I am 10 years old and begging my parents to give me quarters just to embarrass some teenager when I Hadoken him to death. Present Day:
So, not only did I pre-order Street Fighter IV, I totally splurged on the cheesy Collectors Edition. I haven't watched the half-assed anime yet, but I have played this game for hours on my couch. Addicted isn't the word, it's more like nostalgic, to the point of listening to the original Street Fighter II songs while playing the new game, just to feel like a kid again (they're awesome, check them out here). Seriously, I just can't help but think about the early arcade days in my hometown of Manhattan in New York City.
It must have been the summer between 4th and 5th grade when I first played this game in the back of a lotto store around the corner from my apartment. I was kind of upset because I had been kicking ass at Bad Dudes, and they switched it before I beat the game. But this game seemed different there were two joysticks and...really? Six buttons each??!
What the shit?! Most beat 'em up games had two buttons, jump and attack (with the deadly combo of jump + attack to do a special move). Even Neo Geo arcade machines only had 5 buttons, and most of the time they didn't even use all of them. Now this six button shit comes along? I soon found out just how much I needed light, medium, and fierce (later they changed it to heavy) attacks to wreck shop on strange opponents from across the globe. I think I always played as Ryu back in the day, because I could never mess with back for two seconds. I also couldn't do the dragon punch for a long time, but that's another story, Shoryuken.
So here I am, again, 10 years old and begging my parents to give me quarters just to embarrass some teenager when I Hadoken him to death. Many quarters were lost in the Arcades of Coney Island, Penn Station (there was a massive Arcade there, now it's a fucking K-Mart), and my all time favorite: Chinatown Fair.
Hidden away on Mott Street is probably the oldest/oddest Arcade in Manhattan. Chinatown Fair, the former home of The Dancing Chicken when I was a really little kid (God bless you Mom and Dad), is now the Mecca of fighting games in NYC. Today, they still have several Street Fighter II games and lots of other Capcom fighting games. The jewels in their crown right now are the four HD screens with their individual table top controls that link up for two player games.
This shit is crazy. First of all, it costs a dollar to play some guy that's been sitting there all day in some rickety-ass chair. And then he absolutely kicks my ass and I have to go to the back of the line to wait to repeat the sad process all over again. So even though its fun to try to embarrass strangers in public I much prefer demoralizing my friends at somebody's house.
I think the first home version I played was the Super Nintendo version. I played this game for so long I think I memorized all the classic music. I was finally able to do the dragon punch after someone's older brother showed me how, and I was ready stay up all night and do hurricane kicks.
I always kept up with the latest editions they released, and it wasn't long before Sega Genesis came out with the Championship Edition. Super Nintendo had six buttons, four on the face and two shoulder buttons (L and R), but Genesis only had three. At first you had to press the start button to switch from punch to kick and that was a pain in the ass, then they released the glorious six button controller. This thing was inspired, it had the exact button setup from the arcade and it changed the game at home on the Genesis.
Now, finally, after many other versions of this fighter: Alpha, EX, III, we have the next gen Street Fighter. I've been kicking ass and taking names online, so put KRSJAMS (Playstation 3 only) on your friends list and see if you got what it takes to beat this nerd!
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NERDOUT, people.
Here's a clip of the trailer and then a clip that shows my favorite combo in the game:
Take your show over to XBox Live and put your money where your mouth is.
ReplyDelete- LKH