In the basement of the Foglia Foundation Health and Recreation building at Harper College, you would normally expect to hear your fellow gym-goers running on the track, shooting hoops, or maybe even taking a swim: you wouldn’t expect to hear the roars of twenty people engaging in bloody battle.
In one corner, a blind swordsman wielding a katana and telekinetic powers; in the other, a monster with sharp teeth and spikes protruding from his forearms. From one fight to the next, different colorful characters take center stage. In one match, the crowd cheers the victor as their final blow launches their foe’s head clean off in a stunning display of brutality.
Of course, all this mayhem isn’t so atypical once you consider its setting: the e-gaming lounge (Building M-1201). Harper students jumped at the opportunity to participate in a Mortal Kombat 1 tournament hosted by Health and Recreation this past Tuesday.
According to Kendal Rugebregtl, the coordinator for recreation programs and promotions for Campus Recreation, the effort is part of Health and Recreation’s current push to diversify the activities held at the center.
“Gaming is one of the most healthy ways of expression for someone,” Rugebregtl said. “Be it through PCs or ping pong … We’re not just focused on physical health, but mental health as well.”
Despite being a recent phenomenon with the e-gaming space only opening in 2021, gaming tournaments have quickly become a hub for students to interact and gather, with Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. tournaments being held (click here to read our coverage of February’s Smash tournament), as well as even more being planned for the future.
Several students, such as tournament competitor Bhav Gupta, were drawn to the lounge due to Campus Recreation’s successful marketing campaign. Handouts displaying the cover of the game and details about the event found their way onto tables and bulletin boards all across campus.
“I have always been a fighting game fan and on my way out of class I saw the flier for it,” Gupta said. “It seems like a good place to meet people, maybe win … but fate was not on my side.”
Two tournaments were held, with Gupta being the runner-up in the first bracket. The winner, Alejandro Rios*, is another student new to the space and Harper in general.
“It’s very good to meet new people and to share the game and hobbies,” Rios said.
Rios took home a custom plastic cup and a Starbucks gift card: a fitting reward for hard fought kombat. Rios’ character of choice was the Shaolin monk and lightning-wielder Raiden – not only did his mastery of the character’s moveset lead him to victory, but it also pumped up the crowd as he used a mix of combos and special moves, particularly Raiden’s “Storm Cell” ability, a dazzling aura of lightning which kept his opponents at a comfortable distance while still allowing Rios to push the offensive.
That feeling of comradery was a common theme as several Harper students participated in matches, gloated over their victories, chatted with others over their techniques and questioned why the Nintendo Switch version of the game was being used.
This particular port of the game, which has become the subject of controversy and the butt of many jokes since release due to the system limitations of the Switch console, forced competitors to change up their usual strategies. With limited frame rate and the pain of having to play with a single Joycon – which is tiny in comparison to your average controller, and lacks some features like a d-pad or lower shoulder buttons – some competitors had to rely more on easy combos as they re-adjusted to this version of the game.
Needless to say, this version of the game isn’t the kind that would typically be used in an e-sports tournament, and was simply the only version the Recreation Center’s e-sports lounge had access to. Still, Mortal Kombat is Mortal Kombat no matter what console it’s on, and competitors in-between matches laughed about the jankiness, which went even further in building that community.
According to Rugebregtl, this sense of community is the whole purpose of the space and with the success of this tournament, future plans are being made.
“In the future we are looking forward to growing the space with new consoles, new non-online games, and necessities that will grow the program in the future,” Rugebregtl said.
*Name changed for anonymity at request of the source
