[M-A-G]

I stumbled across the first game's machine in an H-E-B market. This was the time when any Tom, Dick, and Harry business had some arcade cabinet as a way to keep people busy. It was one of the worst times for my parents because I would always bail on what they were doing just so I could check out what was up. I found lots of games in that fashion, like Street Fighter 2, Ninja Baseball Batman, and Darkstalkers. Smart phones? Oh, no, sweetie. Back then you needed a pocket of quarters to pass the time entertaining yourself.

Obviously the thing that stuck with me after grabbing my attention was the graphics. It looked nothing like the majority of other games, aside from Pit Fighter. Then there was blood and straight up killing your opponent? What red-blooded American young boy wasn't going to be drawn to that?

I became obsessed with the series during those early years. When I discovered a local card shop had managed to get a cabinet of the first game, I freaked out. Normally we had to travel out of town to the big cities for places that had games. Now there was an honest-to-goodness real Mortal Kombat machine in my piss ant backwater hometown?!? I had to get there on my own because no way my parents would take me. I actually walked to it after school, missing the bus home just so I could check it out. Oh, boy, were my parents pissed.

Things just snowballed from the first game as the sequel blew my mind and the third game looked really interesting from all of the first looks I would see in magazines. I'll probably do a game-by-game analysis here in the coming days. I've got some visual aides that I want to track down.