I've been handing out some resumes to a few law firms in Makati (the premiere business hub in the country) trudging around in formal wear all day is hard (not to mention hot) work. Still, I manage to end up in one of the Malls on the way home and was able to pass by the local video game arcade hall. A lot of things have changed since I hanged out in one of these places. Games nowadays are all in 3D, Fighting Games, shooting games and what nots. Man, back in my days it was all in 2D and we didn't play these games in brightly-lit kid-friendly hallways, no, we play it in small, dingy tightly-packed rooms, whose walls are all covered with game posters and advertisments, move lists or strategy guides of some sort, maybe a list of high scorers, a list of songs available for the ubiquitous karaoke machine, the occasional "no smoking" signs, and the only lights available are those coming from the video game screens. It's like stepping into a different world and we wouldn't have it any other way.
Which leads me to my topic for today, I mentioned before that my nickname "Chang" came from playing KOF. This was maybe a dozen or so years ago back in my undergrad days, students would usually have breaks between subjects and guys like me tend to hang out in the local malls during such breaks, it wasn't big and usually I end up inside the arcade section of the mall. Now, most of us then didn't really know each other, yes we tend to beat each other('s character) up day in and day out, that doesn't exactly inspire camaraderie, so guys are usually known by the character they used and tends to be refered to as by that character's name (heck, we have a guy we call Shermie, and he's male, where Shermie is definitely not male.)
Now, anyone who've played KoF would know that it's a 3vs3 game, so why was I called Chang when I could have just as easily have been called Kim or Choi (Chang's stablemates in Team Korea.) That's easy coz I'm FAT, not horizontally-challeged, not big-boned, not overly healthy, or whatever new politically correct term or euphemisms it is now used for overweight guys like me.
Obviously, it's easier to call me Chang since there is at least some physical resemblance between me and the character. Some people play games to escape reality, so I really don't why I didn't go for any of the buff badasses or bevy of bishies available, but I usually pick the fat characters in fighting games. In the Street Fighter 2 series, the first guy I picked to play was E. Honda; in Fatal Fury, it was Big Bear; in the World Heroes game it was J. Karn; Earthquake in the Samurai Showdown games; Sasquatch in the Darkstalkers series and so on. It was as if their size, their fat-ness exert their own gravitational force, sucking me in, to play as the Fat guy over and over again.
Don't get me wrong I could actually play a decent game with most any character in any of the fighting games during my time (excluding maybe Mortal Kombat and any of the 3d games already available during those times, i.e. Virtua Fighter, Tekken and Soulcalibur) but I was always drawn to the eccentric, rarely used underdog characters. Fat fighting game characters usually fall in such category.
Also a lot of good things can be said about these characters, they were fun and simple to use (no big unlimited juggling combos to keep track of,) they tend to do good damage even with standard attacks, and while usually slow and lumbering, they usually have a special move whose speed belies their bulk or allows them to move across the screen in an instant. And because they aren't usually used by the other guys, fighting against them gives me a bit of an advantage due to the unfamiliarity factor. Good times, good times.
That's what wrong with fighting games nowadays, darn few fat fighters.
Which leads me to my topic for today, I mentioned before that my nickname "Chang" came from playing KOF. This was maybe a dozen or so years ago back in my undergrad days, students would usually have breaks between subjects and guys like me tend to hang out in the local malls during such breaks, it wasn't big and usually I end up inside the arcade section of the mall. Now, most of us then didn't really know each other, yes we tend to beat each other('s character) up day in and day out, that doesn't exactly inspire camaraderie, so guys are usually known by the character they used and tends to be refered to as by that character's name (heck, we have a guy we call Shermie, and he's male, where Shermie is definitely not male.)
Now, anyone who've played KoF would know that it's a 3vs3 game, so why was I called Chang when I could have just as easily have been called Kim or Choi (Chang's stablemates in Team Korea.) That's easy coz I'm FAT, not horizontally-challeged, not big-boned, not overly healthy, or whatever new politically correct term or euphemisms it is now used for overweight guys like me.
Obviously, it's easier to call me Chang since there is at least some physical resemblance between me and the character. Some people play games to escape reality, so I really don't why I didn't go for any of the buff badasses or bevy of bishies available, but I usually pick the fat characters in fighting games. In the Street Fighter 2 series, the first guy I picked to play was E. Honda; in Fatal Fury, it was Big Bear; in the World Heroes game it was J. Karn; Earthquake in the Samurai Showdown games; Sasquatch in the Darkstalkers series and so on. It was as if their size, their fat-ness exert their own gravitational force, sucking me in, to play as the Fat guy over and over again.
Don't get me wrong I could actually play a decent game with most any character in any of the fighting games during my time (excluding maybe Mortal Kombat and any of the 3d games already available during those times, i.e. Virtua Fighter, Tekken and Soulcalibur) but I was always drawn to the eccentric, rarely used underdog characters. Fat fighting game characters usually fall in such category.
Also a lot of good things can be said about these characters, they were fun and simple to use (no big unlimited juggling combos to keep track of,) they tend to do good damage even with standard attacks, and while usually slow and lumbering, they usually have a special move whose speed belies their bulk or allows them to move across the screen in an instant. And because they aren't usually used by the other guys, fighting against them gives me a bit of an advantage due to the unfamiliarity factor. Good times, good times.
That's what wrong with fighting games nowadays, darn few fat fighters.
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