Johnny Cage Wins

YES! Finally! It took longer time than I anticipated and a lot of frustration but I finally beat the game with Johnny Cage. Only 6 more characters left to go...YAY! Ugh...I already kinda regret choosing this game to be the fist one to beat. It's pretty damn hard. I play up to 5 matches per day with pauses between them because I start to rage and lose all focus after failing a few times in a row. Getting through endurance stages where you have to fight 2 opponents in a row with the same health bar is the hardest part of the game. I have no trouble with the end bosses. I just wish I could start with endurance matches right away because beating all the other fighters before feels like a time wasting chore with no risk involved.

*cough* MK Annihilation*cough* 

Kano is the next character I'm gonna use and I think this time it'll go faster. On my first playthrough with him I got to the final endurance stage without even knowing how to do his special spinning attack.

Next to play: Mortal Kombat

Game: Mortal Kombat
Release Date: 1994 (1992 original arcade)
Platform: PC (MS-DOS)

Konditions: Beat the game with every single character on medium difficulty with 4 credits available. No character switching during the game. Beat Reptile at the bottom of the pit.




I actually already started playing this game a few months ago, really casually, one match every couple of days. When I chose this game I figured that I'd beat it with all the characters in about a week. I was very wrong. This game is kicking my ass! I still haven't beaten it with a single character and I only faced Shang Tsung once so far.

I've seen this screen at least a hundred times already

I chose Johnny Cage as my first character. I have mastered all of his moves but sometimes I have a problem that I accidentally do a leg sweep instead of shadow kick in a critical moment which ends up costing me the game. It happens because keyboard controls are not very precise and far from ideal for fighting game controls. I tried plugging in a controller and it surprisingly worked but for some reason the character would always crouch as if the down button was pressed all the time. I tested the controller with some other games and it worked just fine. My keyboard binds are probably not ideal (WASD for movement, J and K for punches, N and M for kicks) but I got used to this layout already so I'm not going to change it.

Let's dance

Placebo difficulty levels
This game is pretty hard. I know about back and forth jumping while kicking abuse method but it doesn't help every time. It happens often that I get flawless victory in the first round but in the second AI suddenly becomes godlike and perfectly blocks or counters my every move. There are 5 difficulty levels, ranging from "very easy" to "very hard". In frustration I tried to lower the difficulty to very easy once and I had some trouble in early stages. Then I put it back on medium and won with double flawless victory against the same opponents. It just feels so random. I think Johnny is one of the weaker fighters and I'm looking forward to playing other characters with much better special moves. The only character that I'm not looking forward to use is Sonya. She has some good throws but it's useless against AI which always throws faster than you.

He is not that hard actually, getting to him is the hard part

Right now I can consistently get to endurance stage 2. Since I started this blog, I will try to play more often and with a more focused mindset. I don't think this game will be a problem to beat after all and I hope my skill will transfer to sequels.

Start

Welcome to Gaming Catch-Up. I am a hardcore gamer who had to put gaming aside for the last 8 years (except for some Quake here and there). Now, in my mid-twenties, I'm back and I have some catching up to do. Unfortunately I have to start with some older games until a buy a new PC because right now I only have a very old laptop. There will be no list of the games that I'm supposed to beat because if there was, it would be endless. Initially the idea was to start with games from my backlog. I picked Mortal Kombat 4 to be the first one to beat because I thought that a fighting game would be an easy one to finish. Soon my OCD and completionist spirit kicked in and told me that I can't just start with a 4th installment in the series, I have to beat the previous 3 games first. When I get a good gaming PC, I plan to play newer games along with old the ones. I'd also like to get my hands on other platforms that I don't have and maybe even build a game collection in the process.

The Rules

1. I can choose whatever game I want to play
2. I have to finish the game before moving on to the next one
3. For each game I will set conditions which have to be fulfilled in order for it to be counted as "finished" *

* For single player game it could be beating a main story and seeing credits roll. For multiplayer games it can be a specific amount of hours put into them. For some genres like fighting games it could be something like beat the game with every single character. I have the right to change the conditions in case they turn out to be unrealistic or impossible for me to achieve.


All game ratings will be completely subjective.

Favorite games: 

Quake III / Live, Deus Ex, System Shock 2, RTCW: Enemy Territory, Pokemon Yellow

Systems owned:
PC, PS2, Mega Drive, Game Boy Pocket, GBA