Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1995 Midway Mfg.)
The Story: There’s not much I can say about MK that isn’t already known. It was released shortly after Street Fighter II and ushered in a whole new genre of fighting games. It was blood and gore, it was violent, it started the "fatality" trend and it stirred up so much controversy. It’s the reason why we have an ESRB rating system on video games today. Everyone knows this game, it’s an icon. The sequels are no exception. The most popular, and debateably, the best games in the MK series are MKII & UMK3. But would one of these ever grace my collection?
Heres a little backstory of my own. I had previously owned two MK machines. The first one had been converted to Tekken 2, which is one of my favorite fighting games. However the MK artwork was left in tact, and I had plans to move the Tekken 2 kit to another cabinet and convert this one back into an MK. Well, bigger priorities took place and it never happened, I ended up passing the project on to someone else. About a year later, I picked up another MK, which had both MK and MKII hardware. It was in my collection for awhile, but eventually I traded it for a Donkey Kong Junior game, which I still own. I didnt make plans to buy another MK, but it only took less than 2 months for me to find an absolute bargain on another one. I just couldnt pass it up.
The Score: This one was listed on KC Craigslist with only a brief description of "not working", no photos and no price, just "make an offer". From my expierience, this usually means the seller thinks he has a goldmine and thinks someone will overpay. This seller proved to be the exception. I asked for photos, he sent them. It was a UMK3 kit installed in an original MK cabinet. That same "faded to a pinkish gray" artwork with Johnny Cage and a Dragon on the sides. Otherwise the cabinet looks nice. From what I could tell, the monitor looked nice as well, although all I could see was a bootup screen showing some red and green roms, indicating a board problem. This game was in Kansas City and I had little to offer. The only way I was buying it was cheap and sight unseen. We agree on $75. Ok, good price. Little did I know this would be one of the easiest & cheapest repairs I've ever had to do, so a good deal became even better once I got it home.
The Service: The boot up screen showed an entire section of bad roms, but I had my doubts. After some evaluation of the PCB, I found a problem with a square IC located elsewhere on the board. It's socket had cracked in one of the corners, causing the pins to seperate and not make contact. A simple zip tie around the socket was all it took to bring this one back to life, muahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa! (that was my Shao Kahn laugh if you were wondering).
Otherwise all this game needed was a speaker and 2 cherry switches for the buttons, which I had in my parts bin. The monitor also needed to be degaussed, no problem. By the way, the monitor looks like it's brand spankin' new, and it has a beautiful picture. What a nice bonus. Now on to face Shao Kahn. Toasty!
Heres a little backstory of my own. I had previously owned two MK machines. The first one had been converted to Tekken 2, which is one of my favorite fighting games. However the MK artwork was left in tact, and I had plans to move the Tekken 2 kit to another cabinet and convert this one back into an MK. Well, bigger priorities took place and it never happened, I ended up passing the project on to someone else. About a year later, I picked up another MK, which had both MK and MKII hardware. It was in my collection for awhile, but eventually I traded it for a Donkey Kong Junior game, which I still own. I didnt make plans to buy another MK, but it only took less than 2 months for me to find an absolute bargain on another one. I just couldnt pass it up.
The Score: This one was listed on KC Craigslist with only a brief description of "not working", no photos and no price, just "make an offer". From my expierience, this usually means the seller thinks he has a goldmine and thinks someone will overpay. This seller proved to be the exception. I asked for photos, he sent them. It was a UMK3 kit installed in an original MK cabinet. That same "faded to a pinkish gray" artwork with Johnny Cage and a Dragon on the sides. Otherwise the cabinet looks nice. From what I could tell, the monitor looked nice as well, although all I could see was a bootup screen showing some red and green roms, indicating a board problem. This game was in Kansas City and I had little to offer. The only way I was buying it was cheap and sight unseen. We agree on $75. Ok, good price. Little did I know this would be one of the easiest & cheapest repairs I've ever had to do, so a good deal became even better once I got it home.
The Service: The boot up screen showed an entire section of bad roms, but I had my doubts. After some evaluation of the PCB, I found a problem with a square IC located elsewhere on the board. It's socket had cracked in one of the corners, causing the pins to seperate and not make contact. A simple zip tie around the socket was all it took to bring this one back to life, muahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa! (that was my Shao Kahn laugh if you were wondering).
Otherwise all this game needed was a speaker and 2 cherry switches for the buttons, which I had in my parts bin. The monitor also needed to be degaussed, no problem. By the way, the monitor looks like it's brand spankin' new, and it has a beautiful picture. What a nice bonus. Now on to face Shao Kahn. Toasty!