loonygames presents: PC Fight Club!

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##### Vol. 2, Issue 6
December 13, 1999

#####

PC Fight Club

An article by Jake Simpson

ecently, a group of colleagues and I were sitting in the lunch room, shooting the s...er, discussing the merits of various fighters out there, all the way from Karateka, through Way of the Exploding Fist on the C64, up to Mortal Kombat 4, Tekken and Virtual Fighter 3. In our musings, it became apparent that there really was no decent original fighter for the PC. Why, we wondered, was this? No one came up with a totally coherent theory, so I posed the question, just as a curiosity, in my .plan file. I wasn’t really ready for the amazing response I received on this subject, with emails all the way from Joe Blow on the street right up one of the top VP’s at Activision. Each had something to say, and some different view as to why the PC has lost out to its smaller cousins, the consoles, when it comes to fighters. So, in view of this response, I thought that rather than trying to address all this in a .plan update, I would try a small article to talk about some of the issues that have been raised.

From all the e-mails I have received, and the discussions I have had with friends and colleagues, it would appear that the reason the PC has been ignored are plentiful. Some of the more apparent ones are listed below, although it would probably be safe to say that there are undoubtedly more that I’ve missed.

Differences in age from PC to Console/Arcade players.

Lets face it, your average arcade goer isn’t older than 16. Sure, there are exceptions to any rule, and I’m no doubt going to be deluged with mail from those that are older that hang out in arcades, but when all is said and done, it’s 16 and under. When we tested arcade games at Midway, we would hang out at the arcades to watch them being played, and take notes. At that time, it always seemed a trifle embarrassing, since we were always the oldest people in the place...

Anyway, be that as it may, this does have some implications for Fighters. The fun in fighters is based mainly around humiliation. Ultimately, your aim is to demonstrate your superior skills over the other player. There are some side issues of skill appropriation that come into this too. IE: the empowering feeling of being in control of a character that is capable of many and varied martial arts moves that you, as a 16 year old, would never be able to pull off due to both lack of maturity, and lack of patience for not hanging out in a drafty church hall every week looking a total dork and falling over a lot in a silly set of white tumbling knickers (as my father used to put it). Getting back to the point though, most of what is cool about having skills at a fighting game is beating the other person. And having that not only displayed on the screen, with you ripping his heart out or whatever, but also reinforcing that power over your hapless opponent by being able to turn to them and point this out, with whatever trash talk you prefer.

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Credits: Illustration © 1999 Kevin 'Rorshach' Johnstone. This article is © 1999 Jake Simpson. All other content is © 1999 loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. So don't do it, or we'll beat you to a bloody pulp.