Well, yesterday, I was informed by a knowledgeable friend that Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection has been leaked to download sites by pirates, and MK fans have already been spreading the word about it.

Thanks, assholes. Way to prove me right.

What I’m about to say is my own opinion, and not that of Mortal Kombat Online and (definitely) not NetherRealm Studios. The chances of Mortal Kombat coming to PC are non-existent, with the exception of Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection. Even then, the PC version of MKAK has been delayed by several months.

I’ve already seen some of the most common arguments regarding porting Mortal Kombat to PC. One of these arguments is that there’s an online petition with something like 13,000 signatures, showing demand for the game. The problem there is that when it comes to showing demand, online petitions don’t mean much. Anyone can put in a signature, but it doesn’t mean they actually intend to buy the game. A secondary problem is that 13,000 is in fact a pretty small number. By comparison, 732,000 copies of the game were sold in the first week for consoles (reference). I would hazard that if the online petition wanted to be taken seriously, they would need 50-100 times the signatures that they currently have.

Another argument I’ve heard used is the fact that Capcom has released Street Fighter 4 and Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition to PC, and that they’re planning on releasing Street Fighter X Tekken as well. They also claim that the popularity numbers are high for the game, indicating a lot of sales. Unfortunately, they don’t give figures as to the exact number of sales. In addition, it doesn’t take into account just how many sales there were compared to how much the game has been pirated. I’ve heard arguments that the SF4 games on PC have DRM to prevent piracy, but the problem there is that the pirates rather quickly defeated the DRM. I’ve heard stories about how tournaments would use pirated copies of SF4 for PC instead of licensed or console copies.

That said, people would still point to the PC sales and say, “They’re still making money!” The question becomes, “How much money?” If Netherrealm were to release a PC version of Mortal Kombat, they would have to use time and resources (in other words, money) towards porting the game over. If the game’s sales on PC do not cover the cost of porting, then it’s not worth it for them to go through the trouble. Unlike consoles, PC hardware runs the gamut of different manufacturers, drivers, and capabilities. They would have to take all of that into account.

So, one may ask, why was Capcom able to do it? The answer is simple: they already HAD a Windows version. Unlike Mortal Kombat, the Street Fighter 4 games were released for arcades, and the arcade hardware they used was a system called Taito Type X. Instead of using proprietary components, Taito Type X uses PC hardware and runs on Windows XP Embedded. In other words, a very good chunk of the porting had to be done anyway, so what extra they needed to do was covered by the PC sales.

That doesn’t change the fact that the Street Fighter 4 games are very heavily pirated. While it’s true that console games are pirated as well, the barrier for entry for pirating console games in much higher. While any PC can run a pirated PC game, game consoles have to be modified before they can run pirated console games. Modifying console hardware is a risky venture; not only can it ruin your console (rendering it a brick) should something go wrong, the security systems in the console itself will get you banned from online services if the modification is detected. While I’ve heard it said that only paying customers can play Street Fighter 4 online, I personally find that rather doubtful as I’ve not heard of how this is supposedly accomplished outside of a “Kombat Pass” system like Mortal Kombat uses. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard that claim and have the reality be that many online players of a game were pirates.

The sad thing is that none of this is really anything new. When I started at MK Online (then called MK5.ORG) back in 2002, Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was in development. We had gotten a lot of people asking if and when MK:DA would be released for PC. So, when I went to E3, I asked a couple of people in Midway’s marketing department if there was a PC version in development. They said that there wasn’t, simply because they had never made any money off of the PC versions. The fact that the game was very heavily pirated became apparent in that respect, because I knew a lot of people with MK games for PC, yet the game never made any money. In addition, at least one person who demanded a PC version in the site’s chat channel inadvertently admitted that the only reason he wanted it was so he could pirate it.

So, in essence, it really comes down to money. NetherRealm and Warner Bros. apparently do not feel that porting Mortal Kombat to PC would be worth the money. While the Street Fighter 4 games are out for PC, they were ported ahead of time for different reasons and as such the comparison is not valid. I’m sure Warner Bros. has already done the research and crunched the numbers, as if there were a true profit to be made we’d be seeing a port. Unfortunately, the petitions have too few signatures, the projected PC sales aren’t high enough, and the piracy would be rampant.

With all of the factors taken into account, there simply isn’t enough of a legal market for the port for the effort to be worth it.

So, along with another picture of them, I’m pleased to let you know their names.

Meet Bennett and Sasha.

Right now we’re in the slow process of getting them and the older cats used to one another. We’ve opened the spare bedroom door, but put a gate in the entrance to prevent cats from entering or leaving. Sophie and Darcy have already seen Bennett and Sasha; as we expected, Darcy welcomed them with open arms but Sophie is hissing and growling (like the prima donna she is). We’ll keep them separated for a while until they learn to tolerate one another’s presence, and then we’ll let the younger two roam the house freely. As it stands, for the near future all they’ll have access to is the spare bedroom and a short hallway.

They’re definitely getting better about being around us, though, and it’s great to see them playing and discovering their world. This should be a lot of fun.

We had been talking about getting a kitten for a while. Jennifer had been missing Lucy, her first cat, and we wanted to get a playmate for Sophie and Darcy (our current two). We decided on getting a ragdoll like the others, simply because of how great they have been for us. So, we contacted the person we got the others from, and finally got a response from her after a while. It turned out that she had stopped breeding ragdolls, but was taking care of some kittens for a colleague of hers who had cancer. Through her, we worked out the details. It turned out she would be in town anyway Christmas weekend, so we arranged to go and pick them up Christmas Eve.

It was also at about that time that we realized that it would be best if we got two kittens instead of just one. That way, they would have each other as playmates to relate to instead of being alone with two other older cats. We asked for two girls, but as it turns out, we ended up with a girl and a boy. We didn’t mind at all; that way it’s even amongst the sexes here. We played with them a bit there, got the paperwork for them, and then made the trip home. Jennifer stayed in the back seat with them, while they cowered in the kitty carrier. (They had been through so many trips that week that they were very spooked.) Once home, we put them in the spare bedroom with their own food, water, litter box, and toys. That way they could get acclimatized without having to deal with the older cats.

When we got them, we were told the girl was the dominant one and that the boy was quiet and let the girl take charge. That seemed to be the case at first, but over the past 24 hours, the boy kitten became more assertive and playful, while the girl kitten stayed back and was more skittish. We don’t think they were socialized around humans, as they’re still very nervous around us. Still, we’ve been spending time with them, playing with them, and getting them used to us. They’ve gotten to the point where they will play with toys and such with us, but the instant they realize they might be getting too close, they back off a bit. We figure that they’ll be far more comfortable around us in time, but for now, we’re taking it slowly.

Before anyone asks, though, we don’t have names for either yet. We’ve been considering all manner of different names for them, but until we have them checked out by a vet (especially to confirm the genders!), we’re not setting anything in stone yet. We do have some finalist names for both, though; we should be ready to announce them in a few days.

I have to say, though, that they are far more adorable and playful than I was expecting. They’re WONDERFUL kittens, and are a delight to play with. I’m looking forward to spending a long time with them in our family.

To me, for a film to be considered a “remake”, it needs to be a new version of an original movie and not based on other media. For example, The Thing (the 1982 movie, not the 2011 prequel) is often touted as a remake of the 1951 film The Thing From Another World. The truth of the matter is that the 1982 movie, like the 1951 one, was based on a novella called Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell; unlike the 1951 film, the 1982 film was FAR more faithful to the original material. Another example is the upcoming The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, as like the Swedish-language movie (which I highly recommend), it’s based on the novel by Stieg Larsson. New movies based on Spider-Man and Superman are in the works; as they’re based on comic books, I see them as fresh looks at the source material as opposed to remakes of previous films.

Even then, I’m not against remakes as a whole. If a remake can provide a new, fresh interpretation of the original story while still being a quality product, then I’m all for it. People were against remakes of the aforementioned Fright Night and Footloose, yet critical reception of both films was positive. In fact, according to Rotten Tomatoes, Footloose got much better ratings than the original version did.

Still, it strikes me as funny that remakes are causing so much rage. Classic movies have been remade and new interpretations of old materials released for as long as I can remember. For example, the 1983 classic Scarface was a remake of a 1932 film. The most well-known versions of The Wizard of Oz and The Maltese Falcon were not the first adaptations of those novels to film. It’s hardly a new thing to come about.

Now, while I’m normally not against remakes or adaptations, there is one exception. I don’t like it when an adaptation comes out in a particular medium for the first time, and does not try to be faithful to the original source material. It could be an animated film based on a comic, but changes personalities of characters and the basic plotline. The adaptation that comes to mind most prominently is the live-action adaptation of the comic and animated film Akira. Akira is a profoundly Japanese film, that served as a generation’s introduction to Japanese animation. However, the live-action adaptation is casting whites instead of Japanese (for example, Kristen Stewart has been offered the lead female role), and the setting has been changed from Neo-Tokyo to “New Manhattan”. If what I’ve read online is true, then the storyline has been altered as well, no longer focusing on juvenile delinquents as the main protagonists/antagonists.

The Spirit is another example. Leaving out Frank Miller’s supposedly horrid writing and direction, the movie is not faithful to the comics in several respects. One that comes to mind is that in the film Denny Colt has superhuman abilities after the incident that made him become the Spirit, while Will Eisner deliberately made him an everyman in the comics. Another is that the Octopus was prominently shown in the movie, whereas in the comics his face was never seen. Had it been a faithful adaptation, I would have been more inclined to watch it. As it stands… no.

Why is it so difficult for the studios making these films to make a faithful adaptation?

In the end, though, it comes down to quality. The remakes and new adaptations that succeed are faithful to the source material while bringing a fresh look and new perspectives. The ones that fail are the money grabs that don’t pay attention to what made the original source material great in the first place. I know I’m preaching to the choir there, as I’m hardly the only one to feel that way.

I just wish the studio executives understood that too.

• The Cure – “Lovesong”
  Early in our relationship, Jennifer wanted to have a song that was specifically “our song”. After thinking about it for a bit, we both decided this song was the one that fit us most, both in terms of the lyrics and because we were both children of the 80′s.
• Bruno Mars – “Just the Way You Are”
  After we had been dating for a few months, Jennifer heard this song on the radio while driving to work, and she gave me a call so that I could hear it. In particular, there was a line that caught her attention that said, “Yeah, I know, I know, when I compliment her she won’t believe me.” That, to her, made it a song about me because she never would believe me when I gave her compliments.
• Kansas – “Carry On Wayward Son”
  A year or so after we started dating, we were looking at concerts and were deciding between two shows: Tom Petty for $70-80, or Kansas/Foreigner/Styx for $10. As you might imagine, we went with the latter. The three bands put on a hell of a show and it’s a particular favorite memory of ours, especially considering this hilarious exchange near the beginning of the concert…

  Jennifer: “What band is this?”
  Scott: “That’s Kansas.”
  Jennifer: “OH! I just thought they were an opening band covering a Kansas song…”

• The Beatles – “All You Need is Love”
  When we were working with the wedding planner, she gave us a list of music that the musician (who played both saxophone and flute) could play during the service. This was one of the songs that was on the list, as we felt it would make a wonderful choice as the recessional music.
• Real Life – “Send Me an Angel (1989 Extended Dance Mix)”
  Three months after we started dating, Jennifer arranged a wonderful birthday party for me, with dinner at Strack’s and dancing/karaoke at Drink Houston. It was the first birthday party I had had in nearly thirty years, and I had the time of my life. The night ended with me and Chris closing out Drink Houston by singing this song in the karaoke room.
• The Black Eyed Peas – “I Gotta Feeling”
  We seriously considered using this song in our wedding service, but we kind of changed our minds when we realized it wouldn’t work out too well when played by a sax or flute. Still, it’s become something of our theme when we go out and do fun stuff.
• Daft Punk – “Tron Legacy (End Credits)”
  Shortly before its sequel came out, Jennifer and I watched Tron. To say she was not impressed was something of an understatement, as she felt the pacing was way too slow. So, when Tron: Legacy came out, she went to see it much more for my benefit than for her own. To her surprise, she really enjoyed the film, to the point where nearly a month later, she asked me one Friday night if we could go see it again. This is her favorite track off of the movie soundtrack.
• Murray Gold – “Doctor Who Theme (Album Version)”
  We’re both Doctor Who fans. In fact, when the series is on, we make sure to make time to watch it. Granted, I’m more of a fan than she is (she thinks the original series is way too slow), but we both like it. This song also represents the fact that we both love British TV; in fact, one of the things that drew her to me was the fact that I stated how much I love British TV in my Match.com profile.
• Bear McCreary, featuring Bt3 – “All Along the Watchtower”
  The CD’s label only had the song titles and not the artists, so I’m sure more than one person listening to the CD expected to hear the Jimi Hendrix version. This song actually comes from Battlestar Galactica; I introduced Jennifer to it shortly after we started dating, and she was immediately hooked. In fact, she hadn’t been so hooked on a series since Lost. In short order, her Netflix queue was filled with all of the series discs, and she went through it as fast as she could.
• Orbital – “Halcyon + On + On”
  As part of a meme on Facebook, I did a list of songs that I felt would make a good soundtrack for my life. Instead of basing the tracks on events, I based the tracks on people. I was trying to find a song for Jennifer that had a technical/geeky yet feminine sound. After a bit of thinking, I realized this song would be perfect for her on it. These days, I use a clip from it as her ringtone on my phone.
• Depeche Mode – “Somebody”
  The first concert Jennifer and I went to was a Depeche Mode concert. While this song was not played, it was her favorite Depeche Mode song when she was in junior high and high school. In the end, I’m honored to become the “somebody” this song spoke of for her.
• Foreigner – “Waiting For a Girl Like You”
  Last year, Chris had a karaoke party for his birthday. I went up on stage many times to sing different songs from all sorts of different genres. At one point, I got up and sang this song to Jennifer, as everyone in the audience oohed and ahhed. I think I made her quite a bit self-conscious that evening.
• Michael Bublé – “You and I”
  This is another one of Jennifer’s favorite songs, and one she always wanted at her wedding. While the original song was done by Stevie Wonder, I personally prefer Michael Bublé’s version. The song was not in the musician’s list of known songs, so we asked our wedding planner if she could ask him if he could do the song. He agreed, and played it while we were signing the official wedding documents.
• Peter Frampton – “Baby, I Love Your Way”
  One Saturday night, Jennifer and I were flipping through channels when we came across a concert from the late 70′s or early 80′s showing on PBS. It was close to the end of the concert, and Frampton was singing this song. We both decided then that when we did this CD, we’d include this song as it just seemed appropriate for both of us. It’s more the mood the song evokes than anything else, but we just love this song.
• Jason Mraz – “I’m Yours”
  Admittedly Jennifer is much more of a Jason Mraz fan than I am, but we both like this song and the beachy island feel of the song is very fitting, considering the fact that we had our wedding and spent our honeymoon in the Bahamas. More, since we got together, I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with the water and enjoy going to the beach a lot more.
• Foreigner – “Juke Box Hero”
  This song, like the Kansas song listed earlier, reminds us of the concert we went to last year. Not only that, it’s always good for a bit of humor. Whenever Jennifer has a song stuck in her head, all I have to do to get it out is to whisper in her ear, “Juke. Box. Hero.” Of course, those words (and the accompanying notes) immediately take the song’s place in her head, so she tends to get even more annoyed at that point…
• Original Broadway Cast for The Who’s Tommy – “Pinball Wizard”
  Of course, this song makes reference to the fact that I love playing arcade and pinball games, and Jennifer has always been supportive towards me in that part, as she accompanies me to places like Dave and Buster’s, Joystix, and the Houston Arcade Expo. This song also refers to how she and I love to go to stage productions in the Theatre District. She and I went to Hobby Center to see a performance of The Who’s Tommy one evening; when we got there, we were relatively surprised to see so many teenagers there. It wasn’t until right before the show started that we realized we were seeing a performance put on by a local performing arts high school. (They put on a damn good show, by the way.)

I’ll have a post up about the wedding and honeymoon sometime this weekend.

I had set an exercise routine for myself in lieu of going to the gym. What I used to do was wake up early in the morning, and spend a half-hour on the elliptical in my home office. While it was regular exercise, there were a couple of disadvantages. The first was that I wasn’t watching what I was eating, and so I’d be caught snacking, having desserts, and eating generally fattening foods. It didn’t help that I wasn’t drinking as much water as I should. The second was that the amount of time I was spending on the elliptical wasn’t coming anywhere near to what I did when I went to the gym, and I was missing out on weight training to boot.

The final straw came when I realized I needed to buy new pants, and that I needed to go a size higher on club shirts. Something needed to be done.

This week, I’ve started on a new regiment. I’ve cut out most snacks and desserts. Desserts will be relegated to a single splurge night a week. I’ve also started drinking far more water than I did before. I’ve also been eating less red meat. As far as exercise goes, I’m going to the gym four times a week. My routine consists of sixty minutes on a stationary bike (set to random hill), weight training on specific body areas (three sets of twelve reps on each machine), and abdominal crunches (three sets of twenty). I’m hoping the combination of more exercise plus a slightly better diet will help me shed some weight before the wedding date. I don’t want to look too fat for the pictures.

I’m also hoping that another thing I’m doing will help in getting the weight down. One thing I’ve never been very open about (unless I absolutely had to) was the fact that I couldn’t swim. Rather, I could fake it a little, but attempts to formally teach me as a child never went anywhere. I couldn’t tread water, and I definitely didn’t feel comfortable trying to swim. Let’s not even talk about how I’d react when in the deep end of a pool…

The problem with that is that Jennifer LOVES the water, and would live in it full-time if she could. As a result, I don’t feel like I can properly join in when she does things like go to the pool, because I’m not that comfortable with it. It’ll get worse as time goes on, as she loves to do things like snorkeling, and I’d simply not be able to take part.

It’s not fair, so I’ve decided to do something about it. I’m taking swimming lessons twice a week.

We found the place I go to, The Aquatic Academy, through our friend Julie. We had gone there for water aerobics, and the teacher gave me a few pointers on swimming while I was there. I was impressed enough where I’ve been going back for proper lessons. So far I can now tread water (though I’m out of shape enough where I can’t keep it up for long), actually do breast strokes and front crawls, and can swim underwater. I’ve even been able to open my eyes underwater. That’s huge, because the last time I tried was when I last had lessons in my childhood, the water burned and stung my eyes so badly I’ve associated having my eyes open underwater with pain ever since. I’ve been happy with my progress, as has Jennifer.

I think I’ll be learning how to dive at the next lesson. That’s one skill that I’ve always been envious of others for, because as fun as it looks, in the past I would have panicked being in the deep end of the pool. As for now, well… I’m definitely looking forward to it, though it remains to be seen how I’ll react in the deep end. We’ll see, I suppose.

In the end, though, even if I wasn’t doing well at learning, it’s not a lost cause. It’s extra exercise for me, and it’s definitely getting me more used to being in the water. I’m definitely hoping I’ll get to the point where I can do all the same water things Jennifer likes to do… and maybe by that point, I’ll be slimmed down and in better shape where I can enjoy it to its fullest.

A lot has happened in those two years. We’ve been on numerous vacations together, especially to places I never thought I would go visit like New Orleans, Colorado, and Disney World. We’ve been to places and events that I normally would not, like Pac-Man Fever Fridays at Joystix, concerts like Depeche Mode, and plays/musicals in the theatre district. I even moved in with her over a year ago.

To top it off, we’re getting married in a couple of months. Wow.

I wouldn’t trade it for anything, either. It’s amazing how in sync we are, to the point where on more than one occasion we’ve been known to speak simultaneously or come up with the same ideas independently. It’s also great how much she puts up with my geekiness; my home office now is a testament to it, with gaming and sci-fi posters and memorabilia scattered all over the place.

To celebrate our anniversary, we went back to where we had our first date: BJ’s in Pearland. Afterwards, we stopped by a redbox to pick up Source Code; after trading anniversary cards at home, we watched the movie.

Happy anniversary, honey. Here’s hoping the next fifty or so years are as fun as the first two.

In early 2007, I had attended the Midway Gamers’ Day event in Las Vegas. For this event, I was covering the announcement that Mortal Kombat: Armageddon would be coming to the Nintendo Wii. The event was a more or less quiet one for me, as all I needed to do was tape a presentation and then interview Ed Boon and Shaun Himmerick. In any event, it was a pretty slow year as far as Mortal Kombat was concerned, as there wasn’t a major release planned for that year. For a month or two after the event, things went about as slow as one might imagine during the downtime between releases.

A couple of months after the event, I was at work when I got a call from my father. He told me that something had arrived via FedEx from a company that I knew Midway did marketing work with. I certainly wasn’t expecting anything from Midway, and was even more confused when Dad said that it was something very heavy. So, that evening, when I got home, the first thing I did was get the FedEx box from where Dad had put it. He was right; it WAS very heavy. Even more confused, I opened the box, and was shocked to see what was inside.

Yes, that is a poker chip set box with the Midway logo embossed on it.

After I got over my shock, I went ahead and opened the box. The chip set was of casino quality. In addition, the chips and cards were labeled with the logos of games shown at the Gamers’ Day event. The cards had the logo of John Woo’s Stranglehold on it, while the chips had the logos for The Wheelman, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Hour of Victory, Blacksite: Area 51, and John Woo’s Stranglehold. Whatever Midway paid for these, it could not have been cheap.

The chip set came with a form letter that thanked me for coming to Gamers’ Day, and stating how much they hoped I would help get the word out about the games announced and shown. Once I looked it over, I put everything back in the shipping box, and put it in a safe place. I’ve only rarely taken it out of its storage place since then, and it has not (and will not) be unwrapped for use. This is definitely a collector’s item.

The thing is, though, that this is an example of bad decisions that I think helped sink the company. I mean, hell, I appreciate that they sent me this item and I wasn’t about to send it back, but still… this was a LOT of money for Midway to spend, and at the time Midway was really starting to hurt. In my opinion, they needed to put this kind of effort far more into their game design process. They already had a policy of “you ship on this date, no exceptions”, which led to unfinished games being released. That of course led to games that should have done well in stores getting panned. Mortal Kombat: Armageddon was easily the weakest of that generation of Mortal Kombat games, and Hour of Victory (which I thought looked horribly derivative at Gamers’ Day) was released irreparably broken. In the end, Midway went bankrupt and the Mortal Kombat assets were purchased by Warner Bros.

These days marketing for games like Mortal Kombat seems to be done smarter. Warner Bros. has more money to spend than Midway did, but they’re putting it to much better and efficient use. To my knowledge, freebies like the books and the poker chip set are out. While I will miss stuff like that… it’s good to know the focus is back where it should be: the games.