To my buddies at the MAAN Clan, I am the resident Fighting Game Guru. In my college days, The Grey Ghost and I shared many an epic battle in one fighter or another. I cut my competitive gaming teeth on fighters like Street Fighter 2, Tekken, and Virtua Fighter. My gaming ‘hobby’ became serious ‘competition’ with Friday afternoons in my Freshman Year in High School History Class, and Street Fighter 2 when Reggie would bring his Super NES to school and the teacher let us have the second half of the period to ourselves. That was over 16 years ago. As part of the community, I have seen Street Fighter 2 go through seven evolutionary stages, from Street Fighter 2 through Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (Super Turbo) to the final Capcom release of Hyper Street Fighter 2 – Anniversary Edition (AE). Now the new Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix (Street Fighter HD or SFHD), a fan made and Capcom blessed Ultimate Edition of Super Turbo, has hit the PSN and XBL, and introduces and re-introduces players to iconic characters like Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Guile, and M. Bison.
People have been excited over the appearance of Ken and Ryu’s master, Gouken, in Street Fighter IV. Especially since he’ll be a playable character for the first time when the game comes to home consoles later this month. I think it’s cool and interesting, but as always, I’m not so quick to fall into the hype.
I do appreciate that they made him into a much different character than just another “shotoclone“. Much in the sense that Sakura’s character imitates Ryu, but has her own unique style. All that said, I can’t see him adding to the game much more than just a novelty.
Outside of the official Street Fighter canon, Gouken has always had a presence in the manga, anime, and other game-inspired media. The reason why his character generates fascination from fans is that he fills a paternal role for Ken and Ryu’s characters, even though he’s neither of their biological parent.
As Star Wars can serve no better example, the stories that seem to capture the most attention involve a parent/child element, predominantly one of a father and son. Sometimes the villain will turn out to be the hero’s father. Or in some on-going series, we’ll eventually see the hero have a child of his own that we can watch follow in his footsteps. And of course there’s always the typical plot of the hero avenging his father’s death, dealt by the villain.
I think that as a culture–or rather, a species–we’re unconsciously obsessed with genealogy. Breeding and the maintaining of bloodlines are rooted deep inside our reptilian brains. We always want to see just how far the apple falls from the tree.
I, on the other hand, prefer to look at Gouken’s presence from another point of view. Namely the rivalry that he shares with Akuma. To me, that relationship is much more intriguing because it somewhat parallels the rivalry between Ken and Ryu. While Ken and Ryu share a friendly rivalry, the bond between Gouken and Akuma is older, deeper, and much darker by comparison. It’s almost like looking at Ken and Ryu 30 years later after things between them had gone very, very wrong. Perhaps it’s something we could expect from “Street Fighter IX”?
Have no doubt that I’ll try exploring this topic deeper in the future.
If you skim through any Street Fighter glossary, you’ll see common terms that describe the different types of players. There’s the ever-blocking “Turtle”. The unstoppable “Beast”. And of course the novice “Scrub”.
There’s one term that I tried to coin, but never quite made it into the guide books. It was to describe the devoted girlfriend that waits alone off to the side of the arcade cabinet while her champion plows through the competition. This girl, I refer to as the “Cup Holder”.
As Street Fighter IV revives the fighting game phenomenon, fresh legions of players emerge with their sweethearts in tow. Luckily for these gals, this new generation offers them better distractions to occupy them in the form of multi-featured cell phones.
I do whole-heartedly sympathize with Gabe’s post above. Oh, to be that young again in this new era of arcade gaming.
I’m pretty sure this is actually a photoshop, cuz that looks like it would take a long time to finish and hurt like hell! Plus the bottom “Gonna Take You For A Ride” looks fake.
There’s a video game mod that I’d like to propose, good for any multiplayer first-person shooter. I call it “Capture The Beer”. The premise, as you would imagine, is much like Capture The Flag, except that each team’s flag is replaced by a keg of beer that the opposing team must steal.
But here’s the hook! Whomever is in possession of the opposing team’s beer keg slowly becomes more intoxicated the longer the keg is in their possession. Their vision gets blurry, controls become less responsive… Eventually, alcohol poisoning kicks in and the player’s health begins to count down.
This element would be excellent for strengthening teamwork. You would always need someone to pass the beer to, if not to be close by to give you cover fire (while you’re drunk) or pick up the keg once you’ve died. This way, there’s no one who can get away with being a glory hog and the entire team depends on communication and coordination.
I don’t know why I didn’t notice this before. The wookie-esque height. The missing right eye. The love of gripping opponents by the skull. See for yourself:
I hate upgrading WordPress. It’s such a pain in the ass. Why can’t they make it so that you can upgrade it with one button in the dashboard? There used to be a great plugin that let you do it, but it doesn’t work so well anymore.
While luckily we hear about it less frequently these days, there are always stories popping up in the news covering some tragedy or mishap that the mainstream media has connected to playing video games. This recent episode of natural selection is just another link in the chain.
I think that most of the controversies are stemmed from the same issue, but for the sake of an example, I’ll be discussing the most popular topic: Video game violence.
Here’s something that everyone with a PC needs… A virtual desktop maid!
It’s actually kinda interesting. You run the software, set up your webcam, and using special blocks and cards that come with the game you can interact with a 3D maid on the screen. The sadist in me loves the idea of incessantly poking the poor girl with the plastic wand. Though it get doesn’t really uncomfortable until you start knocking her clothes off with it.
Why it’s worth watching this video until the end: There’s a dinosaur.
2008 was a pretty weak year for the PSP. When I bought myself a 3000 model last month, I was eager to start building my library. But when I’ve ventured into game stores, I see that the PSP sections have all been scaled down.
I felt encouraged when I heard that Sony had big plans for the PSP in 2009. Though it seems like they’re shifting to sell games primarily though digital distribution, slowly phasing out their own UMD format.
Nintendo is doing something similar with their next model of DS (the DSi) in that they’re removing the Game Boy Advance slot. The big difference is that GBA was the previous generation of hardware that the DS simply adopted in its design. If any rumors are true that Sony has the next model of PSP in the works that omits the UMD slot all together, that’s ditching the very format that the PSP was based upon!
Of course there are always online stores to acquire the PSP titles I’m looking for. But it’s certainly a bad omen when major retailers pull back their support. Either way, I’m gonna stock up on memory sticks…
A History of Street Fighter II
While luckily we hear about it less frequently these days, there are always stories popping up in the news covering some tragedy or mishap that the mainstream media has connected to playing video games. This 