Thursday 18 December 2008

When I do work experience, I end up writing blog entries instead

Holy hell, three entries in a week! You should all be so lucky.

I really want the Street Fighter IV collector's edition. I mean, just look at it. That is a beautiful, awesome, excellent, etc. reason for me to part with $120+. But right now I'm refraining from dipping my mind's collectorfag fingers into my hypothetical 2009 budget, because I am simply awful at 2D fighters.

Don't get me wrong, I love 2D fighters. Despite the archetypes and the typical storylines (although it can be argued and accepted that 3D fighters - heck, videogames in general use them anyway), it's one of those genres which really interests me. I remember playing Street Fighter II when I was like, four (although it was probably Super Turbo I was playing) using Chun-Li. Yes, I did suck. I think I died on my first round. So it's true, I'm shit at them. I am much more content to sit and watch someone while being loud and obnoxious and blabbing about tier lists (and I know this makes me a bad person but I have never had to do it yet. I'd refrain from talking about tier lists completely but they're fun argument starters.) The thing is, I rarely ever play 2D fighters. Why? Because they are probably the most overlooked genre here.

2D fighters don't seem to be as prevalent in game popularity over here than in other countries. Well, Brisbane, at least. I swear I've only ever seen a group of people crowding around a King of Fighters machine instead of playing Initial D or whatever is hip and cool with hip and cool Sunnybank guys nowadays once. And I go to that arcade pretty regularly. And in some arcades I've been to, they don't even HAVE any 2D fighters. Go to any EB and there WILL be that lingering, unsold copy of King of Fighters 2003. So it's quite fair to say that arcade-goers and consolefriends think that 3D fighters are worth more of their time and money. If I'm not wrong, Tekken 4, Tekken 5 and Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection all went platinum here and I know many gamers still jack-off to them.

I'm not saying that Tekken, nay, that 3D fighters in general are bad games. I enjoy the occasional match and all, but it really is a cinch if you just button mash. If you can actually play it properly, good for you. Point I'm making is that I can beat story mode with any character even if I don't have a fucking clue what I'm doing - with pure button mashing. Or better yet: "Hey, that's a cool combo. I'll just spam it over and over to win the match."

I find that this is also the case with any 3D fighter of your choice (save for Virtua Fighter, save for maybe Virtua Fighter 5 because I don't recall wondering why all the characters were moving around in molasses). Button mash, spam knockback moves, pull off an infinite juggle combo. Oops, did I make a physics pun there? That too. People love 3D fighters because they're easy. And because they love boobs. In 2D fighters, you get nowhere with button mashing. You'll win maybe the first two matches by dumb luck but after that you'll be wondering how the fuck the CPU managed to land a 'PERFECT' on you.

As mentioned previously, just because I love Soul Calibur doesn't mean I'm not going to bag it when I get the chance. After all, it's not racist if you're mocking your own race.

It makes sense though then, that the overwhelming preference for 3D fighters over 2D fighters affects which games we are and aren't going to get over here. Street Fighter IV was obviously going to make it over, since it's so gosh darn popular. But I sure as hell haven't seen any Guilty Gear cabinets (and I've only seen the actual console games at like, one store, disregarding Judgement and Dust Strikers). It's like whoever's in charge of distribution has said: "Let's just not bother with any 2D fighters for Australia except for SFIV because it's the only one people give a fuck about." (Oh wait, SFIV's 2.5D anyway.) In any case, this is extremely upsetting. I want Accent Core! I want Blazblue! I want those games that people might not give a damn about now but will maybe fall in love with if they only gave them a chance.

... Looks like I'm gonna have to buy SFIV for my fix.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No kiddin, that SFIV set looks like nice shit. I might end up picking the game up if it comes to Wii/PS2/ or if any local arcades get it.

Talkin about SFII makes me remember back in the day when my sister and I used to play once in awhile at a bar. We both played Chun, and whoever was Pink Chun was automatically the loser.
Guess who was pink Chun most of the time?

SPAMMIN YO' BLOG 'CUZ YOU'RE NOT ON.

Soiled Sinema said...

What are your thoughts on Suikoden II?

Bev said...

@Soiled Sinema

What the fuck, I didn't notice this comment before.

I haven't played Suikoden... yet.