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Bang The Machine
riiv writes "I saw the premiere of Bang The Machine tonight at SXSW 2002. The film is a documentary of the Street Fighter tournament scene. There's another screening March 15 so if you are near the Austin area, it is your moral obligation to watch it. I asked director Tamara Katepoo if they had a distributor lined up, unfortunely they don't. If you're looking for a film to distribute please get in touch with the film creators. The movie rocked and validated my wasted life ever since the purchase of Street Fighter 2 Japanese for SNES."
I'm going to go down there and look around this weekend this is pretty wild. At first I thought it was a real fight and I'm thinking golfland wtf. Anyways chun li rules screw all you powerball throwing bastards out there.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
That "Bang the Machine" link opened up 8 separate windows asking me to download Shockwave. 8 WINDOWS!!! I get the point. Geesh...
The movie rocked and validated my wasted life ever since the purchase of Street Fighter 2 Japanese for SNES.
:o)
I don't think my girlfriend (or any non-geek) would agree
The speed of time is one second per second.
Yah and streetfighter the movie sucked too.
But this is not a videogame to movie transition.
The closest comparison is "The Wizard" It was not too bad a movie BTW.
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
Way to read the link there AC. If you actually bothered to look at the page, you would know that this isn't a spin-off movie like Final Fantasy or Mortal Combat, but a DOCUMENTARY about people who play Street Fighter.
Steps for posting to Slashdot:
1. Read link
2. Post
3. Smoke Crack
Do not reverse the order!
Don't forget the "goodguys" that geet taken down with them. i.e. Square lost a lot of money they could have spent to make final fantasy XXX better.
Did noone mention how cheesy Mortal Kombat I/II's moovies were?
Starz
Other more modern games may be more addicitng, but as far as I remember, Street Fighter was really the first game that practically everybody was playing. Everyone was constantly trying to get better in order to one-up the "competition" and be the local champion (even if it was only withing a small group of friends). Ahhhh the good old days!
-- Find the Truth...
1. Read Link 2. Post 3. Smoke Crack 4. Profit!
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Sad but true.
I recall beating folks by watching the screen in the mirror on the ceiling...
The fact that the arcade is disapearing is lamentable, and I'm glad someone has captured some of it's.. well glory isn't quite the right word.
I'd go into SF Alpha 3 witdrawal if it wasn't for Mame. Mame rules.
-Z
A movie that wastes 2 hours of your life showing how other people waste hundreds of hours of their lives. Seriously though, would someone actually pay to watch this movie? Do you get game hints or tips? What's the attraction?
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
I live not a 5 minute drive from this golfland (and Neutral Ground, home of the regional CCG tournaments btw.)
It is a terribly unassuming place, just a kinda shoddy mini-golf place with terrible parking. It's nestled among large apartment complexes near a diverse (ethnically) area.
I heard about tournaments there a few months back, but have still never stopped by yet. But unless you knew any better, you'd just assume the place was a little shoddy mini-golf place, fighting off the Man to keep their little place alive. (there are tons of little shoddy shops in Silicon Valley that refused to sell, even when the land prices were exorbitant)
Check out Shoryuken.com, for the latest information (tournaments/ranking) on the SF scene, as well as combo videos and recorded tournament matches.
:)
Currently, the most popular games are Capcom vs SNK 2 and Marvel vs Capcom 2. I am a big fan of the latter, and I often play at Southern Hills Golfland. The players there are incredible, and on the weekends the place is completely packed (15 minute wait for a game sometimes). I played in the MvC2 tourney last month, but lost first round.
And by original I mean Street Fighter II (the first one never really took off)
SF2 put fighting games on the map. It was a huge step toward the dominance of video games in youth culture. Whether or not this is a good thing, you can decide.
For like 3 years SF2 dominated the arcade and home console scene like nothing since PacMan. Only Halflife compares in recent times, though the PC market is much smaller than the console and arcade markets.
I don't want to think of how much money I put into that franchise during my middle school years. I was best with Ken personally, though I thought Blanka was the most fun to play. Some of the "sequels" were cool, Turbo, Special, and Super all added something. The later editions of the series, Alpha, III etc. never really did it for me.
And who remembers the huge debate over which was better, SF2 or Mortal Kombat. Where I was from the be-mulleted redneck teens were all into MK and everyone else was big on SF2. If you go back, I think it's fair to say that Street Fighter II had the better gameplay (at least compared to the first Kombat, MK2 was much better) though MK did a better job of getting itself in the news (for obvious reasons.)
Ah... memories.
3d fighters just don't do it for me, and now SNK is gone, and Capcom has been getting diminishing returns off of newer 2d fighters like capcom vs. marvel. I think we've finally reached the end of an era... oh well.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Round one. Fight!
...
Ush ush ush.
Hadooooooken.
Hadooken.
Shoruken.
Ksh ksh ksh
Arooo, arooo.
Bzzt bzzt bzzt.
Shoruuuuken.
Aroo.
Ka-kumph.
Bzzt bzzt bzzt bzzt bzzt bzzt.
Hadoooken.
Ooooh - ooh - ooh - ooh
You win!
Ash OS durbatulk, ash OS gimbatul, ash OS thrakatulk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul! Uzg-MS-ishi amal fauthut burgulli.
If I wanted to bang a machine I'd go here.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
Let me tell you, the best SF2 players in the world are at a whole other level than normal human beings.
I hate the terminology, but all the players I've ever played outside of Sunnyvale Golfland are scrubs compared to those that I've played there. Good Lord. I don't know if John Choi (one of the best pro SF2 players in the U.S.) still plays there, but by God, he and those that were at his level were a sight to see. I entered a few tourneys alongside folks like them back when I went to school in the valley, and I never did better then the third round. John once handed my ass to me on a plate, double perfect rounds, then shook my hand and walked off. I didn't feel too ripped off though...we were playing SF Alpha (1), and he was taking advantage of Guy's endless redizzy combo.
I highly recommend this place to bay area locals, whether you want to play or watch, you're bound to see some of America's best playing there on almost any given night. Reeks of tobacco too, just like all good SF2 arenas.
< tofuhead >
It is still the dark of night.
I would've picked that Jean Claude Van Damme was involved in the Street Fighting scene at some time or another, but it was a true revelation to find that Kylie Minogue wasn't averse to the odd urban brawl.
Before that I thought she was a little bit soft, what with that whole "Do The Locomotion" song and all, but like, WHOAH! my eyes were opened!
I think you mean:
Super Street Fighter 2 Alpha Turbo Championship Edition: Warriors' Dreams.
graspe
Hush now scrub. Chun Li doesn't suck; the problem is that in some of the games, she's TOO good. In my own competitive SF-playing days at Sunnyvale Golfland, I used her against all those ARK scrubs (Akuma/Ryu/Ken weaklings) just to get them off the machine so I could play other players who had more interesting strategies than hadouken/hadouken/shouryuuken.
My old game of choice was Alpha 2. Three sucked balls IMO. SSF2X was cool, but Golfland didn't have a machine. Marvel...NO. Anyway, in the Alpha games, Chun Li was too fast, had the most powerful super combos (that could be linked into each other), and had chain/link combos up the wazoo. One technique in these older games is to use her crouching forward to walk up to an opponent and poke (hit or force a block), then link the hit or block tick into her overhead kick or her fireball. She also had an air throw, which put her over the top.
In my experience, only inexperienced players could be defeated by lucky button mashers, even if they were using Chun Li. With skill, she's a top bracket character, which is why lots of the best players used characters that were more challenging/less flexible.
< tofuhead >
It is still the dark of night.
Street Figter 2 was the first game with any real depth that let you play against another human. Before that, you could only show off your "skills" by beating the high score. This game significantly increased the social aspect of video gaming.
Unfortunately, it also significantly increased the actual physical violence in arcades. Now before you jump in and shout about columbine, the violence here was caused by not playing enough of the game. Most arcade fights are started by people who haven't played enough to get good at the game, resulting them losing. Like I said, this game has plenty of depth.
Street Fighter requires skill. In the beginning it was about doing those cool looking fireball moves. Then we discovered combos. Then the strategies started developing. The level it's played at nowadays involves mind games and knowing your oponent. This is not your father's video game (not that your father actually had video games). Many times, Street Fighter has even been compared with chess. I await the day when it will be an official Olympic sport. Heh. Imagine the judging disputes when one player abuses a game glitch.
So is this how /. is trying to cash in? they want a Finders Fee for the distribution rights.
Go For the Gold Guys
The More Knowledge you have the Luckier you Get- J.R. Ewing
That's only if you don't have moderator points. If you do, then it's:
1. Smoke Crack
2. Go buy more crack
3. Smoke Crack
4. Find secret 'emergency' stash of crack
5. Smoke Crack
6. Spray moderator points at random.
7. Smoke last rock from emergency stash to celebrate.
The enemies of Democracy are
If you're gonna be around Austin, check out "Prizewhores" -- it's a documentary about all those people who go around to radio promos just for all the free stuff. It's pretty interesting. Made in Austin too.
;)
Disclaimer: I'm not at all involved with the film, I just find it kind of funny. I guess it's a more profitable way to waste one's time rather than playing SF
--gaz
"I turn away with fright and horror from the lamentable evil of functions which do not have derivatives."
besides, you know ken and ryu kick everyone's ass anyway.
Woah...lots of hostility in here today..
..oh yeah..SF rules.
Anyway, I just wanted to post and praise the fellas that put together the SxSW festival and bring neat little known movies like this to the (somewhat) mainstream. I havn't ever had the chance to check out the interactive part of the festival (mostly because this stuff costs an arm and a leg!), anybody see anything cool there?
and
what do you mean M.Bison is Balrog is Vega is M.Bison???
FUNK!
it's all about street fighter ex3, none of that alpha 3 bs, w/all the cartoon looking anime characters. that stuff can get on your nerves in no time. street fighter ex3 is by far better than any of the street fighter games i've ever played, and i had almost every version
For a minute I thought this was some weird fetish porno spoof of the new movie The Time Machine.
You could throw people if you were on top of them. You could play Vega or Chun Li and just leap over your opponent, hit the throw button, and toss them down. It made the game pretty simple to beat, and fun to own people who were bugging you.
more
You are an idiot. Did you even read the byline? It isn't even coming from Hollywood! AAAAGH! Independent movie, no distributor, ABOUT Street Fighter II SCENE. Dig?
For those who are interested, there's a short trailer for the movie on File Planet. There's also an interviewwith Peter Kang,one of the producers, on Shoryuken.com. We got a press DVD this weekend which has 4 more teaser video clips. We'll planning on capturing them and putting them up on SRK in the next few days.
Street Figter 2 was the first game with any real depth that let you play against another human.
:?)
Ahem. Karate Champ. Ahem.
I mean I know it's old school, but don't you whippersnappers know what mame is
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
I can still hear it ~15 years later:
Full point!
SRK is putting on an International Tournament! Check out http://evolution.shoryuken.com/
:: UCLA Ackerman Union
The best fighters from every continent are coming to LA this summer to battle. My friend (Sirlin) did a lot of the narration for Bang The Machine && we're working to make Evol2k2 great this year (it was called B5 last year). Please show up to compete or spectate. TTFN.
e v o l u t i o n
International Fighting Game Championships
August 9 - 11
This year, SRK's national leaves the warm nest of Folsom, CA., to take the action downtown. It's Los Angeles, CA, and the going has never been rougher. Last year's event showed that the only guarantee is that there ARE no guarantees in these events. With a powered-up Japanese contingent and new faces from around the world, this will be the premier event of the North American calendar. From rickshaw to junk, from the junk to a trunk, from your moped to MOPAR, find a way to get there. Start planning NOW to catch all the action and take your place alongside the true world warriors.
This is where the legends are born. Old-school? New-school? Doesn't t matter. It's time to put the hype down, and your fists up. Because Evolution is all about the basics: Fight. Survive. Win.
The level it's played at nowadays involves mind games and knowing your oponent. This is not your father's video game (not that your father actually had video games). Many times, Street Fighter has even been compared with chess.
This is a really interesting point. A lot of people bitch and moan about things like chess going down the tubes in favor of videogames, but I believe that top videogame players are on a par mentally with top chess players.
It's somewhat an apples vs. oranges comparison, true, since videogames and chess are emphasizing different areas of the brain, but if you've never seen "pro"-type players I don't think you can realize what another mental level these people are on. Look at an RTS game like StarCraft... they're managing hundreds of units in real-time. It's amazing to watch.
Don't flame me... I realize "thinking ahead" in chess requires an incredible amount of mental calculation and is probably more complex than any videogame out there. However, videogame players do it in real time!
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Sorry... Here's that link the right way: http://evolution.shoryuken.com/
TTFN.
-PipTigger
Hey are you the same guy that posts on ls1.com?
I've lived in Austin for 27 years, and I've been watching SXSW since it started.
Unfortunately, SXSW (the music part, anyway) is somewhat of a local joke for longterm residents and some local musicians.
When SXSW started out, it was a great way to get some exposure for a struggling local band. I imagine Sundance was originally the same way for smaller indy film makers.
Now, however, if you don't already HAVE a name, you can't play SXSW. And since it pretty much takes over the Sixth Street scene, your ability to play down there is very very limited during the "festival" as well.
I've seen a number of local indy musicians wearing "SXSW SUX" shirts, and I think that sums it up pretty well. It's become too big, too commercial, and a waste of time for people that want to PARTICIPATE in the music side. The old Austin Aquafest went the same way in the last years before it went belly-up.
I haven't attended the Multimedia Conferences or the movie part of things, but I hear they're still worth doing. I'm not sure how the dot-scam bust will affect the multimedia stuff, but it still should produce some interesting stuff.
-l
(flame on...)
I dunno... I'd rather it be whispered about me, "there goes a chess grandmaster", than "there goes the best tiddly-winks player in the world".
FWIW, I don't think the comparison between SF and chess is fair. Sure, the player may be thinking in "real time", but the complexity of moves, compounded by hard-and-fast rules coded into the game means that at the highest levels, it's a test of endurance or reflex response (or both), not game skill.
Whereas in chess, at the highest levels, there can be multiple levels of attack, deception, gamesmanship, and defense.
Let me be clear, though--I find that at the highest levels of almost *anything*, the people there tend to be boorish, whether they be chess grandmasters, SF gods or Ph.Ds in French Realist poetry. The people at the highest levels of whatever dicipline tend to be one-trackers, of which sparkling conversation is not made.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Perhaps clicking on links and reading a bit would clear up your confusion. I do believe that's what they're there for.
Watch out, or I'll have the penguins eat you.
Oh...and, I'm liquid talent
Are you delusional? Starcraft requires no where near the "mental ability" as does chess. I used to be a pretty good starcraft player (placed in a few regional money tournaments, beat people who travelled to Korea for big money tourneys), but gaming requires a much different skill than chess does. People engage in deep thought in chess games.. there is nearly no thinking in games of Starcraft... it's all reactionary. Sure, some thinking goes on before and after the game, but the amazing unit/economy management of professional Starcraft players is simply pure quickness. Gaming skill is a lot more like boxing than it is like chess, you have to be quick during the match to win. Surely, a lot of prepation (including perhaps some deep contemplation about the game) goes into getting good at it, but in the match it really comes down to quickness.
"had quiet personal reflection time."
You mean to say you looked in the mirror at your partner ramming his tool into your ass.
It's called the kikokken.
You haven't seen Street Fighter until you see Jackie Chan get beaten up by Ken Masters or Jackie Chan come back into the fight dressed as...
I won't tell you. Check out this 8 meg mpeg to see
Don't forget the "goodguys" that geet taken down with them. i.e. Square lost a lot of money they could have spent to make final fantasy XXX better.
:D
Now that's a movie or game that i'd pay GOOD money to see.
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
You make it sound like they were seriously bitching about it. Personally, I find a life doing what I love very fufilling. Tell that to an archaeologist, or a biblical scholoar who obsesses over the very *sentance* pattern of the bible. It's not what you do, it's how much you enjoy it that should validate your existance.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
You're thinking of one of the hacked versions. There were ones where you could shoot fireballs while you were jumping, throw people while you were over their head, etc. In contrast, SF2 Turbo: Hyper fighting was as close to perfect as they get.
they list Mary K's as the place to play in Vegas. Fuck that shit. Mary K's is so ghetto it made a friend of mine from LA scared of that place.
Anyway, bitching about that aside, it looks like an interesting look into a much MUCH neglected subculture that blends every other possible subculture into it. All walks of life, the thing is, is that if there wasn't such a stigma on females playing games, you'd probably see a few females starring here. This kind of reminds me of Tampopo Arcade...(Which is another story altogether.)
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
I'd just like to make a comment here from the land of the rising sun: If you think 2D-fighting is on it's death-bed, hop on the next flight to Nippon, and you'll realize it's quiet alive and well. Seriously, most arcades here carry more 2D fighting games than 3D ones, and you'll be able to play the original SFII in a box constructed nearly a decade after its release. Even better, you can play the original Kung Fu game on an arcade box for 100 yen, twice as much as for a game of Tekken 4! Hah! But other than the strong representation of classic 2D fighters, Japan has still produced some new modern ones as well. I recommend Guilty Gear X as an example of how Hi-Res, super-fluid 2D fighting can be done. But I must say, always kept a soft spot for Chun-Li and the hacked Championship Ed. with the mid-air moves and Guile's handcuffs.....Ahhh the good old days.
-Morgan McN.
"You and I do not see things as they are. We see things as we are." -Herb Cohen
this artcile [shoryuken.com] is an analysis of a top level match in a tournament. if you think that button mashing is a way to win in street fighter, or that it takes no skill, think again!
Well, they could be talking about him.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Try www.kungfuchess.com for a taste of marmalade. Real Time Chess.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Can't beat the original
Yes! it must defeat Sheng logn to stand a chance!
FWIW, I don't think the comparison between SF and chess is fair. Sure, the player may be thinking in "real time", but the complexity of moves, compounded by hard-and-fast rules coded into the game means that at the highest levels, it's a test of endurance or reflex response (or both), not game skill.
Although reflexes and dexterity are highly important, the high levels of play involve so much more. You have to control the space around you effectively. You have to know when it will benefit yourself to take the hit. You have to be aware of the range of your moves and those of your opponent. (A common technique is to stand just outside the range of his farthest reaching attack. The opponent, unnerved by your proximity, lashes out only to whiff just by a pixel. You then counter-attack his extended limb.)
A prime example of the mind games that go on is the "pyschic DP" (DP == Dragon Punch). It is so called because it appears to the observer that you've read your opponent's mind and countered his move in the exact same moment he initated it. What really happened is that you've been paying attention to the patterns of attack that your opponent is using. You know what his moves are, and what they are good for. So you set up your own pattern. Then when your opponent thinks he knows what's the next thing you'll do and tries to attack, you surpisingly just stand there. But it's too late, he's already pressed the button. WHAM! You proceed to nail his ass with your psychic DP.
In SF, there is a wide range of playable characters. Most of them have distinct styles and abilities. Your choice of character can result in a completely different way of playing. For those who don't quite see it yet, think of the character classes of Diablo 2. Necromancer plays completely different from Barbarian. There are characters that move very quickly and jump around all the time. There are others that keep their distance with long limbs or projectiles. Still others are big and slow but do huge amounts of damage if they can get close and actually hit you. Each character requires different amounts of reflex and dexteriety.
I was working at Capcom Coin-Op around the time SF Alpha came out. We had one in the showroom on free play, so I played it a bit. Never could understand the popularity of it. Or any others in the fighting genre, for that matter... The whole thing seemed to come down to memorizing arbitrary joystick/button sequences that had little or no connection to what was happening on the screen. Wanna do your super-mega-knockout move? LLLDU-sweepCCW-punch-kick. I never really saw the game aspect of it.
Now, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo , on the other hand... There was a great game! It was so cool to see half the company lined up to play it; everyone from the assembly-line workers through the highest levels of management. Time to fire up MAME, I think...
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Us Neo-Geo fans will always know that Garou: Mark Of The Wolves beats the pudden out of any of those capcom games. :)
After you go MOTWs everything else just seems SOOO slow. (the SF franchise included, I can no longer play any SF game on the account of falling asleep in between moves. . . . . damn those games are SLOW. I mean unresponsive type slow too.)
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
... on giving us a diverse story that breaks the mold of:
...Let the flaming begin
Microsoft is evil, or MPAA/RIAA is evil, or power to Linux!
There's a lot more to being a nerd than spending a Friday night recompiling your Linux Kernel. The guys at Penny Arcade said it best when they said, "You play video games? Welcome to Dorksville." I for one don't know how many days and nights I spent at the local arcade, wasting my hard earned grocery sacker salary on that game. I don't think I'm the only slashdotter out there that was flooded by memories when I saw this article. I hate when people flame just because they have no interest in the article. That's what makes Slashdot great, there's a little something out there for all of us nerds to enjoy.
*Sigh*
I planned on inserting something witty here but never got around to it.
True, as far as it goes. But due to the nature of a computer game, the number of subtleties is much less than the subtleties of chess (or Go, for that matter).
I don't mean to demean a good SF player, but I just don't see the same level of complexity. By and large, SF ability is based on the twitch-factor. Chess is based on more complex strategy.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
A common technique is to stand just outside the range of his farthest reaching attack. The opponent, unnerved by your proximity, lashes out only to whiff just by a pixel. You then counter-attack his extended limb
Okay, first off I didn't become addicted to these sorts of games until Mortal Combat II but this always ended up being the problem. You'd get the two best guys in the arcade playing, and they would just stand there, waiting for the other to attack. Or, if you were just average (like me), you'd eventually get bored and attack your opponent. And then you'd get hit because by simply waiting for your opponent to attack you will always have an advantage.
The other option is the endless cancelling fireballs (or the MK2 version, SubZero ice blasts/frozen patches).
(Where I played it was considered "poor sportsmanship" to throw your opponent, but of course not eveyone played by those rules and while I never saw this lead to a fight it certainly could have. People get annoyed when they get their ass kicked. It even happens in chess.)
So, surely psychology is an important factor, but if you play defensively, and you're good, you will almost never lose. Which is actually a lot like chess come to think of it.
What was Ken saying when he threw those fireball things? To me it always sounded like "COOL whip!"
The best move in that game has to be the Jamping Side Kick! That game was pretty awesome, and one of few head to head games around at the time. I think it was more like 20 years ago, too.
Having been a part of the Street Fighter "scene" for quite a while, having a lot of friends in it, and even being in the movie for an extremely brief period, I have to say that the Jab Strong Fierce crew did an excellent job with the whole thing. I drove down to Austin this weekend to plan in the tournament they planned around the screenings, see the movie, and just hang out with friends (some of whom I don't get to see much and flew in from Chicago, LA, and the Bay Area), and I was really impressed. To be totally honest, it's a bit worrisome when you realize they're going to open a window into the things you participate in, when most people don't even know they exist -- and I was scared about how the whole thing would come across to "outsiders".
/. article. I really hope they manage to find a distributor so more people can get a peek into the fun and insanity that is involved in a SF addiction and the world around it.
I was amazed with the results. The did a great job of capturing the events of that year and the people involved. Even people who have no interest in video games (including my friend who drove down with me) seemed to enjoy it immensely. If you have a chance to see it, go. Keep in mind, the Sunday showing was over-packed, and SXSW visitors get preference, so it may be difficult to get into, especially given the
Now I'm going to go crash since I drove all night to get home so I could make it to work today after watching the Sunday midnight showing.
-Puk
You'd eventually get bored and attack your opponent. And then you'd get hit because by simply waiting for your opponent to attack you will always have an advantage.
This is known as "turtling". There is a big difference between that and defensively goading your opponent into leaving himself vulnerable by executing an attack at the wrong range or time. Interestingly, despite the apparent effectiveness of turtling, you will be hard pressed to find higher level tournaments where turtling players win.
Where I played it was considered "poor sportsmanship" to throw your opponent
And that is probably why you were faced with the turtling problem. When someone is passively standing there waiting for you to attack him, he's a prime target for being thrown. When you refrain from throwing, you miss out on a very important aspect of SF.
To hear the words directly from a high level player, please go to
Domination 101 at Shoryuken.com.
What was Ken saying when he threw those fireball things? To me it always sounded like "COOL whip!"
It's "HADOKEN". The "HA" was very brief and the "DO" dragged on for a bit, so it's understandable that it might sound like "ha DOOOO kIN" or "a COOOL whip".
Here's what I said:
I realize "thinking ahead" in chess requires an incredible amount of mental calculation and is probably more complex than any videogame out there
Here's what you said:
Are you delusional? Starcraft requires no where near the "mental ability" as does chess.
Um, that's what I *said*... you basically accuse me of being delusional, then echo what I said. Nice. It used to be, we made fun of Slashdot readers who didn't read the linked story. Then came a new wave of readers who didn't even read the *news post* on Slashdot's front page that they were replying to. The replies to this latest post of mine are representative of the third wave of ridiculous posters- ones who don't even read the post they're flaming! Congratulations, you're are the forefront of a (not-so-new) generation.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
M. Bison (Vega in the Japanese version) was pretty, um, fun in the Champion Edition:
Round one... Fight!
Whooosh!!
Smack!
Whooosh!!
Smack!
Whooosh!!
Smack!
Whooosh!!
Smack!
Whooosh!!
Smack!
Whooosh!!
Smack!
Aaaaaahhh!!
You win! Perfect!!
Too bad Capcom weakened him in the Turbo Hyper Fighting version.
Also, there was nothing like nailing your opponent with the scissor kick, which they later slowed down and eventually made it knock the opponent down (as opposed to leave them standing so you could mess them up more).
A lot of people called him a "cheap" character. Cheap? No, he's efficient and effective! Easy to beat other people with! What the hell's wrong with that? Sure, they tried to "balance" the characters but always failed, usually leaving Ken or Guile too powerful and making Dhalsim and Balrog (M. Bison in the Japanese version) too weak. Oh yeah... Balrog was fun, too. Nothing like running across the screen and smacking your opponent in the face. The Dashing Uppercut was cool, too. Jumping characters never knew what hit them!
The best competitors of the original SF2 know that Guile is unbeatable (original arcade ROM)... once you learn how to shadow throw and freeze. I have never been beaten after learning these tricks, and no one will play a Guile that uses a glitch in the game.
After becoming a good player, I played competitively at the Broadway Arcade in NYC (now deceased). The competition was the best I have ever seen, many players played 5 days a week for about an hour (on lunch, like me) and were significantly better than competition in any other arcade in the NYC area. I got so good I often get treated like a celebrity when I display my skills at local arcades. When good players see me shadow throw, they know they aren't on the same level and usually stop playing and start asking questions.
Hyperfighting was the best SF2, turbo sped things up too much for me. I liked Hyper the best because the characters were so well balanced. But again, a good Bison can beat anybody, so I don't play him.
You know you are playing a good SF player when you think your mind is being read by your opponent.
On a related note, its impossible to beat an arcade cabinet for these games. Having a large, unmoving arcade cabinet significantly increases your ability to execute complicated moves and combos. Even the best home controllers (the Dreamcast Arcade stick and the Shadowblade come to mind) can't duplicate the precision of a good standup unit.
One last thing to note is that no 2d or 3d fighter will ever ever translate well over tcp/ip... latency is too much of an issue. When the stakes are high, you would never trust your shoryuken to a missed packet... hence, fighting games may go the way of the arcade, since you have to have friends who come over to play, and who have their own expensive arcade sticks. Also, good competition is hard to find. When you reach a certain level of proficiency with a Capcom fighter, people can't beleive that they can lose hundreds of games in a row, and then they never play you. Its sad, but true.
"Smokey, this isn't Nam, there are rules." -Walter
but faster. I used to be into SF2 a lot too, spent way too much money on it. Then I got back into martial arts - taekwondo. Wow, talk about chess! Chess where you get to make your moves as fast as you want, it's full on 3d surround sound, and it hurts when you loose. What could be better? :) Chicks dig scars.
Oh man, I'm there. Are the best players in the world really going to be there? I suck terribly, but I used to be half-decent in the SNES days. :)
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
Does anyone remember all the fuss Electronic Gaming Monthly (or EGM) made over the game? They had nonstop coverage of SF2 in all their issues (and even in their spinoff, EGM^2) from 1992 to 1995!
I've got a box with a whole load of EGMs from that era right beside me now. SF2 was featured prominently in a lot of the issues, and whenever any version of the game was review, it always got high marks (with an exception, below). Granted, it deserved them at first (until it was obvious that Capcom was trying to milk the game too hard).
As a quick sidenote, there were five SF2 games:
I guess that wasn't a "quick" sidenote. Anyway, as you can see, except for perhaps the last version, each upgrade was only incremental in nature. This was probably done to keep the game fresh (apparently) and keep in the pages of game magazines and on the minds of game players. Capcom also released home versions of the games for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis (Megadrive in Europe and Japan). They first released a port of the original World Warrior game for the Super Nintendo in July 1992. In September and October 1993, they released a combination Turbo Hyper Fighting/Champion Edition for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. And in July 1994 (I think), they released Super Street Fighter II for both systems.
The first two releases of the game (World Warrior and Turbo) got high marks in all game magazines, but with Super, EGM broke ranks. EGM had been one of the biggest cheerleaders of SF2, as I mentioned above, but by this point, they finally started to see the continuous upgrades for what they were, and gave the home versions of Super marks like 6/10 and 7/10. This greatly upset Capcom, and EGM's editors had some interesting things to say about this, but I don't have time to retype their interesting editorials or drag out my scanner and OCR program.
If you didn't quite understand that, let me clarify here, since it's late at night and I can't be bothered to edit. Capcom released three home versions of the game -- now if you're a kid who got your parents to buy the original, and even the second version, could you get them to buy the third? And why bother, because, when you look at the release dates, the port of Super (the 4th arcade version) was release around the same time as the arcade release of Super Turbo (the 5th arcade version). Furthermore, Super Turbo added loads more technique not present in Super! Anyway, Capcom got into some financial trouble for this and had a lot of unsold Super cartridges for the Super NES and Genesis. Yes, there were home versions of Super Turbo for the PC and 3DO, but not the Super NES and Genesis, and this is where most of the money in home versions of arcade games was at the time.
I thought all the incremental upgrading was silly, myself, but I did plunk quarters into all five versions, and I played all three home console versions (in rental form), so Capcom made money off me with the game in some form. I left the video game scene in 1995, so I missed out on Alpha, Alpha 2, Alpha 2 Gold, Alpha 3, etc. I did recall seeing a Street Fighter 3 machine once, I think around 1997 or 1998. It was just labelled "THREE" which was pretty funny, because once it was clear what Capcom was up to with all the incremental upgrades of SF2, people would make jokes that Capcom couldn't count to three.
Anyway, despite that criticism of it, I still must say that Street Fighter II was truly a landmark game, not only because it was incredibly fun to play, but also because it revived a slumping arcade industry (at the time) and gave game companies everywhere a whole new format to copy! Remember all the SNK Neo-Geo fighting games?
If I ever see a "Top 20 Games of All Time" list with Street Fighter II not in the top five or (gasp!) not listed, in my eyes, the purveyor of said list has instantly lost all credibility!
I'm sorry if all of that was poorly written or didn't make much sense, but I'm tired and want to go to bed now. Thank you for reading.
Oh, and by the way, I never thought much of Chun Li. She never seemed very cute or very strong, and Cammy, the second female character who appeared in Super, was fucking ugly. Blecch.
For those who don't know, Karate Champ was the first 1-vs-1 martial arts competitive fighting game.
that's super street fighter 2 turbo, an the it was in all of the alphas.
the first arcade version of street fighter version II was one of most interesting ones. i still remember the 'bug' that they had with Guile. You could execute a move that would throw your opponent without being near them. it wasnt easy to execute but it was awesome seeing your opponent's reaction when you do something like this :)
the move was similar to the sonic boom, except you need to press back right and press fierce punch + roundhouse kick.
in other words:
- (quick back after the forward above) + fierce + roundhouse.
this only worked on the ARCADE original version of street fighter II. does not work on anything else (champion edition, turbo, accelerator, etc)
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Go see Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy. It's a documentary, but hilarious, and suprisingly, not raunchy. It will change your mind about documentaries forever.
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The characters all have a common set of fundamental moves, but the range and timing of each is different enough that choosing a character is a strategy all of its own. Your opponent loves to block? Pick Kitana and sweep him before he knows what's coming. He attacks up close? Pick Sub-Zero and maintain the distance with a roundhouse from a few steps back.
Or if you're a true master, pick Shang Tsung and switch characters during the match to counter your opponent's changing tactics.. but you'd better know how to use every other character.
Now if you want to complain about Mortal Kombat, look at MK3's dial-a-combo system. 5 button presses to do a 15-hit combo that deals 10% damage.
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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Its good to hear about these older games, sometimes I wonder if people will be reminiscing about our current games in 10 or 15 years time.
Nowadays the main game that I play is Counter-Strike, its a great game - but it can only be played via a network, so each game is varies, depending on who you're playing against.
I used to play an awfull lot of SF2 when I was at college, on friends machines - I only saw one arcade machine of SFII in the wild, and that was at my local tattoo parlour; where I got these beauties, I'd kill to own one of the consoles now ..
Last I tried MAME didn't reproduce some of the world warrior glitches too faithfully (tried a couple of different roms, too).
:(
Breaking out of guiles 'statue' get's you a kick or jump kick and not a flash kick, and either I was REALLY bad on the keyboard but the mame/rom combo I was using couldn't shadow through. No Guile reset, either -- handcuffs works but no shadow throw = no getting out
(I would have loved to re-enact the 5 consecutive [walking-forward sonic boom style] shadow throw I once bashed a player who had come down from NY w/)
I was happy that dhalsims invisibility actually did work, In the arcades we frequented in philly all of them were of the revision where all of dhalsims glitches were resets.
This leaves kens infinite spinkick the only thin i've never seen w/ my own eyes!
I'm not going to flame you, but to compare SF with chess is patently ridiculous. There is a lot more going on in chess that there is in any current game. Chess is played in realtime too, I'm not sure what distinction you're making. I'm the last person to put down video games, they are definitely good for the mind (though I don't usually include fighting games in this), but they aren't nearly the mind challenge that chess is.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
People dedicating their lives to training to become better then their opponents. The obsession, the hard core commitment. The quest to become the best.
[SARCASM] NAh, there's nothing interesting about that![/SARCASM]
to break down your post:
1) Who are you to cast judgement that they are "wasting their lives"? People are making a MOVIE about them. Is anyone making a movie about your life?
2) Read the comments around you. People would not only pay to see this, they would pull all nighters and stay up for 36+ hours to fit it into their lives.
3) the attraction is as stated above. Mastering the game, becoming one with your tool (the game), and using it to trounce the competition.
Okay, all of your troll points have been addressed.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Next time you drop a cultural reference involving a movie that tanked, you might have to clue in the rest of the slashdot public.
regardless, you had me laughing.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Were you ever able to knock out that damn bull?
Chris Mattern
he he...
What would we do without the jaded mainstream haters?
What I meant in my previous post was that the mainstream(me) would have no clue this flick existed except for publicly available festivals like these(SxSW).
There's nothing wrong with getting your work distributed. If the director played the game, got into the 'in crowd' or whatever, then more power to him because he sure as hell didn't get his film(about a video game of all things!) into the festival because the content would guarantee a packed house and big sack of money for everyone.
FUNK!
SF2 is all I played from the age of 13 until I grduated from high school. I played Chun Li and managed to beat Ken and Ryu players...The funniest thing I've ever seen was my mom playing one of the better players in our group and watching him get his ass kicked.
So I'm wondering, how many girls played SF2 on a religious basis? I picked up Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct as well...I still play in arcades, mostly for pinball, but its rare to see a girl actually PLAYING a game instead of hanging on to some videogame playing guy.
As for the "gangsta" image the guys in the movie have...well, they look like suburbanite wannabes. The socioeconomics of videogame playing doesn't seem like it would allow for "real" gangstas. There was one seriously looking geek guy in there, that I would imagine rebuilds his kernel every other day.
I saw people do it, never got it myself. I forget if they used a punch or kick on it. I think you had to punch it, either standing or ducking.
Fighting games are the worst thing to happen to video games ever. Useless, brainless games designed to suck another $.50 from you. Wait that pretty much sums up all video games..oh well back to the arcade :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Here's what I said:
I realize "thinking ahead" in chess requires an incredible amount of mental calculation and is probably more complex than any videogame out there.
Here's what you said:
There is a lot more going on in chess that there is in any current game.
Sound familar? I explicity said, yeah, chess is more complex than any videogame (although I said "probably" more complex... maybe there's games I don't know about). The irony of calling my statement "patently ridiculous" while basically restating it and calling it your own is delicious.
I wouldn't call chess "real-time". True, you usually don't have unlimited time to ponder your move, but not it's real-time in the sense that most videogames are. Chess is turn-based, with distinct movement phases for each player. Unless you're playing some new version of chess where both players move simultaneously? That could be fun.
So, to restate, VIDEOGAMES ARE NOT MORE COMPLEX THAN CHESS. I was saying though, that at higher levels of competition, there is some pretty amazing thinking going on in games that goes far beyond "twitch" reflexes, and unlike chess, it's real-time.
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but I believe that top videogame players are on a par mentally with top chess players.
Then here's what you said:
realize "thinking ahead" in chess requires an incredible amount of mental calculation and is probably more complex than any videogame out there
Contradict yourself much. That's what I was pointing out, it's absolutely ridiculous to make the comparison.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Agree with my point or not, but I didn't contradict myself. My original point was that top game players can be on a par with top chess players mentally, although it's a different kind of mental ability (less complex, more real-time).
It's sort of like saying that the Hoover Dam and the Great Pyramids are both among the world's greatest feats of engineering. Nobody's saying they're the same damn thing... much like I went out of my way to indicate that chess and gaming represent two different types of mental acuity.
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All the New York and California people in austin this week make living here unbearable. We're glad that you like SXSW, we just wish we could enjoy it since we live here. Paying $100+ for a wristband that might get us into a concert sucks. a few years ago they were $20, and you could pretty much walk in and out of whatever show you wanted to. It wasn't so fscking overcrowded.
But we're friendly in Austin. Welcome to austin. Now eat up and go home!!
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I used to play SF a lot in middle and high school. Back on the military base in Germany, we didn't have a large gathering of hardcore players, but the group we had (10-15) was big enough to know who was good and not. I used to skip my lunch and go straight to the arcade with my other SF people and challenge the high schoolers, it was fun, despite getting threatned every 3rd game by someone much bigger than me for about 45 minutes straight. I would last long enough until lunch would end or someone from my crew came up against me. Ahhh, the good ol' days, I guess thats why I got SF collection for the Sega Saturn, and I hope I can get a NEO-GEO this summer!
Crashx99
Summer after freshman year of college ... 1991 ... I was playing SF2 late one night in an arcade and some local rowdies came in. I kicked their asses one by one, using Chun Li, and eventually one of them got mad enough to sucker-punch me. I lost some blood and had to get 6 stitches above my eye.
I didn't stop playing (well, I stopped playing that night, but I didn't stop playing altogether). I loved that game, man. It was a serious addiction.