At Arcade Heroes, we often say that there’s nothing like standing with another player and competing side by side, and arcade gaming is still the best way to do this. Technology has brought us the wonders of online gaming and voice chat, but the feeling of being able to shake your opponent’s hand at the end of a hard-fought match is something that you can’t replace. As a result, it’s great when we see other people pushing the merits of arcade competition – in this case, Jason Witmer of Accent Online. He attended last Saturday’s two-on-two Street Fighter IV tournament with a friend, and took the time to write up the experience for Accent.
The piece focuses primarily on the author’s experience of the tournament, but it covers the general themes of competitive gaming well. He mentions the anxiety prior to a match, the diversity of the competitors, the unique atmosphere of tournament play, and general sportsmanship and supportiveness of the community surrounding the game. While I’ve never competitively played Street Fighter, these are familiar to me as they are experiences which cut across all kinds of competition, be they sports, martial arts, table top games or arcade games. As a result, it’s an excellent read for anyone who is interested in competitive arcade play at any level.
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Good Read. I don’t know why everyone is always so focused on fighting tournaments. There are plenty of other style games (DDR, Guitar Hero, Tetris) that make for good head to head play.
I think the reason that fighting games are popular for competitive play is fairly simple: they represent natural and direct competition. One player can definitely be said to have triumphed over the other. Racing games have also successfully capitalised on the appeal of vs. play for that reason, as games such as the Initial D and Maximum Tune series show.
With music games, it’s a little different. A few years ago, I checked out some videos of a Pump It Up competition online as a friend of mine had won it. The players were passionate and had levels of skill I could only dream of achieving, but they were essentially playing individual games side by side and comparing scores at the end.
That’s the dividing line, really. In a fighting or racing game, you are forced to react to your opponent. The few arcade sports games out there have this appeal, too. In a music game the players don’t usually interact with one another, which can limit the appeal.
Of course, puzzle games usually do feature some form of attack in vs. mode, but they’re not always easy to find now. And lightgun games could have had this in addition to the appeal of co-op, if only people had shown 2 Spicy a bit more love… =(