The Chivalry Chronicles
We discuss topics such as Brotherhood, Masculinity, and Fatherhood. A modern manly approach to chivalry.
Or better yet, Guys Stuff that Guys Do, Cuz We're Guys.
The Chivalry Chronicles
Episode 033 (Chivalry After Hours) - "Finish Him"
Leo, Joaquin, and Jaime discuss Mortal Kombat.
- First introduction to Mortal Kombat.
- Differences between consoles.
- Favorite characters.
- Opening Moves.
Issue a verdict.
if by some chance some stroke of luck or some act of god you have stumbled upon this broadcast you are listening to the chivalry chronicles with your host dr dlh
SPEAKER_00:i'm a damn doctor
SPEAKER_02:David. We're going to bring the
SPEAKER_01:tea. I refuse to not drink during the podcast.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And me, Jaime. They need to make podcast equipment a lot more expensive to get some of these clowns off the air. Gather around as we discuss a modern manly approach to chivalry. So I hope you're ready because I know we are. So let's get into it. Yeah, we're back. And today we're going to talk about Mortal Kombat. And basically we're sitting here. I'm sitting here with Joaquin, who plays Mortal Kombat quite often. And then we brought somewhat of an expert. Is that what you would say, Lil? An expert on Mortal Kombat? Yeah. Oh, we're not going to do that?
SPEAKER_03:No. We're not doing that. We're self-proclaimed or anything. It's okay to just know a little bit about stuff. It's okay to just... You can dabble.
SPEAKER_02:So, well, we've been playing Mortal Kombat as a family for about, I don't know, since 1992, since it came out. It was a game that we played... we would go to the local grocery store with our little roll of quarters. And back in the day, you know, there was a line to play this game, right? So whoever played the game would remain playing the game. And then you would walk up with your little quarters and put them saying, I got next. And then usually there was one person that just beat everybody. And, you know, you just kind of went through the, I guess the training, I guess we'll call it training, right? You just get your ass whooped a lot. But the game came out in 92. Before that, I don't think you had. I mean, you had Street Fighter, but you didn't have something like this. It was a little bit different. And, of course, we played it throughout high school, man, off into college. And then now we're kind of passing that gift on to kids. to my kid, right? And my sister's son and, you know, all our nephews. So Joaquin got introduced to, oh, Joaquin is here. So introduce yourself, sir.
SPEAKER_01:What's up, y'all? I'm Joaquin. Nice to meet y'all.
SPEAKER_02:And then, of course, we have Lel, who played Mortal Kombat with us forever. So I was talking to Joaquin. I said, hey, you know, you want to talk about Mortal Kombat on the podcast? And he's like, yeah. So So let's discuss your first introduction, Joaquin. Well, yours, Lel, your first introduction to Mortal Kombat, when you started playing it, and then we'll go to Joaquin. So go ahead. I
SPEAKER_03:think I'm pretty sure we saw Mortal Kombat 1 in arcade. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. And, you know, that blew up because of the, you know, obviously the fatalities, right? It's different from Street Fighter. I was still a Street Fighter person, you know. If you made me pick, I'd pick Street Fighter. Mortal Kombat was something you never seen before, Blood and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And then it finally came to home consoles, and that's where it really got into it on Sega, Genesis, and Super Nintendo.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And what were the differences? Do you remember the differences between Super Nintendo and Sega?
SPEAKER_03:Well, Super Nintendo had better graphics.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_03:And plus, if I'm not mistaken, that Mortal Kombat one on Mortal Kombat game, Super Nintendo didn't have blood or fatalities. I could be tripping.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you had to unlock them, I think. Remember, you had to. Yeah, you had to punch in the code to get all that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you had to punch in the code before and then you get the blood. You're right. Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And the Sega Genesis was like faster, like so much faster than than Super Nintendo.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Right, because Hector, our cousin that lived down the street, he had a Super Nintendo and he had Mortal Kombat. We had the Genesis
SPEAKER_02:and
SPEAKER_03:Mortal Kombat on there, I think. I don't remember if you had to do the code thing with both of them. But Mortal Kombat 1 was kind of like, get your feet wet. This is a new thing. Figure that out. And then Mortal Kombat 2 is when it really blew up for me. Mortal Kombat 2 and Mortal Kombat 3, and it was over. That was all the arcades. the freaking movie theater, the grocery store, the literal arcade inside of town, these malls, it was called tilt.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Right. So that's all we did on the weekend. Let's go play Mortal Kombat, which is for a concept. Now it goes to play video games. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:We didn't even go to the movies. We just go, we go to the Mortal Kombat. Yeah. That's how you do play Mortal Kombat. And back in the day they had it at malls. They had like one, they, they would rent out the space and it would have nothing but, video games in it and i don't even know if they have that anymore i can't think of i know one one of joaquin's parties there was a a truck that showed up at the front of the house and they had a bunch of games and so the kids were all you know the whatever game
SPEAKER_03:yeah they have like novelty bars now and stuff like that but or you know like dave and busters will have how many video games do they have anymore
SPEAKER_02:right dave and busters that's right All right, Joaquin, when did you get introduced to Mortal Kombat? Do you remember which version? I
SPEAKER_01:remember playing Xbox 360. Okay. And then I think you got me the Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe. Okay. So that's when I started playing. And then we slowly bumped up to
SPEAKER_02:X. X. And then when do you feel like you got a handle on it? Like, okay, I can hold my own against... you know, better opponents.
SPEAKER_01:Probably an ex. Yeah. Yeah. Because playing Marvel DC, like it was kind of easy. Like they would, it would just, they would take it easy on you rather than playing against y'all like an ex. Then I started thinking that I could hold my own.
SPEAKER_02:So do you remember your training that Mr. Asim gave you? What do you remember most about that?
SPEAKER_01:He taught me really how to use the joystick rather than the buttons or like the arrows because it was faster. Yeah. And that's what I do now. I use the joysticks rather than the arrows.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Yeah. Funny story, right? When I pledged our fraternity, one of the first meetings is like you just, we went to this park and that's when you're, You're basically rushing. Rushing is what you do before you pledge. You know, you go meet the guys and then you get a bid. But anyway, they took all these, I guess they took a TV or something and they set it up to play Mortal Kombat and a couple of other games. So when I showed up, it was Mr. Asim, right? It was Stan Bertrand, which you met Dan, his brother. And it was Ron, Ron Harrell, which you met Ron at the Rangers game.
UNKNOWN:Right.
SPEAKER_02:And I was like, oh man, this is my wheelhouse, right? This is what we've been doing. Basically, at that point, this was 94. It was a couple of years. It was like two, three years that we'd been playing this. And I remember playing Stan. And I would use a katana at the time. This was Mortal Kombat 2. And you know how you get him in a corner, you... You do the levitation, you throw the fans, and then you uppercut them. Basically, it's like a makeshift combo. And they were like, oh, damn! Because, you know, Asim and Stan were like the Mortal Kombat gurus of that, you know, of Ode-Fi. And so when you come
SPEAKER_03:in...
SPEAKER_02:And so when you come in and you got something, they're like... Oh, okay. All right. I didn't mean to mess around with y'all. But I remember playing that game. That was the first time I met those guys. And the fact that it was over Mortal Kombat, it was kind of cool. But anyway, so now that we know which one you started playing, is there specific characters or do we want to go into a little bit of history of Mortal Kombat or do you want to just get into it because it's Joaquin's podcast?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:What do you want to do, Joaquin? Just get into your best characters, your favorite
SPEAKER_01:characters. I mean, we could. We couldn't go wrong with that.
SPEAKER_02:All right. So tell us your favorite characters. Which ones do you like using? And which ones do you feel you're the best at?
SPEAKER_01:Of all time?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I mean, it's up to you. Whatever you want to do.
SPEAKER_01:Well, recently I've been playing with Kung Lao. Okay. You went old
SPEAKER_02:school, okay?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I've been playing with Kung Lao because... You can get up close and then still be good with range. Like he could throw the hat. And then within one, he uppercuts you and you're just standing there for a good two seconds. So you can basically do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So I feel I'm the best right now with Kung Lao.
SPEAKER_02:Really? Yeah. That's cool. So normally you have a couple of characters, right? So Kung Lao's your best right now. Who are your other two characters that you like using?
SPEAKER_01:My other two? I would have to go with Noob Saibot. Really? Noob Saibot.
SPEAKER_02:Now we got to play tonight or something. Well,
SPEAKER_01:after you get off work. Yeah, I get off at like 1030.
SPEAKER_02:If DLL's up.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, he'll be
SPEAKER_03:up. Yeah, no, we were playing the other night, and Joaquin and a team were doing some craziness with Noob Saibot. I remember.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Okay, what's that? So Kung Lao, Noob Saibot, and what's your? Liu Kang. Liu Kang? Damn, so you went old school. Okay. So you think you're the best with Kung Lao right now? And then, okay, all right. All right, Lyle, what are your best characters? I mean, if you want to stick to, like, the new Mortal Kombat, if you want to go back to Mortal Kombat 2, whatever you want to do, like, what do you think your top three characters are?
SPEAKER_03:Well, first, you know, first we can go ahead and say that first Mortal Kombat game is trash, because it is. Very personal. Just try to play that game right now if you can access it anywhere. But anyway... But Mortal Kombat 2, like you were talking about, Kitana,
SPEAKER_02:I
SPEAKER_03:was pretty good with Kitana. So you almost always go back and use your, oh, we got to stick to, if you don't know the game at all, it's like, we got to stick to Kitana fundamentals here. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, stick to the basics. If the game is too crazy and you haven't caught up yet, you don't know what you're doing. But Kitana has always been a favorite.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And Mortal Kombat 3, I'm just going to say the ones where I was dominant with. Mortal Kombat 2 was Kitana. Mortal Kombat 3 was Nightwolf.
SPEAKER_02:Nightwolf was a great character.
SPEAKER_03:He had his thumb hawk and he had his little slide and then he would deflect projectiles. He was a great foil for people that liked Sub-Zero.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the force field he would use.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he would deflect the ice back to Sub-Zero and freeze him.
SPEAKER_00:So
SPEAKER_03:he was a good character, had good defense, good offense. But Nightwolf, Kitana, I stuck with those two. Because then it starts to get a little, you know, some of those games in the middle, I wasn't messing with Mortal Kombat 4 and a lot of others. We don't have to go into all that. But beyond those two, I guess, you know, Liu Kang was always a good... I guess we're all using legacy characters. I guess that's what we're rolling with. But if I had to pick somebody new that wasn't a legacy character, maybe like Ermac. I don't know when he showed up, but Mortal Kombat 9 was pretty good with him. And then I was even using him in the new game, the original. Is there
SPEAKER_02:a character you're like, man, I wish I would... Because I've seen the scene play with most of the characters, and he's really good with most of them. But is there a character that you're like, man, I wish I could use this character to its fullest potential? You know what I'm saying? Because there's a bunch of real fun characters. They're like, man, they kind of suck when you meet up with somebody that's really good. You're like, man, I can't use that
SPEAKER_03:one.
SPEAKER_02:I got to go back to it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. You mean on the new game?
SPEAKER_02:No, just any one of them. I always like Cyrax. Cyrax, I thought, was a great character. I thought it was a fun character. But if you really want to win, you can't. I mean, you have to be really, really good to be able to potent with Cyrax. But I always thought I always liked him. Cyrax. Well, basically, Mortal Kombat 2, right? They introduced Cyrax. No, that was Mortal Kombat 3. Three. Yeah, you're right. Three. And what was the other one?
SPEAKER_03:Cyrax and Sektor.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Sektor. Yeah. I mean, those were, like, really cool when they introduced them. And I was always like, man, I kind of wish I'd brush up on those, but I never really did. Yeah, those are the characters that I kind of like. So your top ones were, you said, Nightwolf, Liu Kang, and who else?
SPEAKER_03:Katana.
SPEAKER_02:Katana,
SPEAKER_03:yeah. And then just for the sake of picking someone newer, Ermac.
SPEAKER_02:Ermac. So none of y'all picked Scorpion, even though everybody uses Scorpion. So, in our family, right, this is, I don't know if I've ever told you, Joaquin, but all of us played, right? All four of us played. And the oldest, you know, Cruz, his two characters were Scorpion and Reptile. And that was it, like, right? Did he use anyone else? I don't think so. Yeah. Tio Pancho, right, was Raiden, Liu Kang. I mean, Molina, right? I would use Sub-Zero, Katana, and man, I really like using Cabal, and I don't know why they got rid of him. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I think he's, no, not in the new one, right? Is he in the latest one, Joaquin? No, he was in the previous one. I was like, man, that's, that character, that was actually Cabal for Halloween one time when we were at A&M.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I found a mask that looked just like Cabal's. Well,
SPEAKER_03:I'm not caught up on the whole story. I don't know what's happening because it's Mortal Kombat 1. We don't got to get into the convoluted timeline of the game and stuff either. Right. I don't know where he's at.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And of course, Lel just stated his, you know, which was Nightwolf. He said Aramak was one of the new ones, Katana. And what was the other one?
SPEAKER_03:Liu Kang, although Kung Lao is a cool character, but he was right on that. He was always a nice change of pace because he has that kick in the air, you show up and he comes at you diagonally.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yeah. That's cool. And then I always thought it was kind of funny, or not even funny, but it's whenever we played against each other, we knew, we basically knew what you were going to do, but you still did it anyway. So it was like, Attack, attack, attack. And then the other would be block, block, block. And then you kind of did your moves in succession, but there was no damage because you knew exactly what the other person was going to do. It's kind of testing them, making sure they're not, oh, shit, I got caught slipping.
SPEAKER_00:I knew
SPEAKER_02:you were going to do that. But I think that's the fun part about playing against someone regularly all the time. I mean, it's very strategic, right? You got to catch them slipping. And it's never something like, it's always something very small that you didn't do, right? You didn't hold block long enough. And then it's over.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that's a weird concept. If you're a street fighter person, having a block button.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Because when you go, if you start to go back and forth, you're like, ah, I'm playing too much Mortal Kombat or I'm trying to press block. Right. You know, it's hard to, you know, kick that. from one game to the next.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Joaquin, do you have opening moves that you do all the time that you're like, I'm going to do these moves and test how much you know? Or do you just start... However it goes, it goes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I got opening
SPEAKER_02:moves for Kung. Go ahead. Let's see what you got. I can't spell that.
SPEAKER_03:I'm just trying to bait you into giving up your offense.
SPEAKER_02:No, I
SPEAKER_03:mean,
SPEAKER_02:people that know are going to figure it out anyway. So is there a specific move? I'm going to tell you right now, I jump at you right off the get-go. And you know that. Lel knows that. Asim definitely knows that. That's just, you know, I'm either going to jump forward or jump back. And it depends on what you're doing, right? And then once I start attacking, I'm just going to keep attacking until it stops. And then I'm going to retreat a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Recently, I've been throwing the hat right off the jump. So you're more focused on the hat than me pulling up right now. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:And then you have your simple moves, right, where you come in with the kick, and then you sweep, and then you uppercut. You know what I'm saying? Like, you can always do those moves. And that's what I guess Lel was alluding to. Like, if you don't really know a character, just get one of the old characters and just do simple, your, like, bread and butter moves. Yeah. And that'll get you by most of the time, you know, until you figure out fatalities or combos. When they introduced combos, I was like, oh, my God, it's over.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because if somebody gets you up in the air and starts... Yeah,
SPEAKER_03:that's what I was going to say. The newer games, I don't know where it changed the gameplay. If you go up in the air, you may never come back down. Somebody knows what they're doing. The jungle combos are crazy on the new Mortal Kombat games.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I guess, Lel, if you wanted to go into... I know Street Fighter is more like the rock, paper, scissors stuff. But do you see similarities between the rock, paper, scissors stuff on Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat?
SPEAKER_03:I mean, Mortal Kombat changed over the years, right? Like, I thought what was cool about Mortal Kombat in the early years is it wasn't, you know, Mortal Kombat was different from Street Fighter. Street Fighter is all, you know, circles, half circles and everything. A dragon punch is one of the most elaborate things we've ever done. When you're the first time you see it, like, how do I do that? And you gotta be real fast.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_03:Mortal Kombat was always like a back, back, something back forward, something, you know, down, down something, you know, it was different. Like mechanics are different. So it made it a change of pace, like something new that you hadn't seen before.
SPEAKER_00:As
SPEAKER_03:the years go on right now, it's kind of becoming more like a, like a, I don't want to say it's like Street Fighter, but, I don't think we'll ever see a Mortal Kombat versus Street Fighter game. It would be crazy. Everyone would buy it, right? Yeah, it's a
SPEAKER_02:moneymaker.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly. I don't know if you can make it work. Street Fighter has crossed over with everything. I don't know. It's weird. It's taken me a long time to get used to the new Mortal Kombat games because I jumped back in in 9 and that one is one of my favorite things. It's the best one of these games since
SPEAKER_00:They've
SPEAKER_03:been making modern Mortal Kombat games. I don't dislike the new Mortal Kombat 1. Don't ask why it's called Mortal Kombat
SPEAKER_02:1. Yeah, I thought that was crazy. Why are we going backwards? Give me a timeline. Make it 20 or something because this resetting is kind of crazy. Whenever you're playing... How do you– okay, I'm going to tell you right now. When I play and I play long enough, my freaking thumb, like the nail part of my thumb, it's like hurts for the rest of the week. When you're playing, like– because you play a lot more than I do now, right? Do you still– does your freaking thumb
SPEAKER_01:nail hurt?
UNKNOWN:No.
SPEAKER_01:I don't really use, like, the top of my finger. I use, like, the bridge right in the middle so I can
SPEAKER_00:hook it.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Gives me better grip. So my finger doesn't really hurt. Really? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Damn, got a veteran, dog. It's all calloused over. And which version do you like the best out of the Mortal Kombat's that we do have? I think we have, like, four, maybe. I'd have to choose X. X. Is that the most current one, or is that the one before? That's
SPEAKER_01:the one before one. Like, that's the one we used to play. That one had Cabal. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03:All right. That might have been when they first started, what you call it, cameo characters.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the two. No. No, that wasn't it?
SPEAKER_03:No.
SPEAKER_02:The
SPEAKER_01:guest characters or whatever. The DLC ones with Jason.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And do you like the new characters like that? Because I know they had Rambo. In X or in 1? No, no, I'm just saying new characters in general, like Robocop, Spawn. Do you like those as part of the
SPEAKER_01:gaming? I mean, they're cool. They're fun. But they suck. You can't win with those.
SPEAKER_03:Which one had Predator and the, what do you call it? The aliens? The Xenomorph. That was X.
SPEAKER_01:That was cool. Yeah. But Spawn was slow. Spawn was really slow. Yeah. He was too heavy. And then same thing with Rambo. Like you really couldn't do anything with Rambo. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And then the one you were playing with the other day, Ghostface? No. He's terrible. He's crawling around on the ground and he's just lumbering, cumbersome. He's just kind of
SPEAKER_01:like, what? I feel like you have to know his combos. You have to be good with him. because he's honestly slow, too. All the new characters are really slow.
SPEAKER_02:And which one is the one that's ridiculously strong? Omni-Man? Yeah, that's crap.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's my new favorite. My new favorite.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's crap. It's just
SPEAKER_01:flying at
SPEAKER_02:you? Yeah, that's just... Come on, man.
SPEAKER_03:And who's the other dude?
SPEAKER_01:Who's the
SPEAKER_03:other dude? Homelander?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I haven't used Homelander. I've yet to use
SPEAKER_03:Homelander. Not as good as Omni-Man, but same concept. Like Superman on your old games that you were talking
SPEAKER_01:about. Yeah. Did that Terminator character release yet? Duelo?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, he's out. He's out. And then, what you call him? Conan. Which is, I was just telling you before.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I was just telling you before we were rolling. He's just touched from the old Killer Instinct game, which is cool.
SPEAKER_02:Tusk, he was hard to fight against because his freaking sword is like half the screen. It's like, man, I can't do anything. It's like Jade. It's like Jade and X. Love Jade. That was one of my new favorite characters.
SPEAKER_01:With the staff. With the staff. Just creep up and uppercut. That's what you used to do. Every time.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm going to tell you right now. Joaquin had this thing with Baraka where that dude just came and kicks at you and I'm like, come on, man. It was kind of like if you got caught slipping, it he'd got you pretty good. So then I started using Jade. So I had way longer reach. I would just do the, the blade spark. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And then that's too. Yeah. He would just
SPEAKER_02:keep, keep sending the blade sparks and it would take like 20% every time. It's like, come on.
SPEAKER_01:You blocked the first one and then I send the next one. So the, I mean, it always worked and that would creep up with the kick, but you always had that uppercut. It was just annoying. Cause I knew you were
SPEAKER_03:going to do it. Yeah. Well, I think
SPEAKER_02:at the beginning when we first started playing, it was just kind of like, you know, I would, you don't go hard, right? You just kind of, you just do the basics and you try to teach them how to play. I never go super easy on them. Cause I, I don't think that's right either. Like you should give them some kind of effort so that they can, so that they can like work up to it. Right. But I think maybe like two or three years ago, I was like, okay, let's go. And then he started getting better. Right. And then when we went to go visit you and it was you and the seam and And then I think his knowledge kind of exponentially grew that night because we played all night. And I think when you go through that kind of that hazing session, you know, you...
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because at one point that night, Joaquin was playing you with one hand and he was on social media taking selfies, beating you. And you didn't even notice. And then you saw him doing that and then it ramped up the... yeah
SPEAKER_02:yeah because he tried he started feeling himself and i'm like i'm just playing like you know we're having a good time here hey we're kissing and hugging like in goodfellas next time you act like a jerk you know that was like oh okay uh it's like that not now you know i'm gonna let's go all out and then yeah and then it was over but every every once in a while right As the older brother, as the dad, you got to show them every once in a while, okay, you know what? You're not that good. You know what I'm saying? You just got to ramp up for those 15, 20 minutes of good-ass whoopings, and then you kind of let it go. You're like, okay, learn some
SPEAKER_03:more. I got to tell you, Joaquin, they didn't take it easy on me. It was like, you suck at this game, and we're going to show you why you suck. So when people ask me, like... You know your dad. He's super competitive. People ask me if I'm competitive. No. I just don't want to see Jaime win.
SPEAKER_02:Love's full of crap. He's competitive as well.
SPEAKER_01:When he wins, he gets cocky about it. It's like he talks about it to the next morning.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I do? I do. Do you
SPEAKER_01:hear this?
SPEAKER_02:Do you hear this? The cockiest kid. You just said it. He's taking selfies. I'm just kind of having a good time, right? And then I was like, oh, okay. And then we're going to play for real. This is the cockiest kid you're ever going to meet. Talking about I'm cocky. Like, come on, man. I get it from you. And
SPEAKER_03:that night we were playing Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat. We were playing Tekken. We were playing, you name it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what was the other game? The one with the, no, no, no. The one we played the other night. The one Asim has, it's like Warrior, whatever. Yeah. Combat Warrior, whatever it is. Oh, King of Fighters. King of Fighters, there you go. Where you got all these freaking... I was like, okay, this dude's... This is Ken right here. I'm just gonna use him. You just gotta find the Street Fighter counterpart, and then you're good. But until you do that, it's kind
SPEAKER_03:of...
SPEAKER_02:I don't understand that game.
SPEAKER_03:No, it's like... It's all the SNK characters. No, it's a great game. King of Fighters 15, so, you know, we're a little late into the... last cycle of
SPEAKER_02:those games. I don't know. It's a fun time. We played a couple months ago. I think you called us. I was like, everybody's on. Let's go. I will say, I think, I don't know how we weren't able to, Joaquin and I here at our house, be online with you and Asim and Rogelio or whatever brother was with us. Why can't we do that? You know what I'm saying? Like, what do you mean? Well, we have two consoles. That's why we only have, we're already logged into one account. I know, but I'm saying like you and I couldn't be there. You know what I'm saying? Like,
SPEAKER_03:what do
SPEAKER_02:you
SPEAKER_03:mean? Oh, it's because the, the, the like online mode and Mortal Kombat is just kind of stuck.
SPEAKER_02:It's, it's a single user. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like you and I couldn't, we had to, we had to pass the, pass the remote or pass the, pass the stick. Right. Like you and I couldn't be playing against each other while they're watching. Yeah. Yeah. So that kind of sucked. I mean, we
SPEAKER_01:could, we could just screen
SPEAKER_02:share, but yeah, I guess so. That means we just have to buy another console.
SPEAKER_03:Street Fighter 6 has a real cool game hub where you're, you're walking around as your like character and you're in an arcade. I think, have we played? Have we all played? No. so you're all you're walking around you can find a room or create a room and you're just walking around this arcade and you can play other Capcom games in the arcade and then you go to the you know cabinet or whatever and you both sit there and then you enter and then the third player can just watch while y'all are playing it's like the virtual version of I got next what you were talking about with my quarter order so that's cool
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so we talked about the inception of Mortal Kombat, the different consoles, favorite characters, beginning moves. At what point, Joaquin, did you go, okay, I'm getting pretty good now? At what point did you feel like, okay, I can pretty much match up against most people? There's people that are just elite. They
SPEAKER_01:have tournaments for those people.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's crazy.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, how good do you think you are right now?
SPEAKER_01:On a scale of 1 to 10?
SPEAKER_02:On a scale of 1 to 10, do you think you can match up with... I'm not talking about those crazy people that that's all they do. I'm talking about just your run-of-the-mill people that play the game. Where do you think you stack up?
SPEAKER_01:I feel like I could put myself at a 7.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not really at like an 8 or a 9 like Asim is right now.
SPEAKER_02:Asim is pretty next level. Like, I... You know, I remember playing against Asim when we were in college, which was, like, 30 years ago. Damn near 30 years ago, yeah. It was 94 when I met him. And, man, when we played a couple years ago, I was like, Asim is advanced to, like, just some crazy level. Like, it's like, damn. It was pretty eye-opening because I don't remember him being, like, super, like, just five levels ahead of you you know what i'm saying like it just but he some people do that some people are that good and plus you know we i quit playing mortal kombat somewhere in 2000 and then we picked it up with i guess whenever the one that you remember that's when we went and bought it again and then now we're starting to play it again so it's it's one of those things but lel when when did you when did you like okay i'm straight like i can i can match up against anybody
SPEAKER_03:I was somewhere in the arcade, making the rounds in the arcade, Mortal Kombat 2. There were dudes that would be at the arcade every weekend.
SPEAKER_00:They were
SPEAKER_03:just there to flex, right? And I was like, if you could beat that
SPEAKER_00:dude.
SPEAKER_03:So I had that moment on Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3. But then I turned into that person. I would go to try to bully people around. All I need is... 50 cents and I'll be good for the whole day or whatever, you know, talking smack like that. Yeah. Buncha always tells the story how we were at the movies. I think we were actually going to the movies this time. So we, you know, let's go play some Mortal Kombat 3 while we're waiting or whatever. And there was this dude who was good and he was the one that was schooling people. And it's like, all right, let's go see, let's go assess the situation here. So, you know, I put my quarter down And then I was using Nightwolf, and he's Sub-Zero, which I just, you know, I said earlier, that's the perfect foil for Sub-Zero. And so his, like, buddy was telling me, like, no, watch out, because he's doing blah, blah, blah, and he's doing this. And this might just be perfectly on his part. Like, I beat the dude, and he punches the screen. He's like, no, buddy.
SPEAKER_02:You know what? I remember going those times, and the dude that was, there was one guy, like you were saying, That was really good. But I remember that dude looking old, like he was in his 30s. Yeah. And we were like, what, 18, 17? You know what I'm saying? I was like 13 or something. Yeah, and I was like, what is this old guy doing here? Go somewhere. Did you have to go pick up your social security check? Right. And now we're the
SPEAKER_03:old guys. Yeah, exactly. We are that guy.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But yeah, it was around that. Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 in the arcades. And then once you could get it on a home console, and that was really the death of the arcades. But at that point, it was like, all right, I can... I mean, I wasn't playing tournaments or anything because I don't know how that would have gone. But at that point, I was like, I can hang. But this was a long time ago. I don't think I can play these new ones all that well. It takes some practice.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Joaquin, do you have the one game that you felt that you played to perfection? You know, one time you came out like, yeah, that was my best effort right there. Like against y'all? Yeah, or just against anyone. But mostly against us because that's who you play against.
SPEAKER_01:Probably that night when we made Asim buy all the DLC packs.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know if we made Asim do anything.
SPEAKER_01:Asim wanted to. We
SPEAKER_02:suggested he just needed a little nudge.
SPEAKER_01:We were like, he wanted to. You could see it on his face.
SPEAKER_03:Probably that night. And then even now he'll say, like, let's play the game that y'all made me buy.
UNKNOWN:Yeah, he did.
SPEAKER_01:He was hyping it up, so we just, we hyped it up too.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And I think it was cool, like, back in the day, you would pack up your whole system. Like, I would pack it up and go home when we were in college, right? And you'd take it everywhere, just about. Like, all right, let's hook up the game.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Or, well, it's through this famous saying, like, hook up the game, you went to college. Yeah, you
SPEAKER_02:went to, come on, college boy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, major in consoles. Yeah, my major was in
SPEAKER_02:consoles. All right, Joaquin, what else you got on Mortal Kombat and or game playing? Any tips for beginners? Anything that you would say, hey, if you're starting out playing Mortal Kombat, this is what I suggest.
SPEAKER_01:If you're starting out on Mortal Kombat, I would suggest playing the towers first. Really? Practice. Play the towers first. And set the hard setting. Put the hard setting on. And you'll learn. You'll learn fast. Really? Play the towers. Do practice. And you'll learn. That's why I love playing against people that are better than me. Yeah. So I can see what they do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. I think whenever... that was talking about walking up to that dude i don't think we anytime we walked up to somebody that's just sitting there has a line behind them i don't think you automatically just jump in i think you just kind of sit there and watch him a little bit see what he does you know is how good is he because then you know if you need to bring your a game but that it's always good to play against people that are a lot better they they know certain things and especially like That's why when I kind of enjoyed watching you play with Asim, because Asim was actually coaching, I was like, damn, Asim's giving up some trade secrets and
SPEAKER_03:stuff here. Yeah. I was taking notes in the corner.
SPEAKER_02:I was secretly videotaping him. Trying to recreate it as my own material. Catch me next time for more tips on Mortal Kombat. Like and subscribe. Yeah, like and subscribe and hit that notification. Anything else you got on Mortal
SPEAKER_01:Kombat? No. Like I said, just play the towers. It's better playing the towers because it's against computer rather than going straight online because going straight online, they're going to talk. They're going to ruin it. So, I mean, play the towers first and then once you're comfortable... Winning on the towers consecutively and get online.
SPEAKER_02:What about beverages? Do you sit there with the Red Bull or the Monster and root beer? Root beer? Oh, my God. That's what gets you going? Yep. What if you're on a... I mean, we used to play for hours on end. I'm talking about 10 hours was never... That was kind of the minimum on weekends that we played. And... When you play with your buddies, do they play Mortal Kombat? No. None of them? No. Zach plays NCAA.
SPEAKER_01:I
SPEAKER_02:was about to buy that game too. But yeah, that's what BLL wants us to get. So none of them play Mortal Kombat. Really? Yeah. It's too old school. They're like, what's that? None is old.
SPEAKER_01:The big baby is about it. They don't want to play it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Damn. So what... What are the kids in high school playing now? What's the big game? Fortnite. Yeah. Not really Fortnite. No, it's kind of played out now. It's NCAA for sure. Really?
SPEAKER_01:And then Call of Duty.
SPEAKER_02:Call of Duty still? Yeah. Call of Duty has been, they've been, man, they said they maintain it's been a good 10 years. They've just been running with the market. The only thing I don't like about Call of Duty is it's a single person shooter type stuff. And it's just too much running around. I'm like,
SPEAKER_03:bring back Command& Conquer.
SPEAKER_02:Command& Conquer was awesome. They don't even make it anymore. I lost my copies. I let somebody borrow it and they never gave it back. Duke Nukem was a great game when we were in college because you could connect different computers back before you just had access to the internet and stuff like that. But it was, you go around and just shoot each other. That was it. Goldeneye, remember Goldeneye?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That game was awesome.
SPEAKER_03:Most people would say that that was like, maybe not the first person shooter, but like it's the multiplayer.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Because you could play on the Nintendo 64, you could play with four people.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. And it was
SPEAKER_03:a game changer.
SPEAKER_02:So I'm going to ask Joaquin when he's going to get off my PS2, my account. I made him an account like 10 years ago, and he's never used it. When are you going to get off of mine? Because when you go off to college, I'm going to need my name back, dog.
SPEAKER_01:I'm going to take the console with me. They'll let us know you can buy you another one, but I'm going to
SPEAKER_02:take that. Yeah, but I need my account is what I'm saying. You need to get your own account. I got all my stuff on your account, though. I'm not giving up my account, man. Between now and August, you need to start slowly merging your stuff on somewhere else. Because
SPEAKER_03:you've had Heimdall since PS3 days. I know. It's been
SPEAKER_02:my... What do you call it? What do they call your name? It's been my handle for 30 years, dawg. This fool here just... And I made him an account. There's still an account there existing that you need to go ahead and start using. It's on PS4, though. Playboy. It's the same account.
SPEAKER_00:All
SPEAKER_02:right. So are we going to do a board approved? Do you have a... Oh,
SPEAKER_03:real quick. Did we get 14's favorite Mortal Kombat game?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. What was your favorite Mortal Kombat game? X. X was good. I liked X.
SPEAKER_01:Because I got introduced to Noob Saibot. so
SPEAKER_02:yeah i'm gonna say that one was pretty good i like those the one before this one that we had the one with 11 yeah 11 i kind of liked i mean i don't like the i mean i think the characters are cool because i think it had a joker on it and all i mean they those characters do suck but yeah probably x x is probably pretty good yeah That's the one with the... Who's the dude? The Aztec warrior? Oh, Koro Khan? Man, that dude. It's like,
SPEAKER_01:what the hell? Turned into a... Was it a
SPEAKER_02:panther?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, something like that. Yeah, that was mine. Then he got taken off. He
SPEAKER_02:got booted. I know. I guess they do that so that they can bring him back at some point. Yeah, I think those two were pretty good. My all-time favorite is probably... Mortal Kombat 3, just because the subway, I mean, all that stuff. You know, all our different sayings that we would say, you know what I'm saying? Like, that just became a part of the game.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. You'd send somebody through the roof right onto the next level. And it was not Bushwick Bill, but I can take you to that other level.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:it's so stupid
SPEAKER_03:some of the stuff was that from the chronic i don't remember what song
SPEAKER_02:yeah i think it was from the chronic second nature but it was just like you know i thought it was one day we're we're here i'm already in san antonio been over here like 10 12 years and we're playing poker and One of the other guys was at the table and he was from Delta, right? And he's like, you ain't Russian. I don't know why you stalling. I was like, what the
SPEAKER_00:hell?
SPEAKER_03:How the hell? No, that reminded me while sitting with all your buddies from all your first time buddies. And I was like, all right, we're in San Antonio. Might as well see a flock.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, because I was like, Man, we've been using that since, you know, 1990. Yeah,
SPEAKER_03:but that one was, you ain't Hitler, so you must be Stalin. Yeah, you ain't Hitler, you must be Stalin.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you ain't Russian, why you keep... Well, no, it's like, you're not Stalin, why you do not as Russian?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, what the hell?
SPEAKER_02:Because we'll discuss... We'll discuss Madden and some other podcasts so we can go through those, you know, different sayings and all that stuff that we used to do and the crazy rules that our oldest brother had that didn't make any sense. But anyway, any last words, Joaquini?
SPEAKER_01:No, I'm good.
SPEAKER_02:So where can we catch you on Mortal Kombat? Tonight. Tonight. Tonight at 1130. 1130. You got that? Be there. Lil, we'll call you. Yeah. Heimdog, right? Yeah. We'll call you. That's soon to change here in the fall of 2025. I'm going to need my handle back. All right. Board approved. What's the best Mortal Kombat? Joaquin? X.
SPEAKER_03:Lil? I kind of like 2011 Mortal Kombat 9.
SPEAKER_02:Mortal Kombat 9.
SPEAKER_03:That one
SPEAKER_02:was cool. Okay. So we're not going to agree on which is the best one. But for the sake of this podcast, I kind of like X2. So there you go. If you can get your hands on Mortal Kombat 3, that's pretty good. Ultimate. Mortal Kombat 3 Ultimate. Yeah. The Ultimate. X is pretty good. Mortal Kombat 2 was pretty good also.
SPEAKER_03:You can get that in what you call an arcade one-up now, like an old cabinet.
SPEAKER_00:I
SPEAKER_03:might also think about buying one of those. I don't know why I would do such a thing, but I might do it.
SPEAKER_02:But there you go. I know, you know, like I guess Joaquin let us in that nobody in high school plays it nowadays. This is 2025, but it's a great game. You know, go out there and do a couple of Fatalities, maybe do a Bay Ballad-y. maybe a brutality friendship which is like the worst thing that somebody can do to you but we should have really talked about fatalities
SPEAKER_03:we used to do friendship all the time no yeah the fatalities are just out of control now like back in the day back in the day it was just you know I'm gonna pull pull your arms off like that's cool and now it's like you can have that's cool now it's just torture porn it's like all right it's crazy
SPEAKER_01:yeah like there's animalities now too
SPEAKER_02:no there's always oh yeah yeah animality started with what with three maybe yeah it was three
SPEAKER_01:yeah the ones in the ones in one is crazy they're crazy you look them up
SPEAKER_02:yeah my favorite one i think out of the animalities was was sub-zero because he turned into a polar bear it's just yeah
SPEAKER_03:you get the bear
SPEAKER_02:yeah
SPEAKER_03:We didn't even talk about, Jaime, that you had to go searching for the fatalities. You didn't know how to do them.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah. So, yeah, quick story before we end this podcast. When I got to college, this was fall of 94, and it's Texas A&M, and there was a building. It was called the Blocker Building. And it just was a computer room that the students would use to go. If you didn't have a computer, you'd go to Blocker, and they had a bunch of computers everywhere. And so somewhere in 94, 95, well, I got to college in 92. So somewhere in 93 to 94, getting introduced to the Internet. Like, the Internet wasn't a thing, right? Or at least it wasn't in our house. You go to college, there's this thing called the Internet. And they're like, yeah, ask it whatever, and it has tons of information. And the first thing I think I asked her was like, Mortal Kombat Fatalities. And it gave me a printout at every single fatality. I was like, print. And one of the first things I did is I mailed it to Leo. I physically put it in an envelope and sent it to him. So we had this manuscript of nothing but fatalities for like the longest time that you'd break out whenever you start playing. So yeah, that was like, That's when I knew the internet was the greatest thing ever invented. Because you get fatality. Now you can just go to the game and press pause. Joaquin likes to study before we play all the time. That's you. I'm like, man, this ain't no pop quiz. Let's go.
SPEAKER_03:He's like, what's a fatality? Hey, because the wind doesn't count if you don't do the fatality.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it doesn't count. Yeah, it doesn't count if you don't do a fatality. And
SPEAKER_01:now it's the respect thing. Yeah, the respect. You get zero respect. After you just hit a fatality, it's zero. I totally forgot about that. It's like zero respect. Yeah. That don't make no sense, dog. I remember a scene gave me one respect
SPEAKER_02:one time. One respect. No respect. Whenever they try to do a fatality and it fails, it's like, ah, I blocked your shit. Oh, my God. All right. So there you go. Board approved. Mortal Kombat's a great game. Thank you, guys. Joaquin, I'm going to need you to come with a little bit more next time. You've been a little too quiet. All right. Thank you, guys. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with others. Post about it on your social media and or leave a rating and review. To catch all the latest from us, you can follow us on Instagram and X. So thanks again, and we'll see you next time.
