How did people figure out Fatalities and such back in the day?

[FlyingGuy]

k, im not sure why i started thinking about this... but for me anyway, its a valid question.
back in the day, how would people find out about Fatalities and such related moves (mortal kombat, killer instinct, eternal champions, etc...)

this always confused me, cause no matter which of the games we played, my buddy always knew all that crap, all the cccccombo breakers, EVERY damn fatality, everything. i just chalked it up to him being cambodian. but for reals, was there like a hot line you could call and they would tell you, was this stuff published in old scholl gaming magazines? or was it just in the asians dna? (joking) i remeber my frined Tysa (cambodian) tought me the raging demon on xmen vs Sf... and i was thinking... how the F--- do u know this?

anyways... discuss

[lonewolf6465]

gamepro the magazine.
trying different button combinations.

[Septimus Prime]

I learned stuff from magazines and word-of-mouth back then.

[anch]

I think gamefaqs started way back in 1994 or 1995. Back then I dont even know wtf AOL is. So if ppl use the message board or post a faq the fatalities should be solved in no time. Other possibility, gaming magazines like Nintendo Power (they have their hotline, I remember it was 99 cents a minute, never called)

Out of the 3 games, I play KI on SNES. It was quite easy to figure everything out but the no mercy moves. Just try to imitate the comp and do simlar stuff on practice, then you will leech the combo to your mind.

For raging demon I think you could look that up in SF:A manual (I think tahts when it first started); arent the buttons all the same?

[Shadowcuz]

magazines and strategy guides

[Taito]

The old days when fighting game skills and secrets were learned by word of mouth and the random luck of playing in an arcade filled with highlevel players.. instead of just doing a search on Google or Youtube.

(Oh god I'm fucking old)

[FlyingGuy]

word of mouth is kinda what i thought... one guys makes the call to Midway and asks about fatalities... and that $200 call makes him the most popular dude at the arcade.

[Donger]

*Old guy coming out of a cave*

Back when MK first started, people posted on the newsgroup alt.games.mk. That was basically the community, just like a.g.sf2 was the precursor to srk.

We'd see the computer do the stuff once in a blue moon, and go crazy trying to figure out how to do that. It basically consisted of mashing the directions/buttons until something worked....then reporting back to the community on what general motions needed to be done.

The initial MK2 stuff was about the same, but alot of stuff (friendships and stupid shit), were slowly leaked by Midway devs/insiders; this was similar to the NBA Jam cheat codes. Side note: No one ever figured out - to my knowledge- how to get the cheerleaders in the original NBA Jam, if they ever existed.

The first time randomly getting Sub-Zero's fatality totally ruled, the whole arcade jumped up and down....ahh the memories....

*Old guy goes back to the cave*

[Rhio2k]

Side note: No one ever figured out - to my knowledge- how to get the cheerleaders in the original NBA Jam, if they ever existed.

Kerri Hoskins ftw!

[Taito]

The first time randomly getting Sub-Zero's fatality totally ruled, the whole arcade jumped up and down....ahh the memories....

Seriously.. it was just crazy to see something like Kano tear a guy's heart out, or a pit fatality, back when 100% of console and arcade games were censored and squeaky-clean. It's something that somebody just getting into video games recently will never experience.

(God damn I'm old)

[SF Punker]

I remember when my friends and I first saw MK in a bowling alley arcade. We thought the digitized graphics ang blood were soooo cool. I also remember when my friend did the Sub-Zero head rip by accident...all he wanted to do was just walk up and uppercut the other guy and I guess through a random spasm or whatever BAM! head rip.

[FreddyL0c0]

Dear Gertrude

Hello

It has been a while since we last conversed. I remember back when i was a youngling, i used to play this game called mario, it was fun, innovative and revolutionary. So much so, that when mario jumped, i did the same, much to the chagrin of my parents, who thought i was too hyper for my age Now when i tell my grandchildren about it, they tell "silly grandpapi, mario is for kids!" oy i got to go get my cane....brb


yeah fatalities were crazy

[y45hiro]

Back when MK first started, people posted on the newsgroup alt.games.mk.


lol i encountered 'the internet' only after i own a psx... back then during 1st MK-era i didn't even know it existed (stupid 3rd world country)


ah yeah i still remember that i have to wait certain issue of EGM/gamepro imported from certain bookstores... and normally they only gave the info piece by piece i.e. this week special moves, next week fatalities, next two weeks other craps like babalities, etc.

[H-F Blade]

Back in those days, gaming magazines were much more popular and in each issue they'd reveal some of the secrets and other stuff that could be found in the game. I remember that one of my bro's friends knew the MK games inside out because he subscribed to like 3 different gaming magazines. It was neat how the Genesis version of MK1 had the blood code and fatalities. SNES version on the other hand had the better graphics but nothing of the sort. It was replaced with sweat or something. <.<

[LingPanda.]

Printing out faq's from gamefaqs and selling them at the arcade. $2 a set. :wgrin:

[Stevie White]

Printing out faq's from gamefaqs and selling them at the arcade. $2 a set. :wgrin:

I remember when MK3 came out, I had ripped out a page from EGM 2 [EGM 2!] with all of the fatality commands listed on it and carried it with me to an Arcade in Avalon, New Jersey with me. Some change guy offered me a $10 roll for it after he saw me explode the world with Smoke and I turned him down flat.

God, I was such a tool back then. :sweat:

[spudlyff8fan]

Tips n Tricks Monthly.

[Infested Jester]

MK1 word of mouth, it didn't take long before all 7 were found.

I was on a REALLY shitty BBS about a month before MK2 hit, in fact half the people on it didn't even believe me when it finally did come out. The first version of MK2 had only 7 fatalities available so that didn't take too long to find, once the second version came out with Babalities and Frienships a new one was found about every 3 to 4 days. I also remember Shang Tsungs Kintaro fatality wasn't found til quite some time and it was nice charging people money for a few days for that one. :lol: Good times: :tup:

[CYBORG COP]

Yeah, I always wondered about this. The complete fatalities and such were not in the game magazines until well after the games were around, and by that time all of the secrets were already known. I was a pre-teen at the time, and it seemed like all the older kids in their teens knew the secrets, and were usually nice enough to let you in on some. I guess they just knew how to use the internet and I didn't, lol. One guy told me his friend pulled the fatalities from Midway's computers--hax0r, lol.

Damn, nothing will ever compare to the hype of MK2. Nothing.

[evilmuffinmanX]

mashing

[Infested Jester]

mashing

I thought you were leaving you frog obsessed freak.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd1dbzuZ0c0

[Shag]

The first time randomly getting Sub-Zero's fatality totally ruled, the whole arcade jumped up and down....ahh the memories....

Seriously.. it was just crazy to see something like Kano tear a guy's heart out, or a pit fatality, back when 100% of console and arcade games were censored and squeaky-clean. It's something that somebody just getting into video games recently will never experience.

I remember the very first time I played MK on the arcade machine. :woot:

The game just came out 2 days before in our area. There was like seven guys around and on my turn I picked Kano. I got out his axe projectile a couple of times just trying out SF moves. I won and at "FINISH HIM!" I instinctively walked up to the Subzero and did a fireball motion with punch. When the screen got dark, people were like "What's going on?" Then Kano reached inside his chest and pulled his heart out and everybody went CRAZY!!! :wow:

Then of course everybody looked at me like I was some god and asked me questions like "How did you do that?!, You know any other moves?" and I just said I don't know yo, I did a fireball and he did it. :wonder:

I lost my next match trying to experiment but it didn't matter; I was king for a day! When new people walked in guys would point me out and say "Yo, he pulled someones heart out!" :cool:

[dialupsucky]

Word of mouth for most games.... Around the SFA1 time, gamefan was a good mag. IIRC they had in there mag about dan,akuma,m.bison before anyone else... But maybe im remembering wrong....


As for eternal champions, I dont think anyone needed anything for that, since they were all basicly easy enough to do accidently at least once and then you just went from there.

[Infested Jester]

As for eternal champions, I dont think anyone needed anything for that, since they were all basicly easy enough to do accidently at least once and then you just went from there.

Overkills, Sudden Deaths, and Cinekills yes....but Vendettas are done just like a normal fatlity but a bit harder. You have to dizzy your opponent with I think 5% or less health, then input the command.

I remember it took a few weeks for people to find the Desperation moves in Fatal Fury Special for the characters that weren't in 2. I bought the AES version when it came out and it was killing me to see the computer do Kaiser Wave and Raising Storm and not knowing how to do them myself.

[MegamanDS]

www.happypuppy.com

print 20+ pages of moves,fatalities,babalities,friendship,max. combo

[dog-face]

I remember the day we got Alpha 1 in Phoenix. I went to the arcade to play and two guys had printed out the codes for Dan, Akuma and Bison. And they knew Akuma's raging demon.

When me and my pal asked where they got this stuff, they replied, "the internet."

We hated them and their knowledge. We called them "inter-nerds."

[Preppy]

The initial MK2 stuff was about the same, but alot of stuff (friendships and stupid shit), were slowly leaked by Midway devs/insiders; this was similar to the NBA Jam cheat codes. Side note: No one ever figured out - to my knowledge- how to get the cheerleaders in the original NBA Jam, if they ever existed.They weren't in the home version for Genesis (detectable because you were #X of Y, and all of Y was accounted for once Warren Moon was found) -- I don't know if they were arcade-only. It'd be interesting to look at an arcade ROM dump and see if they really were there.

There's still stuff that people have to randomly find out about. obot randomly sent me a link to how to unlock characters on Japanese MvC2 arcade systems... it's annoying when people put in these easter eggs/features and nobody ever knows about them. We need somebody to go through the old files at CapCom and Midway and dump out all these long last secrets. :tup:

As far as hype about MK2-- don't forget the unlocking characters from the MK3 series. My friends and I spent wayyy too much time trying to unlock them.

[Lord BBH]

In the days of MK1 it was all word of mouth for us. It took several months before we knew all 7 fatalities... I think Scorpion's was found first, then Kano's, then I forget the order of the rest. Somewhere along the way I did Sub-Zero's accidentally just like a couple other of you in this thread, but couldn't figure out the exact motion... I always just spazzed and hit High Punch and hoped for the best.

I think by the time MK2 came out, the internet was gaining a little more momentum (mostly on college campuses) and people were able to share/discuss these things a little easier.

In 1994 I didn't have real internet access, but I did connect to a local bulletin board system that had special bulletin boards that were connected with other BBS'es around the country. So by then it was becoming a lot faster to learn these things, especially for Killer Instinct, which was the big game at the time.

In a way I do kinda miss the days when a new game would show up in the arcade and nobody knew a thing about it...

[WasFemto]

I never really found out about the internet 'till MK2 was half-way through it's life span...I think or maybe a little earlier.

I remember walking by MK1 and thinking it looked lame as shit. Then one day on the news they were talking about violence in video games and showed Sub-Zero hear rip fatality and my heart nearly stopped from the badassness.

[goodm0urning]

Gaming rags, AGSF2.

Also, if someone figured something out at random, you could ask them. You'd probably get a wrong answer, but only because they'd think there was more to the move than there actually was.

[GreyFoxx]

Shoot same here on Mags and early tips and tricks. Literally went too my local Sterk's in the dead of winter mind you and photo-copied like 20 pages of PSX/GEN/SNES codes. Literally wasted like 5 dollars printing it all out. Later found out i killed the copying machine ahh those were the days. Used too know scrops flame move and subs head rip...curious anybody do that special werid finishing move with Raiden in 2 in the lava stage?

[lNllClK]

I remember the very first time I played MK on the arcade machine. :woot:

The game just came out 2 days before in our area. There was like seven guys around and on my turn I picked Kano. I got out his axe projectile a couple of times just trying out SF moves. I won and at "FINISH HIM!" I instinctively walked up to the Subzero and did a fireball motion with punch. When the screen got dark, people were like "What's going on?" Then Kano reached inside his chest and pulled his heart out and everybody went CRAZY!!! :wow:

Then of course everybody looked at me like I was some god and asked me questions like "How did you do that?!, You know any other moves?" and I just said I don't know yo, I did a fireball and he did it. :wonder:

I lost my next match trying to experiment but it didn't matter; I was king for a day! When new people walked in guys would point me out and say "Yo, he pulled someones heart out!" :cool:

haha that's great! i can just imagine the whole ordeal... if only the scene was still like that ya know? at least where i live it's not the same...

[GalzPanic]

When I was like 11, I went to the liquor store. They had Mk2. Some dood had a printout of all the fatalbabies etc.

I ask, "where did you get that?"

"The internet"

"What's that?"

[Dr. Stormlocke]

... also remember Shang Tsungs Kintaro fatality wasn't found til quite some time and it was nice charging people money for a few days for that one. :lol: Good times: :tup:

I'll always remember that. Didn't you have to hold LP for 30 seconds or some garbage? The whole arcade went into a collective 'WTF' after witnessing that one. I also remember bringing in my EGMs into Round Table Pizza to play Killer Instinct.

I briefly recall people messing around with the codes on the loading screen in UMK3 before the game kinda died out.

Random tangent but, the greatest non-fighting game example of this: you were supposed to know that in Castlevania II you have to crouch in front of a cliff for 30 seconds then get whisked away by a tornado, haha. Seriously what the hell?

[Digitalbooty]

It was all about magazines back then. I remember going to school in the fith grade and this kid Nick was talking to this other kid about Street Fighter 2. I was like, WTF is Street Fighter 1? there was hype and back then it was all mags and word of mouth.



On a side note, I remember when I walked into malibu arcade and saw Rainbow edition. that was WAY better than any fatalities imo. Fucking crazy ass older kids with their crazy ass air fb's and switching characters. lol

[Super Warrior]

I learned stuff from magazines and word-of-mouth back then.

Yup. Not much if any internet back in those days.

[omni]

*High fives Donger regarding the old men coming out of the cave*

There was no such thing as gamefaqs back then. It was all alt.games.mk and rec.games.video.arcade. Hell..the internet didn't even have graphics - just text and that shit still crawled on my 2400 baud modem. Damn kids and their fast internet...

I remember learning Sub Zero's fatality then trying to do it on another machine for my girlfriend at the time and it wouldn't work and she was just laughing at me. Later I found out that this particular machine had the blood turned off and all the fatalities. Bastards. I also took that same girl to go watch Street Fighter the movie the first day it came out. Lets just say after that and abandoning my whole family on Thanksgiving day because that was when the 1st version of MK2 came out - she didn't stuck around for much longer.

But yeah, mostly word of mouth and dope ass printouts from dot matrix printers - so you had like 20 pages all attached and those little thigns on the side to rip off...and of course that shit got stuck and everything got printed on the same line.

Derek Daniels
http://lowfierce.blogspot.com

[rising_player]

When I bought killer instinct for SNES it came with a manual for the game, and that manual listed 1 finishing move for each character along with some other basic moves.

Afterwards when I got good at the game I played it at the arcades and saw some guy doing a different finishing move with Cinder so I was like thinking to myself "Whoa there are more than1 finishing moves for this game now"

Then I asked him how to do it and said that I knew another different finishing move so we just taught eachother how do each finishing move.

Basically that was how I learned, by asking people and reading the game manual.

[RenoROB]

all I have to say is one name... Patrick McCarran on undernet on irc... there was an mk chat room and he and his crew that lived in chicago knew people i believed in midway and they would slowly leak new fatalities and stuff way before newsgroups or faqs... i use to remember getting new fatalities and going to the local arcade and people would go nuts wondering how i knew all the new fatalies before anyone else had even heard of it....

he also was the info man for most midway fatalities like War Gods... now that was a trip on how anyone could have ever been able to figure out any of the fatality on their own w/o some help

renorob

::god this will really show my age:: hehe

[metrock1]

They Just know how too. Do you have to teach fat mexicans to drink beer....................No you dont of course not, its in our blood.

Does your buddy Teysa still play?

Whats up Tony Loc

[hubcapsignstop]

and i still cant get Nimbus Tarafax

[SNkNuT]

haha back then fatalities were passed on by word of mouth, by people who were fortunante enough to obtain the code from some gaming mag or tip line or the old days of the internet of that sort. i remember some guy was selling MK2 movelists at the arcade.

[Hentai]

Here in Austin, (at Showplace Lanes) these mexican guys were doing all the fatalities in MK2 and when people would ask how to do it they would charge 1$... So I just started telling people for free... they got pissed.

I also used to own "The Goldmine" at Highland Mall with E. Honda and Guile in WW... Some kid was like "HEY THEY MADE STREET FIGHTER 2, 2!" "what?" It's like this but has all the bosses! its like 2 part 2!" "yeah kid, whatever :rolleyes:" like a month later CE came out.

[FlyingGuy]

They Just know how too. Do you have to teach fat mexicans to drink beer....................No you dont of course not, its in our blood.

Does your buddy Teysa still play?

Whats up Tony Loc

haha, whats up.... nah, i havent talked to my buddy in years, i just remember him being able to do EVERY DAMN THING in any game. pissed me off to no end. anyways... i remember when MK1 first came out and i knocked someone off the bridge... i was like WTF!?!?!?!?!?

METROCK--- we gotta get together for some games at the mall or something... gimme a call whenever

[elvis_a_presley]

Magazines, BBS (bulletin board systems), newsgroups.

My guess is 90% of the people here are too young to remember the last two as they were pre-internet. :)

[surewhyyoucan]

Ah, memories. Bringing a newsgroup printout (edited, two pages to one....save that print quota!), pulling it out while wating for my quarter to light up, passing it around.

The first time I saw Ken's uppercut in CE.....!GASP!

[Hentai]

Ah, memories. Bringing a newsgroup printout (edited, two pages to one....save that print quota!), pulling it out while wating for my quarter to light up, passing it around.

The first time I saw Ken's uppercut in CE.....!GASP!

Honda's 100-hand MOVES! :amazed:

[RushedDown]

yeah bbs systems was were most shit came from way back

i remember walking into my local arcade to like 50 people around 2 machines it was mk2 lol


i use to sell complete mk2 movelists with all the fatalities and all that shit for 5 bucks at my local arcade
i was like 14 or so
thats how i made my game playing money lol

[Mycah Leonhart]

For us young poor minorities from the hood it was Nintendo Power, Gamepro and EGM/EGM2

I didn't know what the net was till like '95 or so back when Ultra 64 was still dubbed "Ultra Nintendo" around the days of KI and Crusin' USA.

[H-F Blade]

Damn, all this talk about MK makes me kinda wanna play the games again with all their broken combos. xD

[Devil X]

i remember i was the first regular to figure out a finishing move in mk1 where i played, it was liu kangs. i was just mashing the joystick and everyone flipped out, before that they were just doing like uppercuts to finish :wgrin:

[Rioting Soul]

Ed Boon told one guy and he played the telephone game.

[TrunksSS3]

i remember playing MK1 and MK2 in this pizza shop had the arcade's and i learned the fatality from videogame magazine's. i forgot which ones...but i remember beating everyone and they stay and watch me play till i end the game so they can watch me do fatality's on the comp lolz

[goodm0urning]

Ed Boon told one guy and he played the telephone game."Down down up high kick purple monkey dishwasher."

[Maj]

I remember the day we got Alpha 1 in Phoenix. I went to the arcade to play and two guys had printed out the codes for Dan, Akuma and Bison. And they knew Akuma's raging demon.

When me and my pal asked where they got this stuff, they replied, "the internet."

We hated them and their knowledge. We called them "inter-nerds."

Hahaha that last line makes me laugh nonstop.

[Infested Jester]

Funny story that just came to mind.

Back when people were still hunting for MKII fatalities I had just gotten Scorpions neck slice one from my BBS. I went down to my arcade and there was this fat older kid playing and he pulled it off. So I'm just watching, and then I notice these 2 little kids come over and ask him for it. He was a real prick and wouldn't tell them, they looked so sad after he denied them. So then another dude comes up and asks him after he pulls it a second time, and he won't tell him either. Normally I'd keep this shit to myself for at least a little while so I could show off, then I'd just spill it, but this prick was obviously not gonna say a word. So instead of just beating him and doing "his" fatality on him, I drove back home and printed up large signs with the command on it. I came back and taped it to the top of the machine and on the side. I found the two kids and showed them, they were so fuckin happy after learning it and pulling it off. Fat bastard was at another game, but he kept walking by and giving me dirty looks, he finally just left by shoving the front doors open and sighing.

[Stevie White]

Fat bastard was at another game, but he kept walking by and giving me dirty looks, he finally just left by shoving the front doors open and sighing.

Quoted for old school arcade justice. I miss watching those kind of assholes get theirs.

[Hentai]

Anyone remember the first time they saw the MK1 Johnny Cage Fatality glitch? Personally I liked doing the fatality followed by a shadow kick over multiple heads, but that’s me.

[Infested Jester]

Anyone remember the first time they saw the MK1 Johnny Cage Fatality glitch? Personally I liked doing the fatality followed by a shadow kick over multiple heads, but that’s me.

Oh hell yeah.....I liked Fatility, nut punch, head reappears, then shadow kick. Think that one only worked on Raiden and Liu Kang though. My best on the ninjas was 3 heads followed by shadow kick.

Speaking of Liu Kang I'm sure everyone knows, whiff the fatality, shoot 3 fireballs, then do it. ^_^