Interview with Tom Brady

Tom Brady, the Mortal Kombat communities anti-hero. I first met Bill at Devastation, and to be honest, I didn’t like him. Something about him rubbed me the wrong way. After an east coast vs west coast feud (which was purely for the hype and for fun) I figured if I had any qualms with Tom, it would be handled at MLG. Tom is a real classy guy, believe it or not, and I am glad I was able to talk to him in Anaheim.

Name

Bill M.- Tom Brady Twitter-@MK_Tombrady

Age

35

Location

East Coast

How long you have played the MK series?

92, since MK1

What makes you play this fighter over other fighters? Do you play and compete in other fighters?

I like the franchise, one of the more consistent fighting games and though it has its bugs, MK9 is a step in the right direction. I also play Tekken 6 The Soul Calibur series and Dead or Alive.

What would you tell other fighting game players about MK to get them into this series?

It’s a game that’s truly fun to play casually or competitively.

How have you liked the MLG experience?

I love MLG and I think it is helping the video game subculture become a true profession.

Will you be attending EVO? Why or why not?

Yes. This is very important for the community and tournaments like Evo help to rope in more players.

If you could compare MK to anything else in the world what would it be and why?

Professional Wrestling- Personalities, gimmicks, the casual viewer has a favorite player to watch and MK characters are iconic fighting game figures.

If you were an MK character what would their intro line be?

May the best man win.

 

He added,

“I love the community very much and thank you for the support.”

 

Tom imbues classiness. He has grown as a figure in the Mortal Kombat community and I appreciate his presence. Though I don’t agree with all of his tactics and how he goes about some things, so is life! I truly enjoyed getting this tidbit from Tom and, to be honest, it changed my view on him. He loves this community and wants to help it grow. One cannot bash a man for a love so genuine.

Mortal Kombat Saturday

Saturday.

Game day.

Hype as hell.

I woke up that morning at 6 and could only think of placing well at MLG.

Myself and DC_Network were at my friends house in Hacienda Heights, Ca. About 45 minutes away from the venue in Anaheim. DC hadn’t registered yet for the tournament so we had to get there early. The morning started off much like during my other competition mornings. A set regimen. Got all my hygienic stuff out of the way first, paced around for a good thirty minutes in complete silence and thought only about the game. Much like in my days of football past, I was focused. I felt that people wanted me to place well in this tournament, the numerous friends I had garnered wished me well, but I wanted to do good. I wanted my Ermac to be respected.

I knew it was going to be warm in the venue but I brought a hoodie anyway to support the fictitious “HOOD TIER” northern california movement. I was set and ready to go.

DC_Network and I arrived at the venue around 9:30 and he got set up.

Walking into the  arena was awesome. Dr.Pepper booth to the right, a huge Starcraft 2 statue to the left. Hundreds of stations for computers and huge monitors showing gameplay. As cliche as it might sound, stepping into the arena, as a competitor, is absolutely breath taking.

I walk over to the Fighting game section and see Alex “Detroitballn” Rayis practicing, alone. I greet him, talk for a bit, and we proceed to demolish me in casuals.

After playing him for a while I went on a search for notepad paper to begin writing my interviews. It took a good thirty minutes to find the gift shop, but when I found it I bought a Mickey Mouse notepad. The perfect album of  happiness to keep my mortal kombat interviews.

…

Once Mortal Kombat started all the tournament nerves came at once. I knew how to handle them though. Those same nerves I felt during MLG, I felt before every football game, every scrimmage, every time I waited for the ball to be snapped. I learned how to push those feelings aside and focus.

I win my first two matches, one by disqualification because he didn’t show up.., but lost my next two games.

Being eliminated was, obviously, disheartening. I was ready to quit

I watched the end of day 1 fighting and went home in silence, contemplating retiring from the scene that I had become most competitive with.

Mortal Kombat Sunday

My original PS3 slim broke down months ago, so before today I hadn’t had any real time playing Mortal Kombat, or any games on the playstation at all. A few days ago my roommate brought his playstaion 3 up and I got to get back into the game. All the new tech my main, Ermac, had seen the past few weeks had gotten me hyped to try them out and see if I could master them. The very first day I hopped into practice mode and tried the ‘Big-D’ special. It came out once out of at lease 120 tries. I shit you not, I tried over and over and over and when I finally gave up I was so deflated I was thinking about putting the game down altogether. The frustration of not succeeding had plagued me for a while when it came to Mortal Kombat. My inability to crack a top 4 spot and the stagnation I felt when playing my character has made me want to quit a few more times than I’d like to admit. My sights are on obviously a top spot at MLG Anaheim, but at the time I didn’t feel like I should even attend.

After quitting for the night, I hop back on MK and try to get into a groove. I play online against a few randoms first, to get back used to online and did well against them. I play mainly people who I have met off of MKU or TYM and, to this day, not one has disappointed as far as skill.

 

Today is Sunday 6/3/2012, and this is the day I wanted to start my blog on last minute preparations for Anaheim. The purpose of this blog is to show my activities, as far as MK is handled, and how I get ready for a tournament the magnitude of MLG Anaheim.  While I won’t talk about every single match in casuals and every minute of Mortal Kombat that is going on, I will try to give you the gist of how things have worked out for me in the day.

For one, I have learned that NOT playing Mortal Kombat for spans of times can help me to be more successful. After playing for hours upon hours and days upon days, one can become stagnant, especially when playing online, I feel. When playing online you have less human interaction than an offline casuals settings. This takes absolutely nothing away from ‘online players’ because, technically, over 95% of us are online players. I pulled that percent out of my ass, but you get it. This is the third day in a row I’ve played MK and I feel like I am slowly getting back into the groove of Ermac. I have modified the ‘Big D’ special into something I can easily produce, my B&B’s (bread and butters, for the laymen) are getting more on point, and I have switched my tactics up slowly. I am beginning to use certain strings more to set up throws and frame traps.

I am done playing MK for the night. I finished a nice set with Wrath and before that I played with another Sacramento player, Blind_Man. I won’t touch MK until the later afternoon tomorrow and I feel the break will be necessary in my training. I am doing my best not to ‘over play’ MK.

Tomorrow will be productive.

Kamikaze