Vol.
2, Issue 6
December 13, 1999
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.
