I didn't lock this thread the last time I checked it because, despite how Xander and SugarGene reacted towards each other, it was still a decent argument. several people, like kenthen, sneez, psycho gorilla and december, to name a few, managed to be able to argue with Xander without the name-calling, and even provided many different views instead of saying the same thing. some others, sadly, like darkseid, loganvdh and low budget jeff, thought it'd be best if they "trolled" a thread by posting stupid images in an attempt to either get their laughs or perhaps try to sink this thread even farther so mods have no choice but to lock it.

please don't. posting funny images is one thing, but doing nothing but spamming pictures is just downright annoying. especially if it's ones like "IN B4 LOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!". it doesn't really help with anything at all. it's nothing that really breaks the rules or anything, it just really annoys me. you could at least report the thread or maybe PM a mod if you feel the thread really deserves a lock.

SugarGene and Xander (and Maximus Prime to some extent), I posted a reply a page back in which I said to stop with the stupid insults and challenges and you both didn't. you both get warnings.

I'm leaving this thread unlocked in case anyone (including SugarGene and Xander if they act nicely) wants to argue anymore for or against fighting games, or talk about Xander's article itself, or talk about fighting games in general perhaps and not about your lock predictions or how you find someone stupid or trying to get into a long petty argument that ends with two people at each other's throats.

Basic tagline here is that Fighting games do require more skill than you give them credit for.

You say that their all based on memorization (which is a skill in itself by the way) and that's it. Well if that were the case then the same person wouldn't be winning the biggest Street Fighter Tournament Held in the US every year.

The contradictions in your article are scary.




In those two sentences,which are in the same paragraph, you've claimed they take no skill, and then told your audience exactly what kind of skill is needed to be good at the game.

Recalling information and utilizing it at exactly the right time, which in these games could be a nanosecond, is skill.

Skill: the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well.

That's one of the definitions of the word skill which comes from Dictionary.com. It's exactly what you said it takes to be good at Fighting games, memorization. Most knowledge is memorization. To say that someone like Payton Manning isn't a skilled Football player because all he does is memorize plays, and memorize the motions of throwing a football, and memorize when he needs to in reaction to what's going on around him, is just silly.

While I disagree with your article, I can see some of your points. Fighting games aren't your thing, and that's fine. That doesn't mean they take no skill. But most people are right, when writing an article like this, that'll be viewed in the public eye, it'll make you look better to do a bit more research. This is more a blog about how you don't like that genre, not really an article per say.

*AhemStreetFighterIICough*

There's a definite generational gap in what the games themselves are known for. The SFII variations, if you notice, have only a handful of moves each, sometimes as few as 2 in the "original." Combos consisted of pure skill and timing rather than those inane auto-chains, and you kind of made them up as you went along and learned new ones over time through experimentation and execution. In essence, there was very little memorization. VERY little. Like Othello, however, it took a minute to learn, but a lifetime to master!

The memorization argument really comes with the point where games like MK3 added this massive movelist for fatalities, animalities, friendships, babalities, brutalities, etc. Tekken is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for its chain combos, which took too much memorization, and would often be an obstacle to playing with skill. It was only when you knew when to apply them that you got good, and you still had to know the combo in your head. Then tons of games followed suit in that fashion (Soul Calibur, MK PS2 titles, DoA, etc). I much prefer the way the SF games do it through feel and flow. Or, you know, the fabulous SNK fighters out there that do the same and add tons of new dimensions to that same concept.

This entire thread reminds me of my stance on the "stiff" yet "realistic" NES Castlevania controls. If you ask me (and you should, because my opinion is more important than all of yours), the birth of the Air Juggle circa MKII, even though I love that game, created a precedent that I can't stand in most fighters. As a purist, I despise the Air Juggle. Can't stand it. Quick, throw something heavy in the air that's about human-sized and try to keep it juggling by throwing jabs. See?

I can't tell you how much I prefer "pick up and play" games to memorization. Blacktually, I can. I prefer them a lot. In a lot of ways, I consider some of the rasslin' games to be superior to fighters for that (s)exact reason.

And to bring this thing full circle, it's a reason that, in this day and age AS THE GAMES ARE MADE NOW, I prefer multiplayer (3-4 blacktual human players in the same room, usually) FPS types to fighters.

Yeah I totally agree with you. I especially hate the SNK vs Capcom series for that, but I always thought the streetfighter alphas handled juggling allright. In alpha 1, you could only juggle once after the original combo and it usually had to be a special move. (I once did a cross-over hurricane kick to my brother as he was jumping and immediately threw my lvl 3 hadoken and nailed him with it.) We all cheered when it happened, even my brother. The damage was ridiculous but I only pulled it off a few times after that, just getting the setup alone was incredible hard against a good player.

Then in alpha 3 you could juggle more than once, but they added air recovery to defend against it. Also, Streetfighter has always had a good diminishing return formula for combos. Every extra hit in a combo would suffer a percentage loss of damage. So if you got to ridiculously high combo's somehow eventually each hit would do next to nothing.

Virtua Fighter doesn't have the weird joystick motions either, and it manages to be crazy deep. I want to get into it but it's kind of intimidating and we're still waiting for the latest version over here.