May 2, 2009

  • It's quite something else to be fighting another person one on one, skill level being about the same, making the blood pump, heart racing, and not knowing who will win the fight. I am talking of course about Street Fighter IV, or now more specifically the "championship mode," which is the free update that was released a week ago. Fighting strangers online on SFIV was good and all, but now with championship mode it's even greater. A lot of the weaker "scrubbier" players seems to be stuck at the rank matches, while those of us who actually like fighting good competition has moved on to the championship mode. The main difference is that there's less emphasis on trying to avoid losing "battle points" (on rank matches) which now has liberated the mindset by the players to not worry so much about losing. With the championship mode's "grade point" system replacing the battle points, everybody gains something even on a loss, even if it's only a +1GP gain as opposed to something like +50GP. We now also get to see the disconnect percent of the opponent you will be fighting before the match, which helps determines who are the possible sore losers in the game, and allows us to avoid those people (yes, finally!). With this new system in place, it also determines what kind of opponents you will be fighting, and the better the GP, the better the opponent, and the better the competition. As this past week has proven, the competition has been great over all in championship mode.

    The funny thing is that through all the years (almost two decades worth) of playing Street Fighter, I still remain at a certain peak on my skills with the game. I consider myself a decent to good fighter, but no where near as capable as some of the people out there. With championship mode, my skills are now really being put to the test, and the matches have been so intense to me, as I simply do not know if I'm going to be able to win or not. It's that rush that I get when the match is down to only a few hits between myself and the opponent, and I'm able to win the game by either a well timed move, or just being simple luck. Now with championship mode, not only do I need to defeat one opponent, I have to try and win the online tournaments that the mode offers. It's just a great feeling to win over somebody, and an even greater feeling to be the champion over several people on the tournament.

    Street Fighter still remains a fun game to play, and still my number one reason to play people online. The majority of gamers out there will stick to First Person Shooters like Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War, or KillZone, but I'll take fighting games like Street Fighter or Virtua Fighter over those any day.