Friday, February 20, 2009

I Don't Get It

Much of the gaming world is aflutter this week with the North American release of Street Fighter 4. This game release is totally lost on me. When it comes to gaming, I tend to avoid fighting games since I really don't seem to "get" them. All I see is button-mashing.

Other gamers who do groove on fighting games all seem to have their "brand" -- much like smokers, beer drinkers, or even pop-drinkers. Some prefer Street Fighter, others prefer Tekken or Soul Calibur. They claim certain subtleties within each brand, and even claim to prefer subtleties within iterations inside that brand (eg. "Street Fighter 2 was the best ever, but Street Fighter 3 sucked!" or whatever).

To me, it feels like these brands/franchaises have been making the same game over and over ad nauseum. I guess I can't fault them though since people keep buying them. It's kind of the same issue with the game industry, and the film industry for that matter, in general: sequelitis.

Like I said, to me it's all button mashing.
Posted by Q Ball at 8:06 AM
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1 comments:

  1. Well, I do get the attraction to fighters. There is a heavy reflex component (clearly), but also an interesting psychological component, where you are trying to outthink your opponent. Particularly in Street Fighter. (Ones like Soul Calibur are really just button mashing. ;) )

    That said, the whole sequel thing is pretty mind blowing; fans are lauding SF4 for how much it feels like Streer Fighter Two Turbo Alpha or something like that. But, if SF2TA is sooooo good, and SF4 is suuuuuch a perfect remake... then why did they even bother? If they were saying things like, "SF4 takes all the best things of SF2 and then goes further!" then I could possibly understand. But where is the pride in perfect replication?

    Someone was writing about this the other day, I don't remember who, and they compared it to music covers. The whole point of covering a song is to take a great tune, or great lyrics, and add your own flavour or style to it. I think it would be really cool if games (even fighters) 'covered' each other, but instead we get games 'copying' each other.

    Sequels are what they are, but this is just a little obscene.
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