The first part of Nadia’s three-part Street Fighter retrospective is up over at that one site I work for. I’m sure it is woefully inadequate in the eyes of people whose only joy in life is memorizing fighting game combos, but I think it’s a nice little read. And in any case, I’m pretty sure it will make fewer people angry than my Final Fantasy roundup (which turned out to net way more heated, angry retorts than I intended).
I remember the last time I played Street Fighter II in an arcade. It was ages ago — I still lived in Texas, and I was at a movie theatre waiting for some friends to show up. SFII seemed a better way to kill some time than, say, Revolution-X. Some little kid wandered over and his dad dropping in a quarter, disrupting my solo playthrough. Which is fine — I wasn’t playing seriously or anything. In point of fact, I decided to stop playing Street Fighter to win after bludgeoning my way through the maximum difficulty setting for all eight characters in the original Super NES release, ruining both a controller and a desk in the process. (Sorry about that, Mom.)
The kid had no idea how to play, and I didn’t want to be a jerk by completely demolishing him, so I gave him a few love taps with Chun-Li and then spent the rest of the match using her eleet jumping skills to run down the timer and win on a technicality. This infuriated his father, who angrily criticized me for not letting the kid win. And that was when I decided I hate all humans.
Just kidding. I’d come to that conclusion long before.
Except Terry Pratchett. I definitely don’t hate him, and news of his condition is slightly heartbreaking. For someone who makes his living with his imagination and his facility with words to live with the knowledge that he’ll inevitably lose those facilities is one of the worst fates I can imagine. Celebrity news is something I don’t keep up with, but Pratchett is one of those rare famous people I actually respect (if only for his ability to take a critical look at religion without seeming as puffed up with imaginary self-righteousness as, say, Richard Dawkins or Philip Pullman), so yeah. Awful.
Incorporating Final Fantasy-esque games into the equation definitely caused a multiplier effect on the ire meter. I personally loved the first Super Mario RPG, but a thumbs-down isn’t going to shatter my image of the game or of you as a reviewer. It probably means I should pick up a Paper Mario game and see what I’ve been missing.
Also, that image of Super Street Fighter II is pure gold. Turbo Breakdance Battle and Revolution X have something in common now: music is the weapon.
Terrible news about Pratchett :(
His stories have always been numbered among my favorites. His wit is amazing,
as is his amazingly prolific output.
You’re a better man than I, who would have captioned that picture “Street Fighter II: Electric Boogaloo”.
Yeah, I prefer the slightly obvious jokes to the completely obvious ones.
Wow, that is awful news. I haven’t read much Pratchett lately, but he was a huge part of my adolescence. At any rate, he seems to have a sense of humor about it, which is way more than anyone could reasonably ask for.
“Imaginary self-righteousness”? I don’t think so. I think their self-righteousness is very real. It wouldn’t be nearly as infuriating otherwise, no?
Pratchett is brilliant. This saddens me.
Ha ha Dawkins.
:
I remember being at an arcade somewhere and being excited that I could play whatever new Virtua Fighter or Tekken was out at the time. I got halfway through a fight against the CPU when some asshole walked up, without a word, popped in a quarter (or however much it cost), and ruined my shit.
“You don’t mind, do you??” he asked me afterward. “I need some practice.”
“Uhh no, forget it.”
People who play fighters professionally piss me off, especially random griefers in real life who like showing off.
Do you ever feel like you want to get out of the videogame journalism schtick with all these manchildren getting all upset over any and all things not tailor fit to their unique opinions? I seriously have to take a break from the internet because of so many incensed imbeciles complaining about certain peoples’ views about pixels on a screen. /rant
Daily. Hourly, actually.
Well, then. Not crazy. I’m feeling better already.
I feel devastated. Terry Pratchett could be interesting without saying his books were about killing god or something (ha!, nobody had touched the subject in tard time, so, first).
Video game journalism. That’s like writting about porn, almost the same audience at least. You are like the Luke Ford of video game journalism Parish. I know, I know, how would I know who Luke Ford is if I wasnt yet another video game playing perv. You got me.
Sometimes I think about a book that feels like Sonic Youth. I wish I could write and make The Pixies or David Bowie come out of my words. I wish I could do that. But I end up praying and being scared. I don’t know if I want to write music or put music in what I write. It’s crazy. Sometimes, I think other people might feel the same way, sometimes I think art has been consumed by something empty and nameles, but that has to do with marketing and the usual suspects. Oh, whatever.
…. er……?
Don’t mind him, it’s just more addled rambling from the site’s regular sockpuppet.
Now I’m going to have Michael McDonald stuck in my head all day :(
I keep running into the news about Terry Pratchett all over and it just makes me phenomenally depressed all over again. This’ll probably get my post deleted, but this is the sort of thing that makes me want to kick God in the balls.
Sometimes I think about a book that feels like KISS. I wish I could write and make Boston or Styx come out of my words. I wish I could do that. But I end up praying and being scared. I don’t know if I want to write music or put music in what I write. It’s crazy. Sometimes, I think other people might feel the same way, sometimes I think art has been consumed by something empty and nameles, but that has to do with marketing and the usual suspects, like Big Toothpaste. Oh, whatever.