Difference between improvement and revolution (the Street Fighter story)

(sorry for writing an article that ends in depression-haha)

In 1987, video games had made a successful comeback. Nintendo had helped the industry recover from the crippling 1983 video game crash and arcades made a healthy profit. Arcades were delivering the games that were not always availiable to home consoles and if they were, the games were extremely limited. A prime example is a game called Strider, a platformer in arcades that was so poorly handled on the NES that people assumed that it really WASN'T the same Strider.

Arcades had some great games, but the NES was making things easier; no trip to play games- just plug and play. The downside to that was nearly EVERY game on the original NES was about the same. Beat Em Up's were huge and this was mainly due to the popular Double Dragon series. From that point on games were all about walking left to right and punching and kicking ANYTHING that walked in your direction. WHY? because those fucks kidnapped your girlfriend. Again.

This formula was wearing thin around 85. The same man attacking you over and over really starts to suck at about Level six and most of these games didn't even have good endings that made you feel good about your accomplishment. It would have been nice to see after awhile a cool cartoon porno scene come up after you've saved your frail waif again from the clutches of the evil crime boss-ninja-robot assassin- whatever. But again, it was all about the adventure getting to the end, and if the roll of quarters you brought to the arcade didn't get you there, then the Game Genie cartridge strap-on could.

Fuck that. It was old news. Then something happened. A little company called Capcom took the beat em up concept and made something of it that didn't require the monotony of fighting the same man twice. Head to head action, colorful characters and special moves. The even stranger part is that no one saw it coming and most of it hadn't been done in such a grand scale before.

Anything would have been better than its main competitor. The only other fighting game at the time that was Head to head style was the 2600's Atari game simply titled 'Karate'. This game blows beyond anything else. The classic mess ET: the extra terrestrial is 6 feet under the ground in New Mexico and this game is probably still floating around in pawn shops and antique stores, is there no justice in the world? If you want to see just how awful things can get on the 2600 then click here. Your Lego collection could look better at fighting than this.

But with this piece of shit giving reason for you to attack an Atari cart with a hammer, Street Fighter premiered in that same time and blew minds. When your partner games in the Arcade is ANOTHER Double Dragon clone and a 4 color Atari pong game with stick men, then success presents itself naked at your bedside.

For those of you that don't remember or have never played, Street Fighter 1 was amazingly small compared to its latter game Street Fighter II. In the first installment, you only got to pick 1 man, Ryu (Yes, THAT Ryu). You would have light-medium-and fierce punches and kicks to mix it up. You got 3 special moves which we all saw in SFII: the hurricane kick, the fireball, and the Shroyuken punch. Despite all these limits, it was still the best thing out there, and was only available at arcades and on the Turbo Graphix console (that few of us owned). It doubtful that the NES would have been able to pull this game off, seeing that it was so detailed and had real (but crappy) digitized voiced dialogue [to be honest the only phrase you could hear being spoken was after you won a match when your opponent said "What strength! But remember there are many guys like you all over the world." ].

The reception wasn't all that big for the first Street Fighter but it was enough to prompt a sequel. The rest-as they say- is history, but the jump from 1 to II was big. There was 8 fighters instead of just 1. The story was different for each character you picked. SFII may have been just a way of classically reviving a dead franchise because in video games 6 years is a LONG wait for a sequel. 6 years gave us a lot of time to get better home systems made which is why the SNES version might be the best arcade translation ever for that time.

The Genesis released the Champion Edition of SFII but with only 3 buttons on the controller for a 6 button game WHY FUCKIN' BOTHER. Nintendo and the SF games gave the industry a clue when it came to designing a game controller: you needed at least 6 buttons. These games are very reason Sega had to make the Model 3 Genesis (with a new 6 button controller).

The list of later Street Fighter games is long enough for me to not want to name them all on this page- if you want that list, go to wikipedia. It seemed to take a long time for this series to make a Street Fighter 3, and when it finally did the reception was lukewarm and bittersweet. We even got to see the series get a 3d face lift with the Street Fighter EX games, giving the snail paced Virtua Fighter a run for its money.

As of writing this, Street Fighter 4 is on its way to the latest generation systems like the Xbox 360, PS3 and the Wii. I, however don't own any of these systems and really am not holding my breath on this newest chapter.

Am I too old? No. Am I pissed that it took over a decade for Capcom to count to 4? No. My real reason for not caring about SF4 is that I'm one of a few that remember the series true roots and the real secret to all its charm. Whatever 3d multi-polygon- cinematic shit comes of this new game will just depress me even more.

Sometimes change isn't always good.

1990's Fighting Game's Hardest Bosses

I'm a calm man (I think so and my friends would agree to as long as I lay off the booze) and I rarely lose my cool especially when it comes to something as simple as a video game. Its a real pain in the ass however to face a challenge so grueling, unforgiving and unfair that the controller to my SNES or my Genesis leaves a dent in my drywall. Everyone has- at one point- turned thier controller into a projectile so don't start laughing as you read, thats the main reason that 3rd party companies make replacement controllers for game systems. They certainly don't build controllers like they did the origional NES ones back in the 80's and I'm sure that they have the 'rage prone' gamer in mind for designing new ones: one hit against a wall or floor and boom!, plastic everywhere.

Fighting games of the 1990's didn't give us our victories very easily, and more times than many we all suffered the wrath of bosses so horribly hard that we would turn to our Game Genie's and cheat codes JUST to say 'I did it'. I choose to not grant myself a victory so cheaply until i had finished the game myself, and I when that was done, i'd dabble in that crap later. Gaming is supposed to be a challenge and in arcades the games were even harder because that roll of quarters that burned a hole in your pocket wasn't going to spend itself, now was it? Hell that girl in high school never believed it was your penis anyways.

Bosses in games are just like bosses at work, they cripple your spirit and successfully remind you that you CANNOT press a button fast enough and/or at the right time. No one ever really remembers an easy one like KI2's Gargos, or Mk2's Shao Kahn. Its those cheap, AI controlled, and borderline psychic oppenents that drove us normally calm gamers to the 'cheat' sections of the gaming magazines.

Let's take a look at some of the toughest (I think anyways):

Kintaro (MK2): According to the story of Mortal Kombat 2, Goro lost the first Mortal Kombat tournament and it might have something to do with the fact that he was weak and didn't block much. I beat Goro after 1 try just by doing jump kicks, (cakewalk!). But Kintaro, Goro's brother is way meaner and way pissed off. He blocks almost every thing that heads his way and doesn't give you a lot of oppurtunity to strike for free. I could only beat this four arm goliath with Kitana because he did fall for the 'fan lift' attack a lot, but he didn't fall for much else. To make matters worse, his stomp attack was hard enough to kill half the life bar, and every hit that he landed on you threw your character across the screen. Kintaro wasn't a fair fight, but he was possible to defeat and when you did, you already felt like you had beaten the whole game even though Shao Kahn was waiting for you next.

M.Bison (SF 2,3, Alpha and god only knows how many others): A flying, stomping, and scissor kicking threat to your sanity. The trick of beating Bison was just to 'get lucky' and hold back to make sure you block whatever he decides to hit you with next. There was no telling what he'd do either. One second he jumps and stomps your head than he follows it the next second a flaming hand slap of some kind. Then just when you think you got him and you channeling that final blow fireball, he flies at you with an electrically-charged arm out and blows past your projectile and fries you into defeat. At this point you either set your SNES on fire or you might have to explain to a zit-faced virgin that runs the arcade just WHY you put your fist into the screen of thier Street Fighter 2 cabinet.

Vega (SF2 the only one he was technically an unplayable 'boss' in): You ever had a fly bugging you while you sleep or drive and no matter what, you can't possibly kill it, because the little fucker dodges nearly every swipe of your hand and fly-swatter? Thats SF2's pretty boy fighter, Vega. Nevermind the sexual orientation or androngenus image of this all-too-vain SF2 brawler. What pissed more gamers like me off was the fact this asshole never stood still.

Eyedol (Killer Instinct): I hate this son of a bitch. Eyedol played as fair as Hitler. For starts he delievered punishing combos that killed have your life bar. Oh! But if you were lucky enough at all to have damaged him beforehand, then after the combo that he branded you with he'd end it with a club smash that sent you flying 30 feet in the air, giving him time to stomp his foot and recharge a portion of his health. The same club smash can also be used to slap incomming projectiles back at you with triple the speed, making you feel like a stupid cock for thinking you could 'fireball' you way to victory. Rare and Nintendo owe anyone that defeated Eyedol a hookers' blowjob, because the games endings just seemed too small a reward after trying to kill a boss that cheats.

Motaro and (sort of) Shao kahn (MK3): Forget how stupid he looked, or how much of the damn screen his horse/human body took up. Mortaro was a cheater. EVERY projectile attack bounced off of his body and hit you, so forget about trying to freeze him. A slight punch from this centurian turned you into a human cannon and threw you against the screens edge, and any time he blocked an attack you would be then picked up and pummeled with his fist. Your reward for beating him was having to fight an upgraded verion of Shao Kahn now armed with a 50 lbs sledgehammer that knocked you unconcious, leaving no wonder that MK3 blew so much.

Death (Timekillers): A notorious blocker, a heavy hitter, a speeder and not defeatable unless you stun him and then kill him via 'death move'. All the more reason that Timekillers was so ill-recieved.

[Thats really what comes to mind so far, if you readers have one leave me a comment and i'll try that one out, just keep in mind these are FIGHTING games from the 90's. I want to always keep this blog intersting even it if it is about the past. Thanks.]

90's Fighting Games Top 5- Number 4

Capcom policy in the 90's: No Sequels past #2
Better portraits of the characters

Good sex appeal (though quite cheap) Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers
Capcom

1993
Released for Snes, Arcade, Genesis and plenty other systems

Sometime the lighting strikes twice and sometimes its better than when it struck before. This game really should be called 'Street Fighter 3: The Last Time We At Capcom Do This'. I'm not at all ragging on or bringing down the first Street Fighter 2, that game really set the standard and gave us a good foundation for what a fighting game should be. The problem was that Capcom repeated themselves. This game rocked in my opinion and rarely left my Super Nintendo when I had rented it from Blockbuster, it was the best '3 Night' rental ever.

This game doesn't deviate from the style of fighting that the first game offered, there is still the 'rolling the joystick' special moves and the fluid movement remains as well. This game offers us a speed-up boost that was sorely lacking from the original SF2. This update was fun and versitale but still kinda lame in one regard: we had seen it already and all that was different was 4 new characters. The beauty part is that these characters were cool and none of the others were taken out.

With the same 6 buttons and 4 new faces there was a lot of fun to be had. The 4 new faces were:

Fei Long: A total rip-off of Bruce Lee, but still fun as hell. Bruce Lee really has been ripped off plenty of times in other fighting games (IE: Mortal Kombat).

Cammy: A blond cutie with twin braids of hair who loves to fight in a uniform that looks more like a swimsuit. This was a blantant attempt for cheap sex appeal but dammit who cares? It was fun watching her bounce around.

Dee Jay: A Jamaican kick boxer in baggy pants and a cool Bob Marley-Esq persona. At least He isn't a derivative character like Balrog (the Mike Tyson stereotype of the SF games).

T.Hawk: The native American Indian stereotype that would be repeated in plenty of more fighting games later on in the form of Mortal Kombat 3's Nightwolf, and Killer Instinct's Chief Thunder.

Cool new fighters but all in all the same action. Your still just jumping and doing as many special tricks to boost your score and also drian the other man or woman's life bar. Same bonus rounds where you attack barrels, bricks and parked cars. Same bullshit with M.Bison being the cheap douchebag that he is. A new boss and updated story would have done more to make this game a legit sequel and not just another 'update' of what was already done.

The the story of SF is about the tyrannous leader M.Bison getting the worlds attention and daring the world to take him down if they are so tough in an effort to stop him from taking over. No matter what the game though, that story never really changed. We had 4 new fighters added to the mix but with very little else like a reason that suddenly this fighting tournament has started all over again and why these 4 added challengers are so damn necessary.

Regardless, it was fast, fun and furious as we had liked. The fighting action is impressive even if it is repetitive. Matches can get very heated especially in a 2 player match between 2 experts. Combos are the added challenge, and players can easily link moves together but the beauty part is that the other can escape at the right time, thus avoiding a humiliating ass whooping. This version wasn't mind blowing my any means but it sold and was the best update of SF 2 ever.

This game wasn't Capcom's best nor is it the SF series's best, but honestly I never played the SF series after this. In my research prior to writing this, I found that Street Fighter 3 didn't come out until 1997. It wasn't until the near turn of the new millennium that Capcom got the hint that a new SF game needs new number and updating wasn't going to cut it. Yet, I also can defend Capcom's decision however to NOT title this SF 3 because its not much of a change, which is why this game doesn't make it to the top of this list. What puts this game on the list is that its best SF2 version ever made, hands down, which is why this version of this legendary fighting series is number 4 on this list.

The SF series has been called 'the other Mortal Kombat' . This could be due to all the hype of SF2 and MK being alike in so many ways. You can find Action Figures, Shirts, and even the second worst movie based on a video game, Street Fighter: the movie (man it sucked, made Mario the movie look like Shawshank Redemption) and then a game based off that crappy movie (which I will review). The animated SF movies rocked, and is one of the few animes that don't make my eyes roll. Capcom profited from this series and it sold well enough no matter HOW many versions of each game it made.

Well maybe... at least not for long. Street Fighter began dying when the millennium changed and now its all but over for the franchise. There is a loyal fan base that is begging for a revival of the series but those cries are falling on Capcom busy ears.

'Busy doing what', you might ask? Hey, Resident Evil 7: Terror in Antarctica might be a better project for 'Cap. (sarcasm)

What of our favorite characters? Where are they now since they're fighting days are behind them? Is E.Honda SELLING Hondas? Does Daulsim work tech support for a cable company? Are Ken and Ryu finally 'domestic partners'? Has Chun Li found a career as a porn star? Is Cammy coke-whoring out Paris Hilton? What about Guile, I've heard something about his court martial and the Abu Girab incident. Shit, I don't care.

I just wanna know one thing: what the fuck does 'HADUOKEN!!' mean?

What makes a good fighting game?

In the 90's it was all about fighting games. Action filled the screen and provided something violent and powerful to gamers. Arcades at some point might have had more fighting games than shooters and maze games which really were the only games that arcades could get quarters from. Could you imagine Final Fantasy or other RPGs in an arcade?

As arcades profited hand over fist with games like Capcom's Street Fighter 2 and Neo Geo's Samurai Showdown and Midways' Mortal Kombat, gamers at home were playing the latest Mario spin off. Platformers ruled at this point, around the early 1990's.

Street Fighter 2 wasn't Capcoms first game from arcades to make it to the home systems but it is arguably one of the most successful. SF 2 was the first game cart I owned on the SNES and it was a lucky break for me, because I loved the arcade version of that game. In those days I didn't really care about the play mechanics, graphics or even the games story, I just digged how fun it was to kick ass. Every fighter had moves that made them unique, each fighter had a culture and storyline. My favorite character that I had learned every move for was Ryu, but as is turns out he was EVERYONE's fave. Every character was pretty kick ass to me, and they all became the token characters that every fighting game afterwards had to have. Without Ken and Ryu there wouldn't be a Sub-Zero and Scorpion.

But this article isn't all about Street Fighter 2, in fact this is merely an example of what you do right in a fighting game. I could mention better fighting games, like Samurai Showdown on the Neo Geo, but I'm going for commonality, who the hell really owned a Neo Geo system (I sure didn't)?

There is an ingredient list for a fighter and it goes a little something like this:

Good variety of selectable characters- A game should have a hero or heroes, but you should always be able to choose which you like, playable villains are a good treat as well. The characters need to me cool looking or at least interesting. Masks, costumes, uniforms, crazy hair, a clown suit, SOMETHING, don't just have them fighting in jeans and a concert tee unless its necessary to the character.

Fast paced but smooth action- The animation of a fighting game must be smooth, there must be many frames or at least enough so that you know what is going on and you don't suffer from that "what the hell was that" syndrome. As smooth as it all should be it needs to be fast moving as well, that is the fuel for action: speed.


Special Moves- The punch and the kick are required but just as much needs to be specials. Fireballs, spin kicks, something that knocks more off the opponents life bar other than punches. These moves are also a good way to show off to all the other putzes at the arcade or on the home system.

Good controls- Dammit NOTHING fucks up a game more than bad controls, not just fighters but ANY game. For a head to head fighting game there should be a directional pad or joystick that helps the opponent walk left to right, crouch and jump in any direction. What grinds my gears is when the game developers try to make a button for jump (Ala' Power Moves one of the worst fighting games ever). Hitting back on the D-pad should be block and Mortal Kombat broke that rule which is one thing I never liked about the MK series. There should also be buttons for the punches and kicks and another good piece of spice that most fighters do is have 2 or more different kinds of punches and kicks, otherwise it just gets boring.

Challenging (NOT CHEAP) Opponents (single player rule)- A challenge is when your opponent reads you or mirrors you. The AI of a fighting game should keep you on your toes by having a system of defending themselves and not letting you kick their ass. What the AI controlled character should NOT have is a set of moves and attacks that drain 1/2 of your life bar and never even let you try to bring them down. Most bosses in fighting games are extremely cheap so cheap that you lose no matter what you do. Kintaro and Goro were cheap, they had punches and specials that drained and trapped you into defeat. They however were able to be brought down by sticking to a pattern or combo that works (that takes forever to learn). Shao Khan was a bit easier, his specials could turn your fighter into mincemeat but his personality made him an easy target, but it was a challenging target nonetheless. During a match he would point at you and taunt you, giving you an opportunity to strike. I am a calm man, I should never need to throw my controller at the wall because Eyedol of Killer Instinct recharged his health after knocking me clear across the screen and took me out as soon as I got back up, that is just cheap bastard AI not challenging AI.

A World To Fight In- It doesn't have to be a very creative place but an interesting place. Behind the characters there should be something that gives us the impression that its a cool place to be duking it out. MK2 had great backgrounds, it was a surrealistic cornucopia of wastelands and armories and rooms in the sky. Things moved around like floating monks and people on fire, and I loved the giant bats on the 'Kombat Tomb' level. MK3 on the other hand gave us city streets, banks and subways which is the same shit we see everyday in the real world, that is laziness right there as if the design team just went to New York and took snapshots. While backgrounds should be cool, they should never be distracting. The Street Fighter: The Movie arcade game literally had clips of the movie playing on giant TV screens in the back of one of the levels which was total overkill.



A Reason To Fight AKA a good story- There are people fighting in a game, OK WHY? Post-nuclear war? International tournament? Revenge? Bringing down a criminal gang of mo-hawked thugs? Why is my character beating or getting beaten in this game? Gaming is a lot like Hollywood and plots, while ignored by many, offer home gamers a chance to really go deeper into the game and add to the replay value. I can remember trying to beat Mortal Kombat 2 with every character just to see the different endings, and that's getting your moneys worth. A fighting game can win bonus points with me if the story is original, there was so many games based on the idea that a 'tournament' was going on, and that gets stupid after awhile.

Good Graphics- Attention developers! Be as creative as with this, just make sure its interesting and I can see what the fuck I'm doing. This also can go hand in hand with the character rule.

Sound- Today's games have real MTV bands writing songs for games to supply background music. But in the old days developers had to get creative and get behind a synthesizer to give us the killer sound track that we heard in Killer Instinct. Another good layer to please the aural orifices is sound effects, and that's when you hear the bones breaking, the grunting, the screams, the kung foo yells, the body blows, and splatter of human remains of Mortal Kombat. On a system like the Super Nintendo there is no excuse to hear a blip or beep unless I've kicked a robot character in the throat.

These are not official rules but they are things that I pay attention to when I play a game. Many game developers break these rules and the results are never good. The aforementioned Power Moves game was a load of shit in so many ways but the main rule they broke was using a button to make your character jump, and that just fucks with me. Rise of The Robots only let you play as one character, which automatically made me hate the game and I hadn't even begun a fight yet. Bullshit! I could mention others but I'll refrain and save it all for my "Best of the Worst" segment in a later article (I can't wait to get to that one).

Sometimes developers bend the rules, and that works out well sometimes. As time goes by the rules change but the song should remain the same, so to speak. Mortal Kombat's 'block' button was and is a fine example, it took some getting used to, but it worked out. Killer Instinct sacrificed a good story in favor of fast action and great graphics, and I was still satisfied with the end result. The point is, a fighting game or any game needs these basic building blocks as a foundation, but a little extra here and a little less there never hurts but, go to far with or away from something and you've got a recipe for disaster.

These are also the things I'll be basing my reviews on. Its going to be tough because most of the games I've played are older and dated, but the point of most of my reviews should be this:

A true classic never ages.