I like to think that I’m pretty good at video games. I play them enough, I feel like I should know what’s going on. Give me a platformer, especially a 2D one, and I’m pretty much set. I’ve essentially been playing the same mario game in some form or another since 1997, so I should be pretty good at platformers. Also racing games I can do pretty well with, as a result of my Lego Racers/Mario Kart/DKR addiction in elementary school. Adventurers and shooters I can figure out as well. I don’t have as much experience with those types as I do with racing and platforming, but Zelda and the Halos have trained me well enough to hold my own.
The thing is, though, I kind of suck at fighting games. Like I suck really bad at them. Like I was just playing with my friends and I won one match out of about ten. It’s not that I don’t have experience with the genre; I played Tekken when I was younger, got 100% completion in Soul Calibur II, and recently owned Street Fighters 2, 3, Tekken 4, and Mortal Kombat: Armageddon. I played through them, and got to the point where I could at least make it through the single player fights. The thing about fighting games, though, is that just making it through the single player mode doesn’t really prepare you for a human opponent. Especially one as inhumanly skilled as Trevor, my friends’ roommate, with whom I played tonight, and who gave me the most thorough beatdown I’ve had the pleasure of receiving in a long time. He was literally ripping my characters in half in Mortal Kombat. He did the Noob fatality on me where Noob duplicates himself and he and the duplicate pull your legs in opposite directions and rip you apart. It was demeaning, seriously.
It actually looked just like this, because I was Scorpion when it happened. So rude.
Practice Street Fighter II as I might, for some reason I feel like I’m not really going to get to that level any time soon. Fighting games are awesome, but my gaming niche is the fact that I know every secret in Super Mario World and…you know….stuff like that.