All right, so how the fuck do you play fighting games?
Oh... Okay, I suppose some exposition is needed. So I got the new Mortal Kombat game. And it's awesome. But... Let's just say that I have only ever played like 3 fighting games in the past and I'm utterly unfamiliar with the gameplay style. Basically, I'm absolutely overwhelmed - I can't even block on time, let alone do stuff like breakers or deploy proper combos when appropriate (to be more precise, I don't even properly understand differences between the basic attacks and can't make the proper decisions in the heat of the fight, not to mention any of the more complicated stuff.) I'm actively trying to not button mash and think about what I'm doing, but that mostly seems to get my arse kicked.

So... Right, how the hell do you play those? I'm just looking for some general tips, perhaps good guides if you know of any. I'm absolutely loving the style and the speed, I just ... Can't keep up. Lack of practice I suppose, but actually knowing what to focus on when learning a new character and just any general advice would help. Or guids. Are there guids for these? They're bloody complicated, there are bound to be guides for these. There's like 5 000 000 combinations of everything with everything else! If the reply is 'The only way to play is to remember it all' I'm going to cry.

I can't help ya, I can basically play Ryu in Street Fighter and that's it.
I can't do 95% of the moves of the new characters with their triple circles and at least three different buttons.
Kind of tempted to get MK myself, even though I'm not much of a fighting game man myself.
I heard it has all kinds of neat unlockables and a lot of lore in the game, did I hear that correctly?

Find a deadly combo and stick with it, spam it over and over and over . That's it .

When playing a friend don't actually plug his controller in.

Thousands upon thousands of hours of practice. Fighting games have never been a easy genre to master.

The challenge mode is awesome albeit ... Well, challenging, and it has a story mode which, while silly, is actually contextualizing everything quite nicely. And X-ray attacks. X-ray attacks are brilliant. I don't necessarily want to master it, just to ... well, beat the AI :-P Altho I presume I could just play the campaign on easy...

Actually, not plugging my controller in would make me more likely to win.

Practice (lots of it) and a good controller are the only things that can help you in a good fighting game (without cheats!), I'm afraid.
And a list of special moves and combos.

I would imagine there are guides for it. Should be able to find some at gamefaqs.com I would imagine. Even if you cannot find a guide for the exact MK game, the moves for the characters are pretty close to the same all the way through each one (IE- Scorpion's harpoon attack being back back low punch). My personal favorite being Scorpion. I stopped playing MK after Ultimate MK3 on SNES though. Played a few of the newer ones but I'd done lost interest. But yeah it's all about speed and to a point, will feel like button mashing. I was so fast with Scorpion many times the screen didn't keep up with the fight and both characters were off of the screen. Some of the characters though are tough to get used to the button combinations for combos and special attacks. Scorpion was pretty easy though, then again he was who I played as 95% of the time ever since MK1. Other times I played as Jade.

As far as practice goes, if it does not have a practice mode that you can just beat up on a dummy, start a two player game, increase the life bar, and disable the timer if you can and just practice moves for awhile.

controller, or else good luck smashing those keyboard. chaining kombo on keyboard is pita. fighting against easy ai usually using some chessy kd combo usually work well

The hell knows... I think most guys are using muscle memory.
And what Licurg said, find something that works... I remember that in MK II I could only fight with Sub Zero.

I once played Mortal Kombat 4 at Singapore Airport and just by button-mashing won against a couple of little brats. Then an Asian guy my age showed up and defeated me.

On another occasion a couple classmates from high school and I emptied two bottles of vodka**, played Soul Calibur 1 on the Dreamcast (shouldn't have picked Voldo...) and then proceeded to French class, Or maybe it was philosophy class, I can't remember.


**I don't drink alcohol nowadays, I'm a responsible adult now.

Spam the cheap moves is what I do too.

Throw the keyboard/contoller against the display, pickup console/PC, smash it on the ground and jump on it and jump on it again a few times, then a backward roundhouse against the display.

If the game won't start up again, you've beaten it.