Cornering is not cheating

Do you ever wonder what I was like as a little child? Back before the world crushed my spirit, when life was still full of light and laughter? There was such a time, long ago in a little town named Lakewood. I lived on a quiet suburban block, and every summer morning I rode my bike a mile or so to swim practice, then spent the remainder of the day on my friend Mike’s bedroom carpet, playing the greatest fighting game ever conceived by man: Street Fighter II.

Despite the misleading first half of the above paragraph, it’s this game I came to talk to you about today. Are you surprised a charming childhood story devolved so quickly into nostalgic reminisces about a game for the Super Nintendo? It has to be that way. I have to introduce any discussion of Street Fighter II by establishing, good and for all, the following: Street Fighter II defined my childhood. If you think that’s sad, then you’ve obviously never played the game, or else your heart is a tiny black lump of shriveled coal, devoid of human feeling.

Mike Ferris and I loved that game so much that we neglected even to change out of our swimsuits and Aqua Socks after swim practice before plopping down in front of the grainy color television his mother let him keep in his room. At the very least, two hours of our time daily went into mastering the tiniest nuances of that game; some days we wouldn’t put down the controllers until dusk was settling. When I think about what my summers in Lakewood were like, only two things spring to mind: the pool, and Street Fighter II. If I had to choose one memory to keep, I’m not sure which it would be.

You have to understand that we’re not just talking about any ordinary fighting game here; this is the fighting game, the one that set an entire generation of young boys to shouting “Shoryuken!”, the one that started the genre as we know it and spawned a hundred imitators, the one that still today has a special place in the heart of the most die-hard (die-hardest?) gamer. It’s simply flawless.

Street Fighter II introduced us to the now-familiar system of character selection, a subtle, hard-to-achieve balance between strength, defense, and speed which hasn’t ever really been improved upon. You can argue about which character is the best for hours – and we did, Mike and I, sometimes more than playing the game itself. I started as Guile, the military bad-ass whose patented Flash Kick has more clearing potential than any other move in the game – but which takes long enough to pull off to make it almost worthless against a speedy character like Chun Li. Mike started with Ryu, arguably the most well-rounded character. After literally hundreds of hours of playing, Mike chose Chun Li as his champion, while I wavered (and still do) between Blanka and Ken, but after so much practice we were both adept with any character, even the sluggish Dhalsim and Zangeif, generally agreed to be the two worst selections.

To excel at Street Fighter II, you have to know not only your own character, but your opponent’s character, both like the back of your hand. You have to understand that jumping into Ken or Ryu or Guile is paramount to suicide – they all have show-stopping vertical attacks. You have to understand that when Blanka or E. Honda are crouching, they are most likely getting ready to shoot across the length of the screen with their ball or headbutt, respectively. You have to understand that when Chun Li starts kicking, she won’t stop until you’re good and dead. Even before Street Fighter II Turbo was released and sped the game up by a factor of three, the pace is fast enough that you need to know all of the above instinctually, at a level below conscious thought.

Is anyone still reading this?

You can imagine my elation when I discovered a pristine copy of the game in Bryan’s new apartment. I lost no time in hooking the SNES up to the TV, and less time in demonstrating my abilities for Bryan, who had similar experiences in his younger years. Picking up the controller was like stepping into an old slipper, worn smooth from age and use. Bryan turned out to be almost evenly matched with me – probably a margin of three-to-two in my favor. He uses Chun Li, just like my old nemesis.

Nathan, on the other hand, is almost hopeless. If I recall correctly, the result of his emphatic challenge to me was 25-1 in my favor, even throwing out the “warm-up rounds”. Naomi fared even worse; at one point I told her that, should she beat me even a single time, I would personally go down on Bryan for her amusement. It wasn’t a bet I was worried about losing.

Nathan’s challenged me to a rematch, which is scheduled to take place in a week and a half or so, when he returns from Idaho. I hope he’s getting some practice in. It’s not like there’s anything else to do in Idaho.

The social sabbatical, for those interested, has been a total failure. I have a hard time not answering my phone when it rings, basically. Tuesday night I actually hosted a party at my apartment, and I’m pretty sure it was the most dramatic night of my entire life. Think about from whom that statement comes, then let the impact sink in. The details don’t pass the blog-test, sadly. Today I did pretty well, though, mostly because I skipped work. I’ve been feeling a little under the weather, and Nathan needed a ride to the airport anyway, so it was an easy call.

Lastly, this website is strangely compelling. I especially like this piece.