David Jagneaux here from The Koalition, and in honor of the new Mortal Kombat game and my experiences at the launch, I am going to share everything here with you!
We arrived at the GameStop location pretty early to make sure we got signed up for the tournament and the raffle (more on that later.) As you can see here, after a while they ushered everyone outside where they had a nice TV set up with MK9 on the 360 and two chairs. At first they were doing best of 5 rounds, but since there were over 30 people that was taking too long and they instead switched to best of 3. One of the really great parts of this gathering is the fact that not only were they holding the tournament outside, but on the wall over where you see the guy dressed as Raiden standing, they had an official Mortal Kombat II arcade cabinet!
So, as the official tournament was going on plenty of people were huddled around the oldschool machine playing one another. The man dressed as Raiden pretty much ran that unit, mixing in his own style of sweep kicks and sweep kicks repeatedly, but none the less, continued to win. Alas, he lost in the very first round of the official tournament! Doesn’t seem like that kind of showing does the Thunder God much justice if you ask me.
I wasn’t up until around the middle of the bracket, up until the time I had gone no one had really shown much promise and none of the winners even knew a single fatality. This is probably because no one had played the demo, everyone seemed to pretty much be major 360 fanboys. Well, when it was my turn up I immediately selected Mileena as I liked her in MK2 and loved her in the demo, it was an easy selection. My opponent selected the Spectre of the Netherrealm himself, Scorpion.
I make short work of him, not ever getting below half health and winning both matches back-to-back. I then wow the crowd as being the only person that did their homework and knew a fatality to perform. After the rest of the people fought and the pool was halved, soon enough my second round was up. This time I faced even less resistance in the way of Cyrax, I am still unsure as to how this player got past the first round. After a bit more waiting I went up against a player who used Sub-Zero. This was probably my second hardest match up of the night, as Sub-Zero’s freeze clone is strategic in neutralizing Mileena’s roll and her teleport kick forces her to land on it as well. No worries, however, as I won both matches again.
Now as the tournament started heating up the crowd started to get even more dense. We were down to the elite of the elite at this tournament and most of the rounds were getting closer. In my next match I took on a little 8-year old boy who was apparantly a pro with Baracka. His parents were there rooting him on, (while his father lost in the first round.) I could have easily gotten double-flawless against him, but I am not a completely heartless person and let him keep it close, but still made sure to win both my matches back -to-back to keep my streak going. We exchanged high fives and I congratulated him on a great tournament.
After the rest of this round ended we were down to the final four of the tournament. I had been observing the guy that I would be playing as, and he was definitely skilled with Kabal. His timing on the spin-dash was perfect and he was going to be a tough contender if I wasn’t careful. Our first match was relatively close as I played a very offensive fight and squeaked out the win. The second fight was different as I mixed up my game plan and mostly fought from a distance, shooting my projectile and teleporting-kicking when I needed to get close. I won both matches again and was headed into the finals. Once the final match came up I was matched against none other than…the room mate that I cam to this event with and have been practicing with for days! He picked Scorpion and I Mileena, as the rematch for ultimate glory was about to happen.
Our first fight I made quick work of him, countering and preempting his moves as we have fought many times. The second fight was much closer, and I ended up winning off of a slight glitch in the game where my teleport-kick should have probably missed, but connected anyways. I was way ahead at that point, so it didn’t make a huge difference. I did my last fatality of the night (as I had did one with every win and had been the only person that knew how to do one the entire night) and became the champion of Mortal Kombat!
DAVID JAGNEAUX WINS! FATALITY! FLAWLESS VICTORY!
This night was not over, however, as I went in to claim my prize and this is also where things began to get extremely disappointing and frustrating. My room mate preordered and picked up a copy of the Kollector’s version of Mortal Kombat for his 360, which is why I did not buy the game. However, I was under the impression the winner of the tournament would receive a copy of the game, as I had seen advertisements online at other GameStop lcoations and it seems like the logical prize. This was not the case, however, as the winner of the random raffling got a copy of the PS3 version of the game (the system I own.) The winner of the tournament (me) ended up with a $5 GameStop gift card and the Kollector’s Strategy Guide, which is nice. My room mate also got a beautiful poster for second place.
As if that was not frustrating enough, across the parking lot behind the GameStop, there was a massive MK tour trailer that was hosting a separate tournament inside a WalMart and gave away a Kollector’s edition of the game for PS3 to the winner. Well, we decided to head on over because we heard they also had free t-shirts and even though the tournament was over, we were not too dissaspointed:
We went up to them and asked about everything when we were informed about the situation. They were even out of t-shirts! They decided to play us for fun anyways, as the hosts claimed to be much better than the winners of the tournament, so I decided to test my might against them. We sat down on the wonderful couches inside the trailer and got ready to face off in Mortal Kombat once again.
Well, I won both matches against him and even got a flawless victory on him in one of the rounds. So, to recap: I won the tournament that did not give out the game then beat somebody that was better than somebody that did win the tournament that gave out the game. Fate is interesting, is it not? I also grabbed a picture of the truck pulling that trailer, which is equally beautiful:
So, just as we thought the night was pretty much over, the man dressed as Raiden seemed to appear out of nowhere (as I am sure he often does) and we struck up conversation. We had talked multiple times throughout the night and he had expressed his hopes that I won the tournament, as he was impressed with my skills in controlling Mileena. He felt sorry for me that I did not receive a copy of the game, as he expected the winner to received one as well, so he even gave me his extra t-shirt he had gotten from the tour trailer earlier that night. Pretty nice shirt for free, I would say.
And that concludes my journey to the top of the tournament and becoming the champion of Mortal Kombat. Did you have as much reading about it as I did experiencing it? Do you feel bad about me not getting a PS3 copy and want to hook me up? Or do you just love the game as well and want to leave your thoughts? Either way, comment below and have a Flawless day!
