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Its 10:57pm on a Monday night, there’s at least 2000 words of Dutch essays to be written by 5pm tomorrow, I haven’t
updated my own site in far too long, and I’m living on Yorkshire puddings. So what am I going to do? Review an antiquated
console game for my arch nemesis’ website! Makes perfect sense to me.
Living with six other impoverished students,
we’ve got many odd bits and bobs lying around. A “chilum pipe” (a device that resembles an African dildo
with an elephant carving), my blowdart pipe, some crutches, at least three PS2s, a Master System… and a SNES. Normally,
this rings with the screams of “Fuck off, Luigi!” to the tune of Super Mario Kart, but tonight, I’m having
a crack at Street Fighter Two. Or Street Fighter Two Turbo, as it insists.
Now being a die-hard Sega boy, I don’t
know much about the Street Fighter mythos. There’s people from all over the world, who seem to like meeting up and beating
the shit out of each other. And not particularly in streets – there’s aircraft runways, various docksides, and
even Indian temples full of elephants. But then again, you’re not buying this sort of game for any semblance of narrative,
you’re buying it to knock the crap out of your mates before/after a trip to the pub.
From experience, the only
character I could deal with was Zangief, who comes from Russia. This means that he wears nothing but some red boots, some
red pants, and a badass Mr T moheaken (how the fuck do you spell that, anyway?), and has a six pack unattainable without either
steroids or a crate of beer and a bad joke. He fills the typical “gigantic slow guy who can kill someone in three hits”
archetype, a role I do prefer, mainly because I’m so bad that I only get in three hits in any given game before my bottom
is being used as a floor polishing rag.
My first opponent was Guile, who, I inferred from his dress sense (combats)
and arena (the aforementioned military aircraft runway, complete with stupid looking fighter jet, GIs sitting around doing
nothing, and inexplicably a blonde woman) was an American soldier martial artist who needs a better hairstyle than “vase”.
So off I went. He ran away from me and launched “sonic booms” at me (sonic booms being renowned for spinning forward
slowly and looking like boomerangs), I kept jump kicking him and walking into his sonic booms. Sometimes his strategy worked,
but mostly my strategy proved to be superior. But lo, I’d only completed one round, and we’re only 458 words into
the review, and since Lord JM has demanded 958 words and a hippopotamus (quite what goes on in the Jelly Pufflemur headquarters
I’m not sure, but hey, not my rules) [my reasons are my own! just keep the hippopotomaus coming! -editor.], we
must press on.
After my crushing victory (or my skin-of-the-teeth victory, depending on who you ask), a picture of
Guile appeared, looking like he’d taken part in the Cannonball Headbutting contest Alongside this was Zangief, with
the caption “Next time we meet, I’m going to break your arms!” Evidently, hardman banter is as cliched in
Soviet Russia as it is anywhere else.
My next opponent was another American guy in red pyjamas called Ken. Ken had
the measure of me, for every time I came near him, he jumped up and punched me, and every time I stood still, he screamed
“HADOKEN!” and launched a rather puny little blue ball at me (either Capcom were modest, or Brian Cleavinger is
very overdramatic). Strategy revision was required when I was repeatedly defeated, and Ken screamed at me “Get up! Its
too early for you to be defeated!” which was quite rude for 11:32 at night.
So I dropped him on his head repeatedly.
Throws are wonderful things. As is not just charging in with all legs flailing. I hate having to play a defensive
battle, which shows in the undefeated record my Dwarf army fails to bear. But in order to actually finish this review, and
to do that essay, I had to beat him. It was as much a matter of life and death to me as it was for the sprites partaking.
And then I met Chun Li. Oh how I hate Chun Li. A favoured strategy for our house matches is to corner ones opposition
using the skimpy-skirted thoroughly un-Chinese looking Chinese lady, then use The Horribly Overpowered Kick Move over and
over until victory ensued. Thankfully, the SNES CPU was not so unrelenting, and my old tactics allowed me a swift victory.
Sixteen matches for Ken the Camp Bloke In Pyjamas, one match for Chun Li The Unstoppable Monster. Bizarre.
Then I completely
failed to pass a Beat The Shit Out Of A Car bonus round (mainly because I was typing the last paragraph), and my next opponent
was… Zangief! Ignoring the usual complaints about clones and temporal mishaps, I beat the daylights out of him and had
a cigarette. Then The Indian Rubber Man Dhalsim reminded me who the second nastiest character is, got hideously beaten up,
and then I started running out of words for this review, and had to conclude.
So Street Fighter 2 then. Not sure what
I’m supposed to be wrapping up with, really. It’s a beat-em-up. It’s got 2D sprites in it. It’s on
a console now only available on eBay and in select second-hand shops. You can’t hit an opponent while they’re
being knocked down, which hampered me quite a bit with some twat in red PJs. And now I’ve got an essay to write.
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