the time 2008 came along, I finally realized I had to give up on my dream to go into television because no one would simply give me a chance. This is also concurrent with a failed relationship that hit me really hard because I had never had any sort of meaningful romantic relationships at that point.
We will go forward to 2009. Specifically in April when I met and fell in love with the woman who would become my wife. We were married less than 3 months after meeting due to an unplanned pregnancy and I didn’t want to shirk my responsibility as the father of the child and just leave her high and dry. In August 2009, during a routine ultrasound, we learned that our baby was not alive in the womb. It was determined that Jenni would have to either go through a C-Section or would have to have labor induced because the baby was too far along to go through the normal miscarriage procedures. In the early morning hours of August 8, 2009, our daughter, Trinity, was born dead. It shattered us both but especially Jenni because she wanted to be a mother more than anything else in this world. This is her dream and her goal.
In order to help us both to move on, and because we’re both animal lovers, we decided to adopt a couple of cats. We adopted one cat each from a Reidsville woman who tried to rescue and help out stray cats as much as possible. Our cats were the children of a couple of these strays that she rescued. I chose a boy that was later named Smash. A cute fellow who was just as lovable as he could be. Jenni chose a mostly white calico that she named Gadget simply because I happened to have the Inspector Gadget theme song playing on my computer at the time we brought them home. They grew up together and eventually had kittens together simply because we wanted Gadget to actually have the chance to be a mother before they were fixed. This came from her obvious desire to try to “mother” Smash once we brought them home even though he was a few weeks older than she was.
During this time, another cat came into our lives. She was being given away by a man who couldn’t keep her. Her name later became Eva once she came to live with us. Unfortunately, Smash had behavioral issues and he had to be sent back to his original owner. Afterwards, Gadget’s motherly instincts took over again and she began to mother Eva since Eva is about 6 months younger than Gadget. In time, Smash came back to live with us again along with a new cat named Simba who came to us due to his previous owner’s landlord not allowing him to live with them. When Smash came back to us and Simba came to be with us, I promised them both, just as I had promised Gadget and Eva, that they would be loved and taken care of for the rest of their lives as long as we were physically able to do so. As we welcomed these new cats into our family, I had to say goodbye to my old friend, Sam. He became very sick mostly due to his age and on December 22, 2009, the decision was made to end his suffering. A decision that I was forced to make and one that hurts me to this day.
Now we move to 2012. I had made the decision to return to school and seek a new degree since my previous one had failed so badly. I chose RCC’s Medical Office Administration program. I was set to graduate in Spring 2014 since I was starting in the Fall of 2012. During my 2 years pursuing this new degree, I came to visit Michigan with my wife a couple times and adored it there and adored my new extended family whom I was finally meeting for the first time. I came to decide that I might want to move there because I’ve never been happy in the south and having tried so long to find any sort of job in North Carolina, I believed this was my best shot at building a better future for my family. This was my goal and dream that I chose to pursue. I also believed it to likely be the best opportunity to make my wife’s dream of having children come true because having kids on one income was simply out of the question.
We made the final decision to move in the fall of 2013 and I began seeking contacts about jobs up here not long afterwards. Jenni was able to get her job transferred from Reidsville to a store in Kalamazoo and I began talking to nearly everyone who would talk to me about jobs here. Not just medical office jobs, but also menial jobs. We felt we were all set until one major thing happened that really changed the whole picture. The original plan was to stay with my father-in-law until I found work and we could get our own place. He learned that we had 4 cats who would be coming with us and decided that we couldn’t stay with him as long as we had these cats. I had to scramble to find a pet-friendly apartment that we could afford since it appeared we would only be on one income. The best I could possibly do was to find one that took 2 cats which meant we had to make a decision as to who would go with us. For various reasons, we chose Gadget and Eva. I was able to convince my parents to take care of Simba and Smash and while I know they’re being well taken care of, this made me a liar in my eyes to them because I promised them they would be loved and taken care of and while that is still technically true, the promise was made with us in mind. This decision broke up our family and left us both very hurt and disappointed that this had to happen for us to move.
At this point, Jenni’s transfer was irreversible and we had no choice but to move or else she would lose her job entirely. Right after this, some hope came in the form of a job offer with a local ENT clinic. I was hired and started on May 16, 2014. After only 4 full days of training, the rug was pulled out from under me and I was told I didn’t have what it took to do the job correctly. I don’t fully understand how such a decision can be made so quickly, especially given that everyone else on the staff had several weeks to train for their positions. What it boils down to is that I am too stupid to hold a job and I am also too stupid to honestly see reality for what it is. The reality is that I do not have any real future. It only took me 12 years to fully discover what should’ve been obvious.
The worst part of this is the damage I have caused to those closest to me. I made my wife give up what she had built in 5 years at the Reidsville Walmart, I gave up my grandparents house to move up here to an apartment so I am now paying rent whereas I didn’t have to previously. I broke up our family by lying to Smash and Simba. I have caused my wife so much undue stress from arguments, worry, fear of the future, and now being responsible for paying rent on a single income because I am again, unemployed and that doesn’t appear to be going to change any time soon, if ever. I took her dream of being a mother away from her because I was responsible for Trinity’s death. We were moving her stuff from Danville to Reidsville and because I was so overweight and obese at the time, I was physically unable to move a lot of stuff that needed to be moved so she had to move several really heavy things. I believe this caused her to miscarry and ended up being what killed our daughter. She has told me so many times that it wasn’t my fault that we lost our daughter but it truly was because I was so fat and unable to do what needed to be done.
All my wife and my cats have ever done is love me. The cats have never asked for anything in return except my love and I threw 2 of them under the bus to chase a dream that can never come true which is for my wife and I to build a solid future. Her dream to have children may have been able to happen in time while in North Carolina since we had a place to live but while we are here, this won’t happen. She gave up her dreams for me to chase mine and now that I am finally realizing what should’ve been completely obvious from the beginning, this hurts me even more. My dreams are dead and I am justly punished for my stupidity. What is unjust, is how those around me that I love have to suffer for my stupidity and my inability to hold down a job. Particularly as it was the only shot at building the future that we wanted that we had. I had other chances with Walmart and Meijer stores here but I obviously had to call them back to let them know that I had accepted another job so I burned all those bridges when I accepted the job that I was ultimately proven to be too stupid to actually do.
I do not want my wife to suffer for my stupidity. I do not want my cats to suffer for my stupidity. But the truth of the matter is, they are being punished and are paying for my stupid decisions and I have a very hard time living with that reality because I am the one who should be punished, not them. I have asked my wife to hate me for my bad decisions and all the agony I have put her through. I have asked her to kick me out, to banish me. I have asked her mother to hate me for the agony I’ve brought about to her daughter.
If there were true justice in this world, I would be made to suffer alone, helpless, hungry and miles away from anyone who cared for me. It would only be what I deserve for my stupidity. My wife should hate every fiber of my being for all the damage and misery that I have caused her. It would only be fair and fairness is what is lacking here. No one else should have to suffer for my own bad decisions. My tally so far is a lost house, lost years, agony and misery for my wife, a dead child, 2 cats that we couldn’t bring with us and 1 more cat that I sent to his death and will never forgive myself for doing despite his age and his health, several thousand dollars lost in the move, and a lost house. I think of Sam often and all I can think of is that I sent him to his death. Yes, I'm told he was old, around 15 years old at the time, and was suffering and that it was the best thing for him but I can't convince myself of this. I loved that cat dearly just like I have loved all my cats and I would not do anything for any reason to purposely hurt them but I did just that with him as well as Smash and Simba with my decision to move. I have cried many times since we left because, even though I know they're being taken care of and aren't at some shelter or out on the street somewhere, I still lied to them and my guilt for this gets heavier each day as it should.
I simply would ask that I be made to suffer and be in misery but not my family. They have done nothing wrong. They have done absolutely nothing to bring this about on themselves other than loving and caring for me and for this alone, I should be made to hurt physically and emotionally. I currently do so and my punishment is just.
If I were to have one wish, it would be to live forever in misery and agony and sadness because only then could I begin to atone for the damage I’ve done and the people and animals whose lives I have negatively affected so much over the years. My wife, my parents, my cats, everyone around me has the right to hate and despise me and to cast me out of their lives.
I remember a time long ago that it seemed I had something of a future to look forward to. I was about to start college and I had made the decision to go into television. That was 2002. I wanted to work in something I’d really liked since I was very young and with work and time, I graduated 4 years later with my degree in communications. More time passed and by the time 2008 came along, I finally realized I had to give up on my dream to go into television because no one would simply give me a chance. This is also concurrent with a failed relationship that hit me really hard because I had never had any sort of meaningful romantic relationships at that point.
We will go forward to 2009. Specifically in April when I met and fell in love with the woman who would become my wife. We were married less than 3 months after meeting due to an unplanned pregnancy and I didn’t want to shirk my responsibility as the father of the child and just leave her high and dry. In August 2009, during a routine ultrasound, we learned that our baby was not alive in the womb. It was determined that Jenni would have to either go through a C-Section or would have to have labor induced because the baby was too far along to go through the normal miscarriage procedures. In the early morning hours of August 8, 2009, our daughter, Trinity, was born dead. It shattered us both but especially Jenni because she wanted to be a mother more than anything else in this world. This is her dream and her goal.
In order to help us both to move on, and because we’re both animal lovers, we decided to adopt a couple of cats. We adopted one cat each from a Reidsville woman who tried to rescue and help out stray cats as much as possible. Our cats were the children of a couple of these strays that she rescued. I chose a boy that was later named Smash. A cute fellow who was just as lovable as he could be. Jenni chose a mostly white calico that she named Gadget simply because I happened to have the Inspector Gadget theme song playing on my computer at the time we brought them home. They grew up together and eventually had kittens together simply because we wanted Gadget to actually have the chance to be a mother before they were fixed. This came from her obvious desire to try to “mother” Smash once we brought them home even though he was a few weeks older than she was.
During this time, another cat came into our lives. She was being given away by a man who couldn’t keep her. Her name later became Eva once she came to live with us. Unfortunately, Smash had behavioral issues and he had to be sent back to his original owner. Afterwards, Gadget’s motherly instincts took over again and she began to mother Eva since Eva is about 6 months younger than Gadget. In time, Smash came back to live with us again along with a new cat named Simba who came to us due to his previous owner’s landlord not allowing him to live with them. When Smash came back to us and Simba came to be with us, I promised them both, just as I had promised Gadget and Eva, that they would be loved and taken care of for the rest of their lives as long as we were physically able to do so. As we welcomed these new cats into our family, I had to say goodbye to my old friend, Sam. He became very sick mostly due to his age and on December 22, 2009, the decision was made to end his suffering. A decision that I was forced to make and one that hurts me to this day.
Now we move to 2012. I had made the decision to return to school and seek a new degree since my previous one had failed so badly. I chose RCC’s Medical Office Administration program. I was set to graduate in Spring 2014 since I was starting in the Fall of 2012. During my 2 years pursuing this new degree, I came to visit Michigan with my wife a couple times and adored it there and adored my new extended family whom I was finally meeting for the first time. I came to decide that I might want to move there because I’ve never been happy in the south and having tried so long to find any sort of job in North Carolina, I believed this was my best shot at building a better future for my family. This was my goal and dream that I chose to pursue. I also believed it to likely be the best opportunity to make my wife’s dream of having children come true because having kids on one income was simply out of the question.
We made the final decision to move in the fall of 2013 and I began seeking contacts about jobs up here not long afterwards. Jenni was able to get her job transferred from Reidsville to a store in Kalamazoo and I began talking to nearly everyone who would talk to me about jobs here. Not just medical office jobs, but also menial jobs. We felt we were all set until one major thing happened that really changed the whole picture. The original plan was to stay with my father-in-law until I found work and we could get our own place. He learned that we had 4 cats who would be coming with us and decided that we couldn’t stay with him as long as we had these cats. I had to scramble to find a pet-friendly apartment that we could afford since it appeared we would only be on one income. The best I could possibly do was to find one that took 2 cats which meant we had to make a decision as to who would go with us. For various reasons, we chose Gadget and Eva. I was able to convince my parents to take care of Simba and Smash and while I know they’re being well taken care of, this made me a liar in my eyes to them because I promised them they would be loved and taken care of and while that is still technically true, the promise was made with us in mind. This decision broke up our family and left us both very hurt and disappointed that this had to happen for us to move.
At this point, Jenni’s transfer was irreversible and we had no choice but to move or else she would lose her job entirely. Right after this, some hope came in the form of a job offer with a local ENT clinic. I was hired and started on May 16, 2014. After only 4 full days of training, the rug was pulled out from under me and I was told I didn’t have what it took to do the job correctly. I don’t fully understand how such a decision can be made so quickly, especially given that everyone else on the staff had several weeks to train for their positions. What it boils down to is that I am too stupid to hold a job and I am also too stupid to honestly see reality for what it is. The reality is that I do not have any real future. It only took me 12 years to fully discover what should’ve been obvious.
The worst part of this is the damage I have caused to those closest to me. I made my wife give up what she had built in 5 years at the Reidsville Walmart, I gave up my grandparents house to move up here to an apartment so I am now paying rent whereas I didn’t have to previously. I broke up our family by lying to Smash and Simba. I have caused my wife so much undue stress from arguments, worry, fear of the future, and now being responsible for paying rent on a single income because I am again, unemployed and that doesn’t appear to be going to change any time soon, if ever. I took her dream of being a mother away from her because I was responsible for Trinity’s death. We were moving her stuff from Danville to Reidsville and because I was so overweight and obese at the time, I was physically unable to move a lot of stuff that needed to be moved so she had to move several really heavy things. I believe this caused her to miscarry and ended up being what killed our daughter. She has told me so many times that it wasn’t my fault that we lost our daughter but it truly was because I was so fat and unable to do what needed to be done.
All my wife and my cats have ever done is love me. The cats have never asked for anything in return except my love and I threw 2 of them under the bus to chase a dream that can never come true which is for my wife and I to build a solid future. Her dream to have children may have been able to happen in time while in North Carolina since we had a place to live but while we are here, this won’t happen. She gave up her dreams for me to chase mine and now that I am finally realizing what should’ve been completely obvious from the beginning, this hurts me even more. My dreams are dead and I am justly punished for my stupidity. What is unjust, is how those around me that I love have to suffer for my stupidity and my inability to hold down a job. Particularly as it was the only shot at building the future that we wanted that we had. I had other chances with Walmart and Meijer stores here but I obviously had to call them back to let them know that I had accepted another job so I burned all those bridges when I accepted the job that I was ultimately proven to be too stupid to actually do.
I do not want my wife to suffer for my stupidity. I do not want my cats to suffer for my stupidity. But the truth of the matter is, they are being punished and are paying for my stupid decisions and I have a very hard time living with that reality because I am the one who should be punished, not them. I have asked my wife to hate me for my bad decisions and all the agony I have put her through. I have asked her to kick me out, to banish me. I have asked her mother to hate me for the agony I’ve brought about to her daughter.
If there were true justice in this world, I would be made to suffer alone, helpless, hungry and miles away from anyone who cared for me. It would only be what I deserve for my stupidity. My wife should hate every fiber of my being for all the damage and misery that I have caused her. It would only be fair and fairness is what is lacking here. No one else should have to suffer for my own bad decisions. My tally so far is a lost house, lost years, agony and misery for my wife, a dead child, 2 cats that we couldn’t bring with us and 1 more cat that I sent to his death and will never forgive myself for doing despite his age and his health, several thousand dollars lost in the move, and a lost house. I think of Sam often and all I can think of is that I sent him to his death. Yes, I'm told he was old, around 15 years old at the time, and was suffering and that it was the best thing for him but I can't convince myself of this. I loved that cat dearly just like I have loved all my cats and I would not do anything for any reason to purposely hurt them but I did just that with him as well as Smash and Simba with my decision to move. I have cried many times since we left because, even though I know they're being taken care of and aren't at some shelter or out on the street somewhere, I still lied to them and my guilt for this gets heavier each day as it should.
I simply would ask that I be made to suffer and be in misery but not my family. They have done nothing wrong. They have done absolutely nothing to bring this about on themselves other than loving and caring for me and for this alone, I should be made to hurt physically and emotionally. I currently do so and my punishment is just.
If I were to have one wish, it would be to live forever in misery and agony and sadness because only then could I begin to atone for the damage I’ve done and the people and animals whose lives I have negatively affected so much over the years. My wife, my parents, my cats, everyone around me has the right to hate and despise me and to cast me out of their lives.
Friday, November 8, 2013
A Few Thoughts On...Ranking The Mortal Kombat Franchise Part 3
***My apologies, I actually thought I posted this final part already. I typed it up, saved it and for whatever reason didn't post it but here it is now.***
So now we hit the best of the best with the Mortal Kombat series. With no time to waste, we jump into the next game on our list:
Mortal Kombat II (1993). I know what you're thinking, "MK 2 is only the third best game?!" "Sacrilege!" Perhaps you'd be correct on both counts but here's the thing, this was a great game but I don't at all believe it to be the best MK game. I've honestly grown over time to find it to be rather overrated. Don't get me wrong, it improved on MK 1 in every way possible and like MK 1, many of the new characters introduced have become pop culture icons. In fact, when most people think of Mortal Kombat, this is usually the game they're thinking of. The beef I have with the game is its difficulty which has long been acknowledged as being tougher than most every other MK game. Even when played with the difficulty setting on easy, the AI in the game is capable of doing things that no human could do without using cheats in the game itself. I've seen people beat the game before without ever losing but the only way this occurs is when people exploit glitches in the AI or just flat cheat. I don't consider it to be a good thing to have a game be hard to a level that it practically can't be beat without cheating or resorting to what I consider to be extremely cheap methods to win.
On the plus side, the graphics are stellar for the time, the music is extremely memorable, the storyline is good, and it features the best, most original fatalities of probably any game of the series. I still remember its home release date, Friday September 9, 1994, and the trip to Rose's Store with my dad to pick up the game. The game had a sticker on the cover which said that it couldn't be sold to anyone under 17. For the record, this was just before the ESRB was established and began using the rating system familiar to most people today. My dad had to be with me when I purchased it to give the illusion that he was buying it for himself but he made it blatantly obvious that the game was for me because he had no idea the name of the game, let alone which console it was for.
Most people consider MK II to be the peak of the series. I think if the difficulty levels had been a bit more manageable and reasonable, I would probably agree with them but because the game is so hard, especially if you're lucky enough to get to Kintaro, I simply can't consider it any better than the 3rd best game of the series.
Which game earns a spot as the second best game of the Mortal Kombat series? 1995 would give us the answer with:
Mortal Kombat 3/Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1995). Two games? Not really. MK 3 was released in April 1995 with UMK 3 following in September 1995. I consider these both to be a single game because UMK 3 was what MK 3 was intended to be. In essence, MK 3 was an incomplete game but was released as a finished product while UMK 3 was considered a mere upgrade in the same way that Super Street Fighter 2 was simply considered an upgrade to Street Fighter 2. The major differences between them were that UMK 3 included 4 new stages and many characters that weren't in MK 3. I've never found anything as to why this upgrade occurred and why UMK 3 wasn't the final version of MK so I have no answer for that. I think it had something to do with Dan Pesina's troubles with Midway which necessitated characters that he played being removed/redesigned for the game but that's not confirmed.
The gameplay, graphics, music, and storyline are all stellar with many new, memorable characters. Among these new characters was, other than Sub-Zero, my all-time favorite MK character, Kabal. The difficulty of this game was also far more reasonable and unlike its predecessor, this game could be beaten without resorting to cheap methods or flat out cheating. I have so many great memories of playing this in arcades and if I ever purchased a real arcade standup to have at home, I'd probably purchase UMK 3. If any criticism could be levied at this game, it would be that some of the fatalities were a bit too comical for my tastes. It also didn't help that some fatalities which caused the opponent to explode would manage to produce multiple skulls, 5 or 6 arms or legs, multiple rib cages all from a single body. Granted the game isn't really bound by realism, but seeing something like that can really make it difficult to suspend disbelief.
As far as I know, most fans consider this a disappointing follow-up to MK II and most of the hard-heads who are stuck in the 90's consider this game to be the beginning of the end for the series. To me, this game was the best of the original 2D games and is one that I can still play over and over again nearly 20 years after its original release.
Which game comes in at the top spot? Well, there's only one left so do the math and figure out which one's missing. If you don't want to do that, I'll tell you anyway. The best Mortal Kombat game yet released is:
Mortal Kombat: Deception (2004). The pinnacle of the Mortal Kombat franchise. This game is as close to perfection as just about any game can get. It's not only my favorite of the MK series, it might just be my favorite video game of all time. Nearly everything about it was spectacular. The graphics were an improvement from Deadly Alliance. We had new characters galore along with some awesome redesigns of some old favorites. Although in all fairness, anyone who thinks Sub Zero's look in this game wasn't a near complete rip-off of The Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is crazy. The fatalities were all improved in every way imaginable and for the first time, we had introduced stage fatalities that could be done on certain stages at any time during the fight. All of them were wonderfully creative and original. The stages themselves were fantastic even if they didn't include a stage fatality. My personal favorite was the Sky Temple stage. MK: Deception also introduced a concept that has only existed in this game which was the "Hara-Kiri" fatality. Basically, if you lost the fight and didn't want your opponent to perform a fatality on you, you could off yourself with a rather gruesome suicide move. Other than the fact it looked good, it really didn't serve much of a purpose.
The major selling point of this game was the expansion of the Konquest Mode which was introduced in Deadly Alliance. Konquest Mode in this game was more or less a separate video game to itself which featured RPG elements combined with traditional Mortal Kombat fights. It allowed for open world exploration of all the main realms in the Mortal Kombat universe for the first time. This mode also did more to reveal the complete backstory of many characters and events in the MK universe. Even if the arcade mode of the game weren't awesome, this alone would be worth purchasing the game for. Mentioning the arcade mode, this is another portion where the game truly shines. The difficulty isn't ridiculous with this game. There are certainly challenging portions, but there are no instances such as MK 2 where the AI can do things that human players simply can't do, nor are there instances where you'll spend hours on end trying to beat one character such as the final Shao Khan battle in MK9. All in all, it's a fair and reasonable challenge.
The game isn't above criticism however but the points in question are very minor. For one, Konquest Mode's voice acting is horrible for the most part. Especially the voice of the main character, Shujinko. Also, most of the game's stages had lackluster background music but this is made up for by the slightly remixed versions of past MK themes that were used in updated stages. By "updated stages" I mean stages that were in the previous 2D games that had now been upgraded to 3D. The music for these stages was basically the same except that it had been upgraded using much more modern recordings than what was possible in the mid-90's.
As a bonus, there were a good many video packages included with the game which ran through new character backgrounds and histories as well as behind the scenes features on our old favorites. The Kollector's Edition of the game also came with an arcade perfect emulation of the original Mortal Kombat game which was the first time it was released in this format.
Mortal Kombat: Deception has been the peak of the series so far and it's a crying shame that more people don't appreciate this game because of the previous closed-mindedness that I mentioned earlier with being stuck in the 90's. Deception is a testament to how far the series can go when NRS is willing to think outside the box and expand the mythologies while MK9 is a testament to how far the series can ultimately fall when NRS panders to this niche audience and throws originality and freshness out the window.
So now we hit the best of the best with the Mortal Kombat series. With no time to waste, we jump into the next game on our list:
Mortal Kombat II (1993). I know what you're thinking, "MK 2 is only the third best game?!" "Sacrilege!" Perhaps you'd be correct on both counts but here's the thing, this was a great game but I don't at all believe it to be the best MK game. I've honestly grown over time to find it to be rather overrated. Don't get me wrong, it improved on MK 1 in every way possible and like MK 1, many of the new characters introduced have become pop culture icons. In fact, when most people think of Mortal Kombat, this is usually the game they're thinking of. The beef I have with the game is its difficulty which has long been acknowledged as being tougher than most every other MK game. Even when played with the difficulty setting on easy, the AI in the game is capable of doing things that no human could do without using cheats in the game itself. I've seen people beat the game before without ever losing but the only way this occurs is when people exploit glitches in the AI or just flat cheat. I don't consider it to be a good thing to have a game be hard to a level that it practically can't be beat without cheating or resorting to what I consider to be extremely cheap methods to win.
On the plus side, the graphics are stellar for the time, the music is extremely memorable, the storyline is good, and it features the best, most original fatalities of probably any game of the series. I still remember its home release date, Friday September 9, 1994, and the trip to Rose's Store with my dad to pick up the game. The game had a sticker on the cover which said that it couldn't be sold to anyone under 17. For the record, this was just before the ESRB was established and began using the rating system familiar to most people today. My dad had to be with me when I purchased it to give the illusion that he was buying it for himself but he made it blatantly obvious that the game was for me because he had no idea the name of the game, let alone which console it was for.
Most people consider MK II to be the peak of the series. I think if the difficulty levels had been a bit more manageable and reasonable, I would probably agree with them but because the game is so hard, especially if you're lucky enough to get to Kintaro, I simply can't consider it any better than the 3rd best game of the series.
Which game earns a spot as the second best game of the Mortal Kombat series? 1995 would give us the answer with:
Mortal Kombat 3/Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1995). Two games? Not really. MK 3 was released in April 1995 with UMK 3 following in September 1995. I consider these both to be a single game because UMK 3 was what MK 3 was intended to be. In essence, MK 3 was an incomplete game but was released as a finished product while UMK 3 was considered a mere upgrade in the same way that Super Street Fighter 2 was simply considered an upgrade to Street Fighter 2. The major differences between them were that UMK 3 included 4 new stages and many characters that weren't in MK 3. I've never found anything as to why this upgrade occurred and why UMK 3 wasn't the final version of MK so I have no answer for that. I think it had something to do with Dan Pesina's troubles with Midway which necessitated characters that he played being removed/redesigned for the game but that's not confirmed.
The gameplay, graphics, music, and storyline are all stellar with many new, memorable characters. Among these new characters was, other than Sub-Zero, my all-time favorite MK character, Kabal. The difficulty of this game was also far more reasonable and unlike its predecessor, this game could be beaten without resorting to cheap methods or flat out cheating. I have so many great memories of playing this in arcades and if I ever purchased a real arcade standup to have at home, I'd probably purchase UMK 3. If any criticism could be levied at this game, it would be that some of the fatalities were a bit too comical for my tastes. It also didn't help that some fatalities which caused the opponent to explode would manage to produce multiple skulls, 5 or 6 arms or legs, multiple rib cages all from a single body. Granted the game isn't really bound by realism, but seeing something like that can really make it difficult to suspend disbelief.
As far as I know, most fans consider this a disappointing follow-up to MK II and most of the hard-heads who are stuck in the 90's consider this game to be the beginning of the end for the series. To me, this game was the best of the original 2D games and is one that I can still play over and over again nearly 20 years after its original release.
Which game comes in at the top spot? Well, there's only one left so do the math and figure out which one's missing. If you don't want to do that, I'll tell you anyway. The best Mortal Kombat game yet released is:
Mortal Kombat: Deception (2004). The pinnacle of the Mortal Kombat franchise. This game is as close to perfection as just about any game can get. It's not only my favorite of the MK series, it might just be my favorite video game of all time. Nearly everything about it was spectacular. The graphics were an improvement from Deadly Alliance. We had new characters galore along with some awesome redesigns of some old favorites. Although in all fairness, anyone who thinks Sub Zero's look in this game wasn't a near complete rip-off of The Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is crazy. The fatalities were all improved in every way imaginable and for the first time, we had introduced stage fatalities that could be done on certain stages at any time during the fight. All of them were wonderfully creative and original. The stages themselves were fantastic even if they didn't include a stage fatality. My personal favorite was the Sky Temple stage. MK: Deception also introduced a concept that has only existed in this game which was the "Hara-Kiri" fatality. Basically, if you lost the fight and didn't want your opponent to perform a fatality on you, you could off yourself with a rather gruesome suicide move. Other than the fact it looked good, it really didn't serve much of a purpose.
The major selling point of this game was the expansion of the Konquest Mode which was introduced in Deadly Alliance. Konquest Mode in this game was more or less a separate video game to itself which featured RPG elements combined with traditional Mortal Kombat fights. It allowed for open world exploration of all the main realms in the Mortal Kombat universe for the first time. This mode also did more to reveal the complete backstory of many characters and events in the MK universe. Even if the arcade mode of the game weren't awesome, this alone would be worth purchasing the game for. Mentioning the arcade mode, this is another portion where the game truly shines. The difficulty isn't ridiculous with this game. There are certainly challenging portions, but there are no instances such as MK 2 where the AI can do things that human players simply can't do, nor are there instances where you'll spend hours on end trying to beat one character such as the final Shao Khan battle in MK9. All in all, it's a fair and reasonable challenge.
The game isn't above criticism however but the points in question are very minor. For one, Konquest Mode's voice acting is horrible for the most part. Especially the voice of the main character, Shujinko. Also, most of the game's stages had lackluster background music but this is made up for by the slightly remixed versions of past MK themes that were used in updated stages. By "updated stages" I mean stages that were in the previous 2D games that had now been upgraded to 3D. The music for these stages was basically the same except that it had been upgraded using much more modern recordings than what was possible in the mid-90's.
As a bonus, there were a good many video packages included with the game which ran through new character backgrounds and histories as well as behind the scenes features on our old favorites. The Kollector's Edition of the game also came with an arcade perfect emulation of the original Mortal Kombat game which was the first time it was released in this format.
Mortal Kombat: Deception has been the peak of the series so far and it's a crying shame that more people don't appreciate this game because of the previous closed-mindedness that I mentioned earlier with being stuck in the 90's. Deception is a testament to how far the series can go when NRS is willing to think outside the box and expand the mythologies while MK9 is a testament to how far the series can ultimately fall when NRS panders to this niche audience and throws originality and freshness out the window.
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
A Few Thoughts On...Ranking The Mortal Kombat Franchise Part 2
So we come to the middle of our listing of Mortal Kombat games from best to worst. For a recap, see the previous post. Next on our countdown(up) is:
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (2006). As stated, this game was originally announced as the final chapter of the original Mortal Kombat continuity. This in turn led many people to think it was the last game that would be made whereas if they'd paid attention to the wording, it was clear that it wasn't. Armageddon was the 3rd game in Mortal Kombat's second trilogy of fighting games and it was supposed to bring all the main story lines to a close. Did it? Well, not exactly. Given the direction that the series has taken since 2006, we still don't know which parts of the game are canon and non-canon. The game itself improved on its predecessors in terms of more fluid gameplay and it featured the largest cast of characters in any MK game yet made.
The game was hampered by one humongous problem, "Kreate-a-fatality." This feature replaced the programmed fatalities for each character in the game and for the most part made them all generic. The only standouts were the stage fatalities (known as "death traps") as they maintained their originality. It's been said that it's unthinkable that an MK game could exist without fatalities but that apparently didn't stop them from trying in a way. It's a real shame this feature was included because other, than the fact that the endings of the characters weren't as cinematic as they usually are in the games, it was an extremely good game. The Konquest Mode of the game which told the story of Taven and Daegon was absolutely stellar. The only complaint I had for it was its abandoning of the open-world style that MK: Deception's Konquest Mode featured in favor of a linear style of Konquest mode. In a sense, it's like Konquest Mode made a change from Zelda to Mario in terms of style but that didn't stop it from being a lot of fun.
While Armageddon certainly wasn't a bad game by any stretch, it left a lot of room for improvement. Especially with the idea that we still don't know which parts of the game were and weren't canon. Now in 2013, I'm afraid we've reached the point that no one honestly cares what is canon from this game as it has pretty much fallen into obscurity at this point. In fairness, it would've been nearly impossible for the game to improve on its predecessor which will be listed later in this countdown. Not a great game, but if you can find it for say less than 15 bucks these days, it's probably still worth a go if you can find the Kollector's Edition which featured a bonus disc containing several video featurettes as well as an arcade port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
Up next on our listing, we go all the way back to the beginning. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat (1992) AKA Mortal Kombat 1 to differentiate it from the 2011 rehash. This was the game that started it all. A surprise hit, the game introduced the major characters to the franchise. Many of which have now become legendary in the annals of video game and pop culture history. There really isn't much I can say because there's nothing previous to compare it to and I personally consider it unfair to compare it to the later games because the technology changed and evolved so quickly in just a few years. If you look at MK1 and MK3 which were created/released just 3 years apart, the only similarities between them is the digitized graphics and gameplay style but even then, they're so different that there's hardly no comparison. I guess the biggest thing I can say about MK1 that most people may not know is that it was developed by only 5 people: Ed Boon, John Tobias, John Vogel, Tony Goskie, and Dan Forden. The game was also intended to be a cheap cash-grab because Street Fighter II was not only the hot fighting game of the time, it was arguably the hottest video game period. I would be willing to argue that this simple cash-grab not only equalled Street Fighter II, but it far surpassed it and even more, I would personally argue that the MK franchise has gone farther than the Street Fighter franchise has. It must be conceded however that if there were no Street Fighter II, there would probably be no Mortal Kombat franchise.
Anyone who is a fan of video games and has never played the original Mortal Kombat owes it to themselves to seek out and play the original. You'll not likely be impressed by it in 2013. In fact, you might look at it and think it's quite primitive. You'd be right, but don't let that stop you from playing the game just to see how the whole thing started. The graphics and audio is extremely primitive compared to today's games, but the gameplay holds up and probably surpasses a lot of modern games which seem to focus so hard on graphics and far less on gameplay.
Mortal Kombat nearly ran out of steam in the late 90's leaving many people to feel the franchise had run its course and would fade away with the 90's. Midway decided the series needed to be rebuilt from the ground up and the result was the next game on our list:
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002). Much like MK1 did in 1992, this game actually became a sleeper hit in late 2002. As previously stated, most people had written off the franchise by the turn of the century. There hadn't been a new game since MK4 other than Special Forces and the less said about it, the better. John Tobias left Midway in this time period which left Ed Boon as the sole creative lead of the franchise. Mortal Kombat needed their next game to be a hit and not only was it a hit, it completely revitalized the franchise and took it in a whole new direction. Deadly Alliance is the first game in MK's second trilogy and this game is really where the storyline of the series began to shine. Developed for the home consoles, Midway was able to expand the story so much farther than the previous arcade versions of the game were capable of doing due to expanded memory. Aside from introducing many new characters, it also introduced Konquest Mode to the franchise which served as a side-game and helped tell the story of the game itself. It also worked to flesh out some previously untold backstories of many of the more established characters. This trend would continue with Deception and Armageddon.
Many consider this game the first true 3D Mortal Kombat because it was the first to take place in a completely 3D environment and the first to allow for truly 3D movement. The gameplay was rebuilt from the ground up. Gone were the days of each character's basic attacks being the same. Starting with Deadly Alliance, each character was given their own fighting styles which made every character unique in terms of their abilities. It also helped that each style was based on a legitimate martial arts style.
Many people bemoaned the changes to the game because they couldn't get over the fact that the game was evolving and expanding. I feel that the changes were necessary because it wasn't simply the same-old same-old. It brought MK to a fresh audience and expanded the series in terms of richness, character, and gameplay and it saddens me that so many people were so stuck in the 90's that they refused to accept this. This trend would only continue with the releases of Deception and Armageddon and it directly led to the complete rehash that was MK9 in 2011. Whether these clowns like to admit it or not, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance extended the series lifespan by at least a full decade.
We've reached the end of part 2 of our countdown of Mortal Kombat games. Coming up will be the final edition of our rankings. There are only 3 left and most people should know what 3 games these are, it's just a question of the order. The final edition of this post will hopefully be up by Saturday at the latest.
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon (2006). As stated, this game was originally announced as the final chapter of the original Mortal Kombat continuity. This in turn led many people to think it was the last game that would be made whereas if they'd paid attention to the wording, it was clear that it wasn't. Armageddon was the 3rd game in Mortal Kombat's second trilogy of fighting games and it was supposed to bring all the main story lines to a close. Did it? Well, not exactly. Given the direction that the series has taken since 2006, we still don't know which parts of the game are canon and non-canon. The game itself improved on its predecessors in terms of more fluid gameplay and it featured the largest cast of characters in any MK game yet made.
The game was hampered by one humongous problem, "Kreate-a-fatality." This feature replaced the programmed fatalities for each character in the game and for the most part made them all generic. The only standouts were the stage fatalities (known as "death traps") as they maintained their originality. It's been said that it's unthinkable that an MK game could exist without fatalities but that apparently didn't stop them from trying in a way. It's a real shame this feature was included because other, than the fact that the endings of the characters weren't as cinematic as they usually are in the games, it was an extremely good game. The Konquest Mode of the game which told the story of Taven and Daegon was absolutely stellar. The only complaint I had for it was its abandoning of the open-world style that MK: Deception's Konquest Mode featured in favor of a linear style of Konquest mode. In a sense, it's like Konquest Mode made a change from Zelda to Mario in terms of style but that didn't stop it from being a lot of fun.
While Armageddon certainly wasn't a bad game by any stretch, it left a lot of room for improvement. Especially with the idea that we still don't know which parts of the game were and weren't canon. Now in 2013, I'm afraid we've reached the point that no one honestly cares what is canon from this game as it has pretty much fallen into obscurity at this point. In fairness, it would've been nearly impossible for the game to improve on its predecessor which will be listed later in this countdown. Not a great game, but if you can find it for say less than 15 bucks these days, it's probably still worth a go if you can find the Kollector's Edition which featured a bonus disc containing several video featurettes as well as an arcade port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
Up next on our listing, we go all the way back to the beginning. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat (1992) AKA Mortal Kombat 1 to differentiate it from the 2011 rehash. This was the game that started it all. A surprise hit, the game introduced the major characters to the franchise. Many of which have now become legendary in the annals of video game and pop culture history. There really isn't much I can say because there's nothing previous to compare it to and I personally consider it unfair to compare it to the later games because the technology changed and evolved so quickly in just a few years. If you look at MK1 and MK3 which were created/released just 3 years apart, the only similarities between them is the digitized graphics and gameplay style but even then, they're so different that there's hardly no comparison. I guess the biggest thing I can say about MK1 that most people may not know is that it was developed by only 5 people: Ed Boon, John Tobias, John Vogel, Tony Goskie, and Dan Forden. The game was also intended to be a cheap cash-grab because Street Fighter II was not only the hot fighting game of the time, it was arguably the hottest video game period. I would be willing to argue that this simple cash-grab not only equalled Street Fighter II, but it far surpassed it and even more, I would personally argue that the MK franchise has gone farther than the Street Fighter franchise has. It must be conceded however that if there were no Street Fighter II, there would probably be no Mortal Kombat franchise.
Anyone who is a fan of video games and has never played the original Mortal Kombat owes it to themselves to seek out and play the original. You'll not likely be impressed by it in 2013. In fact, you might look at it and think it's quite primitive. You'd be right, but don't let that stop you from playing the game just to see how the whole thing started. The graphics and audio is extremely primitive compared to today's games, but the gameplay holds up and probably surpasses a lot of modern games which seem to focus so hard on graphics and far less on gameplay.
Mortal Kombat nearly ran out of steam in the late 90's leaving many people to feel the franchise had run its course and would fade away with the 90's. Midway decided the series needed to be rebuilt from the ground up and the result was the next game on our list:
Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance (2002). Much like MK1 did in 1992, this game actually became a sleeper hit in late 2002. As previously stated, most people had written off the franchise by the turn of the century. There hadn't been a new game since MK4 other than Special Forces and the less said about it, the better. John Tobias left Midway in this time period which left Ed Boon as the sole creative lead of the franchise. Mortal Kombat needed their next game to be a hit and not only was it a hit, it completely revitalized the franchise and took it in a whole new direction. Deadly Alliance is the first game in MK's second trilogy and this game is really where the storyline of the series began to shine. Developed for the home consoles, Midway was able to expand the story so much farther than the previous arcade versions of the game were capable of doing due to expanded memory. Aside from introducing many new characters, it also introduced Konquest Mode to the franchise which served as a side-game and helped tell the story of the game itself. It also worked to flesh out some previously untold backstories of many of the more established characters. This trend would continue with Deception and Armageddon.
Many consider this game the first true 3D Mortal Kombat because it was the first to take place in a completely 3D environment and the first to allow for truly 3D movement. The gameplay was rebuilt from the ground up. Gone were the days of each character's basic attacks being the same. Starting with Deadly Alliance, each character was given their own fighting styles which made every character unique in terms of their abilities. It also helped that each style was based on a legitimate martial arts style.
Many people bemoaned the changes to the game because they couldn't get over the fact that the game was evolving and expanding. I feel that the changes were necessary because it wasn't simply the same-old same-old. It brought MK to a fresh audience and expanded the series in terms of richness, character, and gameplay and it saddens me that so many people were so stuck in the 90's that they refused to accept this. This trend would only continue with the releases of Deception and Armageddon and it directly led to the complete rehash that was MK9 in 2011. Whether these clowns like to admit it or not, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance extended the series lifespan by at least a full decade.
We've reached the end of part 2 of our countdown of Mortal Kombat games. Coming up will be the final edition of our rankings. There are only 3 left and most people should know what 3 games these are, it's just a question of the order. The final edition of this post will hopefully be up by Saturday at the latest.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
A Few Thoughts On...Ranking The Mortal Kombat Franchise Part 1
So I return after a long hiatus to offer my thoughts/rankings of the Mortal Kombat franchise. This was inspired by the recent release of Season 2 of Mortal Kombat Legacy to YouTube. The series itself is fantastic and I recommend it to anyone whether you're familiar with the franchise or not. Although in all fairness, some of the impact and a few plot points will be lost to those unfamiliar with MK's history but not so much that you can't enjoy the series.
In a few words, this series has allowed me to re-discover why I have loved Mortal Kombat for so long after an extremely disappointing few years which saw the franchise nearly damaged beyond return in my eyes. With this series, that love has been rekindled and I'm looking forward to anything new that NetherRealm Studios (formerly Midway) has to offer in the future. Latest rumor says a new game is coming in 2015 which means it's likely to be announced sometime next year. Quite likely around E3 in June.
With rediscovering the series, I've chosen to rank the games from worst to best with a few thoughts on each game. I'm only focusing on the main franchise of the games and not the side games such as Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero, Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks and Mortal Kombat Special Forces because they're not considered part of the main franchise but are merely side games and because for the most part, with the exception of Mythologies, the stories in them are mostly non-canon in regards to the series itself. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is not on this list because it was basically a "greatest hits" game and did nothing to further the storyline. It simply existed as a way to combine everything from MKs 1-3 into a single game.
Now, we'll start from the nadir and work our way to the top of the mountain. Our worst MK game is:
Mortal Kombat (2011) - AKA Mortal Kombat 9 to differentiate it from the original game. This game was to be the beginning of a new era of Mortal Kombat. For a couple years up to its release in April 2011, Ed Boon, co-creator of the franchise and current head honcho of NetherRealm Studios, promised that this game would be a completely original continuity, new characters and would have such extreme violence and gore that the game might actually have trouble avoiding the X rating which is an extreme rarity in video games. Of these 3 main promises, NRS outright lied on the first 2 and only partially delivered on the 3rd one. The game was nothing more than a rehash of the first 3 games in nearly every way. The only thing really new in the game was the altering of the previous storyline to allow Sub Zero to be transformed into a robot instead of Smoke. Beyond that, everything from the moves, the fatalities, the characters and the vast majority of the backgrounds were a simple rehash of the previous series. The game is similar to the New Super Mario Bros. series in that respect and it should've simply been a side project instead of a new entry into the main series itself. Adding to it the fact that the controls were extremely stiff and, in some cases, non-responsive not only made the game a creative disappointment but made it a disappointment from a gameplay standpoint as well.
As weird as it may seem, I don't consider this the nadir of the MK franchise as a whole. I consider it the worst game because of everything we were promised and because of the extremely high level of disappointment from these unfulfilled promises. This game was basically made to appeal to the fans of the 90's games who just couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't 1995 any more and that Mortal Kombat had evolved and expanded beyond those 90's games. This is another reason I think it should've been a side project. The game sold huge because of that nostalgia factor and it has since faded a long ways now that the nostalgia has worn off and the game's long list of problems are now apparent. This game was pretty much what drove me off from Mortal Kombat for nearly 2 years because combined with the previous game, which is the next game on the countdown, I was disgusted to the point of just throwing my hands up and leaving the franchise altogether because I honestly felt betrayed, lied to, and crapped on by Ed Boon and co. at NRS.
We move on to the next game which, while not the worst game of the series, is hands down the absolute lowest point the franchise has ever hit and hopefully the lowest it ever will hit. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (2008). From this point forward, this game will be referred to as TWSNBN(That Which Shall Not Be Named) because I basically refuse to acknowledge the game's existence or its place in the franchise. Thankfully, this game is excluded from the canon of the franchise but it is a fighting game and was originally intended as an extension of the storyline so that's why it makes its way to this list. The reason this game is not considered part of the main canon is due to the near universal rejection of the game as a legitimate entry in the franchise. The same goes, I'm told, for fans of the DC franchises that this abomination incorporated. In fact, I'm told that while the MK franchise actually tolerated the game as a fighting game, the DC Universe fans not only refuse to acknowledge its existence, it's actually quite the sore spot among many of them. The gameplay itself wasn't too bad, certainly not as ungodly terrible as MK9, nor were the graphics. The main problem is that this crossover made absolutely no sense for either side. Given the timeframe of this game's development and release, I'm guessing that The Dark Knight's highly successful run had a lot to do with Midway's choice to attempt this crossover. That's not to say crossovers can't be successful and well done. Capcom and Marvel had a highly successful crossover series in the 90's as have Street Fighter and Tekken in recent years. The biggest offense this game produced was its T (Teen) rating. Every MK game that's been released since the ESRB established its rating system has been rated M (Mature). The violence was toned down well below the usual Mortal Kombat levels which in essence crippled a high percentage of the appeal these games have to the majority of the population. The reason for this was that DC didn't want the usual over-the-top fatalities performed on their franchise characters i.e. they didn't want Sub Zero to rip out Superman's spinal column with the head attached to it. This pettyness by DC took an already stupid concept and ruined any possibility it had for being successful while neutering the MK aspect of the game.
In short, this game did nothing except piss off fans of both sides and alienate a great many MK fans who simply asked why. Like MK9, NRS had made the same promises about a new storyline and new characters and not only failed to deliver on this entry, but also failed to deliver an actual new Mortal Kombat game. The game managed to sell relatively well as a strange curiosity but as I said, the near universal rejection of the game from both sides has thankfully led to it largely being ignored and hopefully forgotten. NRS has continued its relationship with DC however with their recently released game Injustice: Gods Among Us which is a DC Universe based fighting game, also rated T. This concept actually works because the game is it's own game and has nothing to do with the MK franchise. This is what should've been done in the first place instead of nearly destroying one franchise and highly angering the fanbase of another franchise.
We're past the lowest point of the franchise and so we climb up from the trenches back to sea level with our next game which was the final game in the series released in arcades:
Mortal Kombat 4 (1997). We've covered the only really bad games in the main franchise so from this point on, there are no more "bad" games in the franchise but simply "less good" games. Mortal Kombat 4 was the last game released in arcade format and was the first 3D version of the game. Prior to MK4, the games featured 2D digitized graphics and with the evolution of fighting games as well as highly successful 3D franchises of the time such as Killer Instinct, Virtua Fighter, and Tekken, this was a logical step. The gameplay itself was actually quite good, the main problem was with the graphics. This was not a pretty game to look at for sure because the technology to make an MK game in 3D mostly didn't exist at that point. Software had to be built from the ground up in order to make this game in 3D and it shows with highly unrealistic looking graphics even for the late 90's. Had the gameplay been bad, this game would've been a complete failure but as mentioned, the gameplay itself was fluid like the earlier games which made up for the graphics problems. It didn't help that the storyline of the game was more or less rendered irrelevant by later games of the franchise. Nor did it help that of the new characters introduced into the game, excluding Quan Chi (who was actually introduced in MK Mythologies), none of them were particularly memorable nor did any of them outside of Quan Chi have much to do with furthering the MK storyline.
Time hasn't really done much to improve the game. It's really in an awkward position because the 3 games that preceded it and the 3 games followed it create 2 very nice trilogies. This actually causes many fans to forget the game exists unless someone else mentions it. It also doesn't help that the game hasn't been re-released on any format since its original home ports were released in 1998 whereas MK 1-3 have all been re-released at various times in their original arcade formats. So while certainly not a bad game, MK4 is far from the best this series has to offer.
We've reached the end of the first part of our rankings. With any luck, I'll have the remaining 2 parts of the series up by the end of this week. Leading off the next part comes the last of the second trilogy of the series. It was originally intended to be the end of the original MK continuity and was announced as such when it was released which led many people to think it was the last MK game that would be made. Which game is it? Find out in part 2.
In a few words, this series has allowed me to re-discover why I have loved Mortal Kombat for so long after an extremely disappointing few years which saw the franchise nearly damaged beyond return in my eyes. With this series, that love has been rekindled and I'm looking forward to anything new that NetherRealm Studios (formerly Midway) has to offer in the future. Latest rumor says a new game is coming in 2015 which means it's likely to be announced sometime next year. Quite likely around E3 in June.
With rediscovering the series, I've chosen to rank the games from worst to best with a few thoughts on each game. I'm only focusing on the main franchise of the games and not the side games such as Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero, Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks and Mortal Kombat Special Forces because they're not considered part of the main franchise but are merely side games and because for the most part, with the exception of Mythologies, the stories in them are mostly non-canon in regards to the series itself. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is not on this list because it was basically a "greatest hits" game and did nothing to further the storyline. It simply existed as a way to combine everything from MKs 1-3 into a single game.
Now, we'll start from the nadir and work our way to the top of the mountain. Our worst MK game is:
Mortal Kombat (2011) - AKA Mortal Kombat 9 to differentiate it from the original game. This game was to be the beginning of a new era of Mortal Kombat. For a couple years up to its release in April 2011, Ed Boon, co-creator of the franchise and current head honcho of NetherRealm Studios, promised that this game would be a completely original continuity, new characters and would have such extreme violence and gore that the game might actually have trouble avoiding the X rating which is an extreme rarity in video games. Of these 3 main promises, NRS outright lied on the first 2 and only partially delivered on the 3rd one. The game was nothing more than a rehash of the first 3 games in nearly every way. The only thing really new in the game was the altering of the previous storyline to allow Sub Zero to be transformed into a robot instead of Smoke. Beyond that, everything from the moves, the fatalities, the characters and the vast majority of the backgrounds were a simple rehash of the previous series. The game is similar to the New Super Mario Bros. series in that respect and it should've simply been a side project instead of a new entry into the main series itself. Adding to it the fact that the controls were extremely stiff and, in some cases, non-responsive not only made the game a creative disappointment but made it a disappointment from a gameplay standpoint as well.
As weird as it may seem, I don't consider this the nadir of the MK franchise as a whole. I consider it the worst game because of everything we were promised and because of the extremely high level of disappointment from these unfulfilled promises. This game was basically made to appeal to the fans of the 90's games who just couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't 1995 any more and that Mortal Kombat had evolved and expanded beyond those 90's games. This is another reason I think it should've been a side project. The game sold huge because of that nostalgia factor and it has since faded a long ways now that the nostalgia has worn off and the game's long list of problems are now apparent. This game was pretty much what drove me off from Mortal Kombat for nearly 2 years because combined with the previous game, which is the next game on the countdown, I was disgusted to the point of just throwing my hands up and leaving the franchise altogether because I honestly felt betrayed, lied to, and crapped on by Ed Boon and co. at NRS.
We move on to the next game which, while not the worst game of the series, is hands down the absolute lowest point the franchise has ever hit and hopefully the lowest it ever will hit. Our next game is:
Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (2008). From this point forward, this game will be referred to as TWSNBN(That Which Shall Not Be Named) because I basically refuse to acknowledge the game's existence or its place in the franchise. Thankfully, this game is excluded from the canon of the franchise but it is a fighting game and was originally intended as an extension of the storyline so that's why it makes its way to this list. The reason this game is not considered part of the main canon is due to the near universal rejection of the game as a legitimate entry in the franchise. The same goes, I'm told, for fans of the DC franchises that this abomination incorporated. In fact, I'm told that while the MK franchise actually tolerated the game as a fighting game, the DC Universe fans not only refuse to acknowledge its existence, it's actually quite the sore spot among many of them. The gameplay itself wasn't too bad, certainly not as ungodly terrible as MK9, nor were the graphics. The main problem is that this crossover made absolutely no sense for either side. Given the timeframe of this game's development and release, I'm guessing that The Dark Knight's highly successful run had a lot to do with Midway's choice to attempt this crossover. That's not to say crossovers can't be successful and well done. Capcom and Marvel had a highly successful crossover series in the 90's as have Street Fighter and Tekken in recent years. The biggest offense this game produced was its T (Teen) rating. Every MK game that's been released since the ESRB established its rating system has been rated M (Mature). The violence was toned down well below the usual Mortal Kombat levels which in essence crippled a high percentage of the appeal these games have to the majority of the population. The reason for this was that DC didn't want the usual over-the-top fatalities performed on their franchise characters i.e. they didn't want Sub Zero to rip out Superman's spinal column with the head attached to it. This pettyness by DC took an already stupid concept and ruined any possibility it had for being successful while neutering the MK aspect of the game.
In short, this game did nothing except piss off fans of both sides and alienate a great many MK fans who simply asked why. Like MK9, NRS had made the same promises about a new storyline and new characters and not only failed to deliver on this entry, but also failed to deliver an actual new Mortal Kombat game. The game managed to sell relatively well as a strange curiosity but as I said, the near universal rejection of the game from both sides has thankfully led to it largely being ignored and hopefully forgotten. NRS has continued its relationship with DC however with their recently released game Injustice: Gods Among Us which is a DC Universe based fighting game, also rated T. This concept actually works because the game is it's own game and has nothing to do with the MK franchise. This is what should've been done in the first place instead of nearly destroying one franchise and highly angering the fanbase of another franchise.
We're past the lowest point of the franchise and so we climb up from the trenches back to sea level with our next game which was the final game in the series released in arcades:
Mortal Kombat 4 (1997). We've covered the only really bad games in the main franchise so from this point on, there are no more "bad" games in the franchise but simply "less good" games. Mortal Kombat 4 was the last game released in arcade format and was the first 3D version of the game. Prior to MK4, the games featured 2D digitized graphics and with the evolution of fighting games as well as highly successful 3D franchises of the time such as Killer Instinct, Virtua Fighter, and Tekken, this was a logical step. The gameplay itself was actually quite good, the main problem was with the graphics. This was not a pretty game to look at for sure because the technology to make an MK game in 3D mostly didn't exist at that point. Software had to be built from the ground up in order to make this game in 3D and it shows with highly unrealistic looking graphics even for the late 90's. Had the gameplay been bad, this game would've been a complete failure but as mentioned, the gameplay itself was fluid like the earlier games which made up for the graphics problems. It didn't help that the storyline of the game was more or less rendered irrelevant by later games of the franchise. Nor did it help that of the new characters introduced into the game, excluding Quan Chi (who was actually introduced in MK Mythologies), none of them were particularly memorable nor did any of them outside of Quan Chi have much to do with furthering the MK storyline.
Time hasn't really done much to improve the game. It's really in an awkward position because the 3 games that preceded it and the 3 games followed it create 2 very nice trilogies. This actually causes many fans to forget the game exists unless someone else mentions it. It also doesn't help that the game hasn't been re-released on any format since its original home ports were released in 1998 whereas MK 1-3 have all been re-released at various times in their original arcade formats. So while certainly not a bad game, MK4 is far from the best this series has to offer.
We've reached the end of the first part of our rankings. With any luck, I'll have the remaining 2 parts of the series up by the end of this week. Leading off the next part comes the last of the second trilogy of the series. It was originally intended to be the end of the original MK continuity and was announced as such when it was released which led many people to think it was the last MK game that would be made. Which game is it? Find out in part 2.
Saturday, June 29, 2013
2012 Movie Awards
Since 2007, I've been doing my own best movies of the year list. It only consists of 3 categories; the "Akira Kurosawa/Sergio Leone Award for Cinematic Excellence (a fancy way of saying best film), a listing of the top 5 films of the year which is a new addition for 2012, and my own special award that I've named the "Finding Nemo Award for Cinematic Excrement." This award describes a movie that is generally beloved by critics and the populace at large but I just simply can't stand. Each year seems to produce one of these movies.
Before I reveal my picks for 2012, I'm going to list previous winners of the Kurosawa/Leone award and the winners of the Finding Nemo award for my own archival purposes.
2007:
Kurosawa/Leone: No Country For Old Men
Finding Nemo: Juno
2008:
Kurosawa/Leone: The Dark Knight
Finding Nemo: Slumdog Millionaire
2009:
Kurosawa/Leone: (tie) Avatar/Star Trek
Finding Nemo: District 9 *side note, this film is actually responsible for coining the term "cinematic excrement." Thank you to Aaron Goins for that.*
2010:
Kurosawa/Leone: Inception
Finding Nemo: The Social Network
2011:
Kurosawa/Leone: Moneyball
Finding Nemo: Hugo
Now, for 2012's awards. We'll start with the winners of the two main awards and then finish out with the top 5 list.
For our Kurosawa/Leone award, in 2012 this award goes to The Dark Knight Rises. This one was actually a little closer than I expected because of how unexpectedly wonderful Django Unchained was. However, the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy eventually won out in the end and Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy joined my own upper echelon with Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy as the greatest film trilogies in history.
For our Finding Nemo award, 2012 features the first ever co-winners for this award. We have a tie between Pixar's film Brave and the Wachowski siblings' latest effort, Cloud Atlas. Quite honestly, part of the criteria for this award is that it needs to be loved by critics and while Cloud Atlas fits my description for this award more closely than Brave does, Brave was just so unimaginably awful and disappointing that it had to be at least a co-winner for this award. Cloud Atlas is basically a 3 hour congealed mess of a film. Way yonder too many stories trying to connect and other than the actors playing multiple roles across different timelines, there is no real explanation for how these timelines connect with each other. Someone very accurately described the movie as "a story that can't be understood because it doesn't want to be understood."
To finish out this post, here is the newest addition to my awards which is a simple top 5 listing of the best movies of the year in order. In essence, this is a listing of the movies that were in the running for the Kurosawa/Leone award. We know which one is number one, but the other 4 were all given high consideration for best film this year. So I close this blog with the top 5 films of 2012 in order:
1. The Dark Knight Rises
2. Django Unchained
3. Skyfall
4. Wreck-It Ralph
5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Before I reveal my picks for 2012, I'm going to list previous winners of the Kurosawa/Leone award and the winners of the Finding Nemo award for my own archival purposes.
2007:
Kurosawa/Leone: No Country For Old Men
Finding Nemo: Juno
2008:
Kurosawa/Leone: The Dark Knight
Finding Nemo: Slumdog Millionaire
2009:
Kurosawa/Leone: (tie) Avatar/Star Trek
Finding Nemo: District 9 *side note, this film is actually responsible for coining the term "cinematic excrement." Thank you to Aaron Goins for that.*
2010:
Kurosawa/Leone: Inception
Finding Nemo: The Social Network
2011:
Kurosawa/Leone: Moneyball
Finding Nemo: Hugo
Now, for 2012's awards. We'll start with the winners of the two main awards and then finish out with the top 5 list.
For our Kurosawa/Leone award, in 2012 this award goes to The Dark Knight Rises. This one was actually a little closer than I expected because of how unexpectedly wonderful Django Unchained was. However, the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy eventually won out in the end and Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy joined my own upper echelon with Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy as the greatest film trilogies in history.
For our Finding Nemo award, 2012 features the first ever co-winners for this award. We have a tie between Pixar's film Brave and the Wachowski siblings' latest effort, Cloud Atlas. Quite honestly, part of the criteria for this award is that it needs to be loved by critics and while Cloud Atlas fits my description for this award more closely than Brave does, Brave was just so unimaginably awful and disappointing that it had to be at least a co-winner for this award. Cloud Atlas is basically a 3 hour congealed mess of a film. Way yonder too many stories trying to connect and other than the actors playing multiple roles across different timelines, there is no real explanation for how these timelines connect with each other. Someone very accurately described the movie as "a story that can't be understood because it doesn't want to be understood."
To finish out this post, here is the newest addition to my awards which is a simple top 5 listing of the best movies of the year in order. In essence, this is a listing of the movies that were in the running for the Kurosawa/Leone award. We know which one is number one, but the other 4 were all given high consideration for best film this year. So I close this blog with the top 5 films of 2012 in order:
1. The Dark Knight Rises
2. Django Unchained
3. Skyfall
4. Wreck-It Ralph
5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
A Few Thoughts On...Why do I still even bother with Nascar?
News has come out today that likely starting next season, Charlotte will lose one of its races to Las Vegas. In the words of Bruton Smith, "When the game is over, it'll be money, money, money," Smith told WBTV. "Money will move it."
At least he's being honest about it I suppose. Basically as was said on Facebook, it's nice to see that Bruton Smith, and Nascar as a whole, 10 years since their initial efforts began, are still working overtime to piss off and run off their traditional fans with stupid decisions that will do nothing to benefit Nascar as a whole. Anyone who believes that Las Vegas will draw more money than Charlotte for Nascar is quite simply irrational in their thinking.
I just can't understand why this group is working so hard to run off their traditional fans. There is no other sport on the planet that has done more to purposely run off their core group of fans as Nascar has done since around 2002. Such things as creating and giving races to the "cookie cutter" tracks, taking races away from VERY well established traditional venues such as Rockingham, Darlington, Atlanta, and now Charlotte (which I would've believed to be like Daytona in that it would be untouchable), moving the Southern 500 from Labor Day weekend to Mother's Day weekend for no reason whatsoever other than to spit in the face of 55 years of tradition and once again, spit in the face of the traditional Nascar fan.
I've written for several years that I wouldn't be surprised to see Nascar fold by 2020-2025. Or at the very least, there would be races that weren't televised live any more, if at all. Regrettably, there are enough sheep out there to keep the sport alive but I see no reason to change my prediction about Nascar on television because any sport depends on its traditional fanbase to support it in hard times. Nascar's attendance and ratings have been down for years and it can be traced right back to the unholy trinity's concentrated efforts to run off the traditional fans. MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, Soccer, Tennis, Golf, other auto racing bodies such as Indy and F1, and nearly every other sport I can think of tries at least to innovate but still remaining loyal to their core fanbase. In the case of MLB, I think they try too hard sometimes to do this since it hinders progress that could actually make the game better, but they are at least trying to keep their core fans.
Nascar on the other hand doesn't subscribe to this theory. They think that the fairweather fans are the group they need to go after. I'm not saying they shouldn't try to lure in new fans but I am saying that perhaps if they didn't mess with things that worked to draw in fans for over 50 years previously, perhaps they might actually draw in some new fans without running off millions of fans that Bill France Sr and Jr worked for a combined 55 years to draw in.
I've compared Nascar to the WWE for a variety of reasons. Among many other reasons, there is a major reason this comparison is more valid than many people realize. The question has been asked as to whether Vince McMahon was ashamed of the wrestling business given how much he's worked to make the wrestling business a joke in the eyes of mainstream America. This question needs to be asked of Brian France, Mike Helton, and Bruton Smith. Are they ashamed of stock car racing as a whole and ashamed of the fact that the southeastern US has always been the core group that has made Nascar what it was before they came to ruin it? This, like the case of McMahon, being despite the fact that millions and millions of dollars have gone into their pockets from the very thing they seem to be ashamed of?
Finally, this comparison becomes even more valid because, like the WWE and Vince McMahon, the unholy trinity of Nascar will continue to make money despite themselves because there are enough fairweather fans and sheep who will keep giving them their money for a product that hardly resembles the legitimate product of pre-2004 Nascar which is what I refer to as "Nascar done the right way." As more time passes, they will still continue to make more money because once the current group of fairweather fans move on to the next shiny object on the wall, a new group will come in. Most of whom will not have seen Nascar done properly and will thus not know the difference. Over time, this is how Nascar will survive. Ignorance from their fans who will have never seen the sport run and operated correctly.
So yes, these people will make their money despite themselves just like Vince McMahon.
At least he's being honest about it I suppose. Basically as was said on Facebook, it's nice to see that Bruton Smith, and Nascar as a whole, 10 years since their initial efforts began, are still working overtime to piss off and run off their traditional fans with stupid decisions that will do nothing to benefit Nascar as a whole. Anyone who believes that Las Vegas will draw more money than Charlotte for Nascar is quite simply irrational in their thinking.
I just can't understand why this group is working so hard to run off their traditional fans. There is no other sport on the planet that has done more to purposely run off their core group of fans as Nascar has done since around 2002. Such things as creating and giving races to the "cookie cutter" tracks, taking races away from VERY well established traditional venues such as Rockingham, Darlington, Atlanta, and now Charlotte (which I would've believed to be like Daytona in that it would be untouchable), moving the Southern 500 from Labor Day weekend to Mother's Day weekend for no reason whatsoever other than to spit in the face of 55 years of tradition and once again, spit in the face of the traditional Nascar fan.
I've written for several years that I wouldn't be surprised to see Nascar fold by 2020-2025. Or at the very least, there would be races that weren't televised live any more, if at all. Regrettably, there are enough sheep out there to keep the sport alive but I see no reason to change my prediction about Nascar on television because any sport depends on its traditional fanbase to support it in hard times. Nascar's attendance and ratings have been down for years and it can be traced right back to the unholy trinity's concentrated efforts to run off the traditional fans. MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, Soccer, Tennis, Golf, other auto racing bodies such as Indy and F1, and nearly every other sport I can think of tries at least to innovate but still remaining loyal to their core fanbase. In the case of MLB, I think they try too hard sometimes to do this since it hinders progress that could actually make the game better, but they are at least trying to keep their core fans.
Nascar on the other hand doesn't subscribe to this theory. They think that the fairweather fans are the group they need to go after. I'm not saying they shouldn't try to lure in new fans but I am saying that perhaps if they didn't mess with things that worked to draw in fans for over 50 years previously, perhaps they might actually draw in some new fans without running off millions of fans that Bill France Sr and Jr worked for a combined 55 years to draw in.
I've compared Nascar to the WWE for a variety of reasons. Among many other reasons, there is a major reason this comparison is more valid than many people realize. The question has been asked as to whether Vince McMahon was ashamed of the wrestling business given how much he's worked to make the wrestling business a joke in the eyes of mainstream America. This question needs to be asked of Brian France, Mike Helton, and Bruton Smith. Are they ashamed of stock car racing as a whole and ashamed of the fact that the southeastern US has always been the core group that has made Nascar what it was before they came to ruin it? This, like the case of McMahon, being despite the fact that millions and millions of dollars have gone into their pockets from the very thing they seem to be ashamed of?
Finally, this comparison becomes even more valid because, like the WWE and Vince McMahon, the unholy trinity of Nascar will continue to make money despite themselves because there are enough fairweather fans and sheep who will keep giving them their money for a product that hardly resembles the legitimate product of pre-2004 Nascar which is what I refer to as "Nascar done the right way." As more time passes, they will still continue to make more money because once the current group of fairweather fans move on to the next shiny object on the wall, a new group will come in. Most of whom will not have seen Nascar done properly and will thus not know the difference. Over time, this is how Nascar will survive. Ignorance from their fans who will have never seen the sport run and operated correctly.
So yes, these people will make their money despite themselves just like Vince McMahon.
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