OMGJeremy

Spend The Weekend With Billy: Street Fighter Fury

I absolutely loved Street Fighter II.  Long ago, I recall playing it at the arcade as a youth.  You could tell they knew it was going to be one of those big games, because it was the game they put right in the front of the arcade.  This wasn’t just so people could see it, but it was mainly so the line of 30-40 kids (no exaggeration) waiting to play could empty out into the mall and not keep looping around the inside of the already-too-small arcade.  So Street Fighter II hit, and fighting games were great.

Then for a long time nothing at all happened, with the notable exception of Mortal Kombat II, the pissing finisher in Primal Rage, and Doomsday Warrior for the SNES (my all time favorite generic fighter).

Then a miracle happened, and Street Fighter IV was upon us.  This isn’t a review, so I’ll just cut it short and say that this game is the BIG FELLAS SHIT… which is really good.  Instead, this article will focus on my experience playing online this week.  The following events may seem like a bit of a stretch, but if you have played SFIV online then you will know just how realistic it is.

Why Doesn’t Anyone Ever Use Ken?

In SFII I liked Ken well enough.  I never used him that much, nor his half-palate swapped friend.  I was a Balrog man, and I always have been.  When Street Fighter III rolled around and Balrog wasn’t there, I decided to use the British and better dressed Balrog that that game offered me.  But anyway, Ken is an okay character I guess.  That was then… now I fucking hate that bastard and his ugly-assed wife who is probably cheating on him while he travels the world.  Doesn’t matter if she is pregnant, some guys are really into that.  Some guys are even into pregnant amputees… but I will save that for when I write an article on the things I find when spending way too much time and effort typing horrible things into google.

I kept track of the opponents I faced in my first 20 minutes online, and it goes as follows:

• -  vs. Ken
• -  vs. Ken
• -  vs. Ken
• -  vs. Akuma
• -  vs. Ken
• -  vs. Ken
• -  vs. Ryu
• -  vs. Ken
• -  vs. Ken
• -  vs. Ken
• -  vs. Dan
• -  vs….wait a minute, somebody used DAN!?!?
• -  vs. Ken

Get the nearest math wizard and tell him to crunch those numbers for you.  That is a shitload of Ken to take on within 20 minutes of playing.

Apparently what the character select screen for everyone else in the world looks like.

Normally this isn’t much of a problem; I’ve gotten down a pretty Ken-proof strategy to use on most of the new kids who just like to throw fireballs.  But over the past week I fought some Kens on a whole other level.  They unleashed the full arsenal of moves on me.  Hurricane kicks, fireballs, and… well that’s about it.  Only they used a shitload more than usual.  There were 3 occasions where the guys just stood there throwing them over and over again.  I could feel my Fighting Rage building up within, but I tried to keep cool and handle these fools the best I could.

Then it happened.

I normally just throw out a prayer before I try to connect to someone, hoping that it will actually work and I won’t be sent back to the lobby.  Rarely do I check the details of the match ahead.  So imagine my surprise when I take on… Ken… and he starts throwing fireballs like crazy.  The fireballs alone have knocked out maybe 1/5 of my health, but I get a couple of hits in.  All of a sudden the match stops… the fucker set it to a 30 second time limit.  It hits me that his strategy was to just stand there and chip away my energy bit by bit with fireballs and hold me back long enough for the time to run out, thus giving him the cheapest victory known to man.

I lose it.

I go into a blind rage and all I see is red.  You wanna know why I saw red?  Because that’s what color that bastard Ken wears and I couldn’t look at my television without seeing him squaring off against me.  So I pull out my A-game, but I fall to another Ken.  I’m fuming by now, finally having enough of all the Ken-love on SFIV.  I say right then and there that I am making an example out of the next Ken I face.

I only had to wait a minute.

Don't encourage them, controller-makers!

This bastard picks Ken and all of a sudden I take the cursor off Balrog and put it on BIG ASSED SAGAT.  Normally I don’t do this, but I was pissed off at an army of Kens and they had all been melded together in my mind into this one solitary Ken that was standing in front of me.  I played the cheapest Sagat I could.  Slinging fireballs with “FUCK YOU” and “DIE YOU BASTARD” behind every single one.  Delivering Tiger Uppercuts until I could feel his virtual ribs were turned into a fine powder.  When all was said and done I stood above the crumpled red form on the ground, and I realized… this did nothing to ease my fury.

Up next was a girl.  I did not see gender, I did not see race.  I didn’t care if the person I was going against didn’t have hangdowns and a piece, I was flattening her just like all of the other Ken-loving bastards that night.  I swear she tried to use the whole “I’m a girl” routine prior to the fight, but I couldn’t tell.  I only say that because isn’t that what they all do?  Even if she did, I wouldn’t have given a shit. She could have sucked on ‘em from here to Texas (just so forum legend DJAtari could get in on it), and I still would have given her every bit of the ass-raping she received at the end of Sagats ridiculously long-reaching punches and kicks.

Up next is another Ken, and I feel like clowning this son of a bitch.  I pick Vega.  I spend so much time up in the air that I hope I gave the kid I was facing motion sickness.  I claw, kick, and roll my way to a victory… and a small bit of satisfaction.  I did the same to my next opponent, getting on the mic very briefly so he could verbally be reminded of the ruin he was left in.  I continued to go on the hunt that night.  Each Ken I faced off against I brought the big guns with me.  Within a couple of hours I had an inbox full of hate-messages, possibly one or two negative reps (kids don’t like losing), one death threat, and three rage-quitters.  When I finally sat the controller down I was relieved.  I felt that, if only for one night, I had done a favor to all who try to enjoy SFIV online only to face a bunch of fireball throwing fucktards.

I took on more than 35 Kens that night.  I went to take a rage-shit and lost count upon returning.  I was just glad my girlfriend didn’t own a red robe, because if she would have stepped out with that shit on she may have found herself on the business end of a Buffalo Headbutt.  So what is the real story here?  That a lot of people use Ken?  That I got a small ounce of revenge in some really sad way?  No… I think the real story here is:

The manliest of fighters

Somebody actually used goddamned DAN!