It's been a long time coming (almost like a certain SNK game we've been waiting for) but it's finally here! Today's episode is going to be about how I discovered the greatness that is known as Shin Nihon Kikaku, known to most as SNK! #lunchbreakhottakes #SNK #fgc #fightingames

Today's Episode: Foray into SNK! Rushdown's Dilemma: My First Body Ga! Let's goooooooooooooo! #lunchbreakhottakes #SNK #fgc

This one is gonna date me even more, but for the sake of spreading my love for fighting games, this is what I do for ya'll. Time to crack open the elder scrolls...yet again.

This was a time where the internet was a mere pipe-dream, Super-VHS was the new hotness and SFII was everywhere...literally everywhere. Any game where I could punch and kick was the only game I cared. Fighting games were at an all time high. They couldn't be stopped.

By this point, I was already learning how to combo Standing Close Fierce into Shoryuken (not consistently) but enough that my friends were starting to fear playing me in SFII if I got them dizzy. Fun times.

And then one day, I went on a road trip with my parents to visit my grandmother in the "countryside" of Maryland. I say this but MD really isn't country unless you compare it to larger metropolitan areas but you'll hear enough psuedo Southern accents to be tricked. Yeehaw.

My family is mostly from an area that was near the Chesapeake, so it was often a time to get some pretty good seafood along the way, which I was clearly with the shits about.

Seafood pleasures aside, there was one other awesome thing about Maryland at the time felt like a secret...

My grandmother lived about an hour and some change away from Ocean City, Maryland. This place was the closest I got to the feel of a Game Center in Japan. There were games everywhere, stretching down the block as far as a child's eyes could see. The block was known as Playland.

As a kid, I treated school like a videogame and the final boss was 4th quarter exams. "Beating" the final boss, allowed me access to the ending, which was to get to Ocean City and hit as many buttons as possible, drowning myself in electronic splendor.

It was a great time to say the least. I still remember how the wooden planks felt under my feet as I entered the arcade. Pocket full of changes and hadoukens to throw.

But Summer wasn't always a thing. Sometimes we visited and Ocean City wasn't open. This is one of those times.

When I knew that Ocean City wasn't on the itinerary, it usually meant I'd bring my own form of entertainment to indulge in after all of the family pleasantries and my grandmother hugging to a point that I felt like E. Honda's frame data wasn't shit compared to grandma.

Anyways, I'd either be drawing, or playing whatever game system I had with me--until one day, my father took me with him to a pool hall. Random as shit, right?

There was a certain glimmer in his eyes, that told me there was a reason for this so I accepted the sidequest.

As I'm riding with him, being a kid growing up in the 80's I started to think about what I knew of pool halls from closest place to the internet I could think of pre-internet. Television.

While I was confused, and he broke down the rules I needed to follow with him while at the pool hall--I was intrigued. Maybe I'll get to see someone thrown out of a window. Who knows?

Clearly this wasn't the case and when I walked in with my dad, I immediately saw why he brought me here...

Nestled, in the corner were a bunch of arcade games. One being a pinball machine which I probably mosaic'd out of my head and the rest were either beat'em ups or fighting games but one caught my eye that I'd never seen before. The MVS cabinet.

I've never seen anything like before. Most arcade boards had the one game that it contained and you saw art for it but this...it drew me in like an alluring void of the unknown.

Outside of the black, red, and white design everywhere I noticed something else I'd never seen that caused me to ask to myself, " 'the fuck is a SELECT GAME button?"

Upon seeing it there was only thing left to do...push the damn button.