I just played Street Fighter IV so hard I can barely move my wrist. I realize this is like complaining about having trouble breathing because you’re buried under a pile of beautiful women, but still: Ouch.
Edit: “You should take a ten minute break every hour, whether you’re laying underneath a pile of beautiful women or beating them up.” – LilSpriteX in the comments
I was playing as my main lady Chun-Li, actually. I only had to beat up one girl, Crimson Viper, who has been designated Chun-Li’s rival. I would have figured M. Bison would hold that title, what with his having killed her dad and all, but I guess I was overlooking the important fact that all women loathe one another.
Today, my friend, i wish i was you.
You should take a ten minute break every hour, whether you’re laying underneath a pile of beautiful women or beating them up.
This was me with Soul Calibur IV last night. Exactly. Except I was losing every time. Yet still was wonderful.
Hey, I’m the guy that was totally starstruck by you when you were watching my friend play Flock at the Capcom booth at Comic-Con. Just thought you’d like to know that.
Oh yea, I also played the shit out of SFIV at Comi-Con. I seriously just played that thing all of Sunday.
On an arcade unit? I always hurt myself more with a pad.
I actually forgot how much difference an arcade stick makes over a pad and now I’m in pain.
Playing some SFIV and seeing some girl-on-girl hand-to-hand action in the process, Parish you lucky dog.
Where did you play it? Are you still hanging out in Osaka or did you go back to Tokyo already? I haven’t tried it yet and I’m not sure where to start looking for it.
This might be a little late, but I’ve been watching clips from the NHK program Tokyo Eye on YouTube, including videos of expats showing off what they like to do in their neighborhood. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS80j-9zxpU In this video featuring Sangenjaya (which is next to Shibuya, she says), there’s a sandwich shop which serves a rather deluxe looking vegetable sandwich, so if you get the craving for plant matter (since veggies are so rare in Tokyo), you know where to go.
I just woke up with the same problem. It figures; work all day at a job where you’re likely to get a repetitive stress injury, then go home and play hard enough to actually get one. I also have a SOUL CALLUS on my left thumb.
Ah Chun-Li, my glorious countryperson. I can only echo shivam’s thoughts.
it’s surprisingly enjoyable… el fuerte and rufus are both great too.
whenever i play arcade fighters for too long i get a blister on the side of my ring finger cause of how i hold the stick. i’m not smart enough to change that until it hurts, every single time.
“my main lady, Chun-Li”
You have excellent taste in pretend ladies.
Regarding wrist injuries, I have the same problem with drawing. I think I need to work out more.
not that it matters, but does anyone know if SFIV is cannon?
“not that it matters, but does anyone know if SFIV is cannon?”
It depends. Did Drummer Hoff fire it off?
The last time I got a blister from playing a fighting game was Street Fighter Alpha 2 on the SNES. I played through the game with Zangief and those 360 motions were murderous on that pad. I don’t know how the pads are on the Xbox 360 and PS3, but I hope they have evolved past the SNES controller. Any game can cause RSIs from playing too long though. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.
I may have been one of the few that enjoyed the snes pad, and the oft under-appreciated SFA II on SNES. It’s still fascinating to me how the crammed all that data into such a limited cart. Despite the compression and loading, I still love it.
Verdict on SFIV?
I’m hoping between IV and HD on PSN I’ll be all set for Street Fighter goodness.
Street Fighter Alpha 2 on Super NES was incredible, actually. Not just as a technical feat; it played well enough that my friends and I decided that, hey, maybe there was still some life in this Street Fighter thing after all.
The XBox 360 and PS2 (and I presume PS3) pads are terrible for fighting games, each in different ways (the 360 pad because for some reason the diagonals feel way too sensitive, and the PS pads because of that stupid disconnected pad thing). This may just be nostalgia talking, but for Street Fighter I think I might just take the SNES controller over both of those.
Here’s something that I, as someone who barely plays fighting games but follows conversations about them online, have long wondered: why does everyone who plays them seriously use either the standard d-pad or an arcade controller and never the standard analog stick? Is the analog stick really that different from the stick on the arcade controllers? Maybe you guys can enlighten me.
Nich:
Every fighting game since basically forever (Smash Bros. aside) has used precise digital controls eg when you press forward, there is exactly one forward walking speed. Using an analog stick to represent precise digital movement is a bit of a crapshoot, which is why d-pads and arcade sticks, which are both digital input, dominate the professional scene.
Here’s an attempt at an explanation, although I haven’t really been “serious” since college:
Arcade-style joysticks are generally big enough that you can grab one with your entire hand, which affords a more natural kind of control (moving your arm and/or wrist, as opposed to just your thumb). Gamepad analog sticks are way too small to be used this way, and thus you either have to fake it by holding it between your index finger and thumb (like a little teapot) or just moving it with your thumb. And if you’re going to be using your thumb anyway, the pad is less stressful on your thumb than the analog stick, and the analog-nessis pretty much wasted since most non-Smash-Bros. fighters only detect 8 discrete directions.
Another possible explanation, in a lame attempt at aping evolutionary psychology:
For the most part, the best players in a given fighting game are the ones smashing each other up in arcades, and thus they got used to arcade joysticks. The best way to improve your skill is to play those better than you, so those sufficiently motivated enough to improve their skill would go to the arcade to fight the current top-of-the-food-chain. They will eventually supercede the old generation with their joystick-trained skills. I’m guessing this cycle continues forever. The Smash Bros. scene never had an arcade component, which is why there is no arcade-stick-shift there. Now for the longtime casual fighting game crowd, they’ve been weaned on gamepads for forever, and are used to them, so what’s the advantage – to them – for switching to the little analog stick?
@Matt: I think SFIV is being placed between SFII and SFIII. I think the Roman numeral should be a sign that the game is canon. The SFEX games were non-canon, as I understand it anyway, and they used numbers.
@CaliScrub: I think your initial explanation was accurate. The feeling of a full-grip stick in your hand affords a lot more control than the analogs on most controllers. When it comes to a controller, the d-pad beats out analog because the movements are smaller and more precise on the former. I can only imagine how tough it must be to use a Wii motion controller for a fighting game.
If the reviews of the Wii Guilty Gear XX Accent Core are to be trusted, it’s godawful.