Fighting Games: Streetfighter, Mortal Kombat, KOF, Tekken or Virtua Fighter?

I've been a huge fan of fighting games ever since I got hooked on the original Streetfighter in the arcades. Me and friends from school would be duking it out with Ryu and Ken (or Guile if you were weird) when we should have been in the school playground.

In those days you were impressed if someone could pull off a shoryuken and in awe if they used one to beat you. But as technology improved the controls got more complex and the moves more spectacular. For those in the know I just have to say... LP LP (forward) LK HP

Anyway Streetfighter started off a whole industry of clones. Some were good and others were just rubbish.

Mortal Kombat was one of the earliest SF clones but they cleverly built the game around a USP of blood and guts. At the end of each match you could literally kill your opponent by performing a fatality. Eg grabbing his head and ripping his spine out or burning him to death.

Then came the 3D bruisers like Virtua Fighter and Tekken. Vitua Fighter never took off like Tekken did but it was in many ways more complicated and more advanced with the ability to change angles etc. But I think that's what killed it in the end, there was more emphasis on effects than on gameplay.

Tekken on the other hand had a roster including Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, although they werent allowed to be called those names for legal reasons and were known as Law and Lei. Streetfighter had introduced the concept of playable hidden bossess with Akuma but Tekken took it to the next level by making every character have a personal hidden boss.

So which fighting games do you enjoy and do you have any stories about virtual battles (in the arcade or at home) that you'd like to share?

One of my most memorable matches was in my local arcade (where i was the third best streetfighter ) after my SF mentor Jansen and this really lanky guy. The game was X-Men v Streetfighter.

One day some punk came in and started beating everyone and I mean destroying them with the cheap slashing tactis of Strider Hiryu. He beat Jansen and the lanky dude a few times, so I wasnt too keen to face him myself.

But inevitably my turn came up and I went in with Gambit and Akuma expecting to get beaten soundly.

I pulled off Gambit's big supermove but the punk cleverly jumped over my head to avoid it, however my luck was in and he jumped right into the staff Gambit throws into the air before doing the supermove and he fell backwards right into a super beating.

Then to add insult to injury I used Akuma to finish him off with a firecracker

Ah the good old days, where did they go?

I remember streetfighter on the arcades. We had a chip shop on top of the ramp in which we used to play it. Can't say I was ever any good at it. I think the only game I really was good at on the arcade was streets of rage. I got more in to the gaming after I bought my first snes and mega drive!

Same here i never finished streetfighter in the arcades but it was more about one on one fights with other arcade goers than it was about completing the game. Especially if a crowd of you gathered regularly and you were all competing with each other.

I think the first time I completed Streetfighter was the Championship Edition on my Sega Megadrive. There I was with Ryu, taking on the might of M Bison and the Shadowlaw organisation.

I'd pummelled Balrog the championship boxer gone rogue (who was really M. Bison a clone of M. Tyson but they couldnt call him that in the American version due to copyrights, etc so he became Balrog), I'd smashed Vega the Spanish assasin (who was really called Balrog) and humbled the mighty Sagat the Thai Kickboxing legend (who strangely enough really was called Sagat).

And now it was just me and M.Bison (who was really Vega, see aforementioned copyright issues) to the death but boy was he a tough son of a so and so. If I did a hadoken he would stamp on my head, if i tried a spinning kick he would jump over me and psycho crusher me and if I attempted a dragon punch when he was jumping in it would go way past him and he'd smash me up some more. I always used to use the strongest punch/kick buttons because it took the most energy. One day my thumb slipped and I pulled off a weak shoryuken just as he was jumping in and smashed his lights out. Suddenly I had a eureka moment and started weak shoryukenning him if he tried to jump on my head. He didn't like them bananas and I won!!