*Disclaimer: This was originally meant to be Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, but I changed it to Mortal Kombat Trilogy, as it was the closest thing I could get to UMK3 for the sake of recording a playthrough of the game.
By the mid 90s, I had this reputation in school and in my neighborhood, of being that kid who always played video games, and that kid who knew how to play the games that others my age couldn't really play at the time. Only my best friend at school, and my cousin had the same level of skill and understanding that I had for games. Everyone else I was friends with discovered a lot of games through me. There was one series in particular, more than any other, that helped solidified my social status among my friends as "that one gamer kid." The Mortal Kombat games. Where I grew up, there were two places to play a myriad of arcade games. The Chuck 'e Cheese, and the local mall. The Mortal Kombat series was extremely taboo for me and my friends, as we were technically not supposed to play the game. But we would play it anyway, talk about it, and speculate over what secrets could be unlocked. I even planned a Mortal Kombat tournament with all of my friends to be held at my house. Too bad it only rained, and only two people showed up. But we all had fun anyway.
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Out of the Mortal Kombat games, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 was the most special because at that point, everyone around me thought I was this amazing gamer who knew what others didn't. I would impress my friends and total strangers when I unlocked Human Smoke, I actually unlocked Classic Sub-Zero in one of the local arcade cabinets in my home area, and when I tried to tell people my cousin was actually better at the game than I was, I would end up accidentally embarrassing him in front of my friends...as Human Smoke (J, if you're reading this, SORRY!). I think out of every game I was invested in back in the 90s, my experience with the Mortal Kombat games was the one most shared between me, my friends, and complete strangers who at the time did not know the kind of secrets that I did.
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