The year is 1996, and Soul Edge II was in the arcades. I had a job as a Senior Computer Technician at the time. A co-worker and myself had went to a local arcade, and he introduced me to Soul Edge. I was mesmerized by the game's seamless 3D fighting graphics, which were in my opinion far superior than the 2D photographs of Mortal Kombat. My co-worker, Nathan, had a hand which didn't work properly. Now the joystick is on the left, and 4 buttons are on the right. Nathan's bad hand was on the right. So when he played he would cross his hands over, and mash the buttons with his left hand and move the joystick with the wrist part of his right hand. He would end up beating every competitor on that machine everytime we went there. Now Soul Edge has the unique ability that someone can be in middle of a game and you can insert your own quarter, interrupt their game, and challenge them. Of course if you win, they no longer have their quarter. Nathan would walk into the arcade and make the comment "Who is that on my machine? I am going to kick him off." And you know what? He would. Nathan made Soul Edge look cool and I always wanted my own Soul Edge after that moment. So now here we are, ten years later, and I pick up an empty cab with a 25inch monitor for $10.50 with an untested monitor. You know what, the monitor actually worked. From then on, I built my "Soul Edge". I was into conversion cabinets for a short period of time. I think all arcade collectors go through that phase.

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