Yay! Arcade Sticks!

Now.  I love online games as much as the next guy, but in the last year or so I've learned to appreciate the tournament fighter experience.  Games like, Street Fighter, Cross Tekken, Mortal Kombat, anything that can be played on arcade sticks.   It's awesome, you buy these joysticks that are essentially just lap compatible versions of an actual arcade booth.

And while at first, my friend initially hammered me into the ground repeatedly, I eventually got good at using grab-type characters.   Those big, slow lumbering tanks that can eat absurd damage and destroy someone in a few good tosses. 

case and point

But the best part is that when you're playing like that, you'll often be playing against a buddy with their own pair, because come on, just look at it. You have to have one.   

my birthday is coming up...

And when you've played so long against someone, you can tell by the sound of the analog circuits under the joystick clicking, exactly what they're going to do next.  So it becomes kind of like a game of rhythm.  Lol well exactly one, because that's all street fighter is, a very complicated rhythm game.    But more about street fighter!! 

And this time I intend to delve into the wonderfully convoluted world of ESRB ratings which, lets be honest, is kinda what this blog is about. Well anyways, in street fighter, which has a solid T rating, there are special moves that involve beating the living shit out of someone literally up into the air, in a giant corkscrewing uppercut, before coming to a stop hundreds of feet into the air gathering up  dark looking energy in your hands and face slamming your rival into the ground in a massive explosion as the announcer screams, "K.O" over the loud cursing of the face slamee.

But it's the fact that the person right next to you is playing that's what makes it so enjoyable.  Everything is better with a good friend and very heated fighting games are, oddly, no exception. And after hours of gaming, and using every curse word in the books as well as likely a few of your own, if you can avoid throttling each other that is.  Which really isn't all that hard, I mean it's just a game right? Nothing serious, unless of course, that game is Puzzle Fighter.

A CURSE ON YOUR ENTIRE BLOODLINE TO FOREVER PISS MOLTEN GLASS

I take my puzzle fighter veeeeery seriously.   I even have it on my phone, as part of the Capcom Arcade app.

Saikyo Dan

If anything  these moments of stark juxtaposition have lessened exponentially in response to the vast spreading of niches and genres over the years. As gaming became more and more affordable and economically commercialized, they had to find a way to lessen the more disturbing aspects of this but most children's games still have one element of fucked-up or so.  And I think that the reason for this is that it just makes games fun.  Ever played a 'little girls game?'   2 dollars at the bargain bin for a cartridge with which continuous usage will inevitably fry your brain harder than an acid addiction. 

Because they suuuuuck.  They're so boring, there's no conflict, every good story needs a conflict and video games are just interactive storytelling after all. (Plug número dos). And the sharper that conflict, the eviler the villain, the more easy it is to let yourself fall into the game.  For this point, many gems of gameplay involve what is apparently a very tranquil moment falling into shit in a heartbeat.  And everything goes fucking bananas.  

Like this:

Or this:

Or (most succinctly) this:  

see?! fucking bananas!