How games saved the world – part one . Beat em ups
November 22, 2010
So its finally time for me to cover video games.
As everyone knows games are one of the many things that every bad incident in the world that involves a minor takes flack for even when its got nothing to do with the inicident. Sure you open the paper and it will say ‘ TEEN SMASHES CAR WITH BRICKS THEN STEALS ENGINE BECAUSE A GAME TOLD HIM TO DO IT ‘ I know what your thinking:
1) I have never read that headline
2) which papers do you buy that are that big that have that much space for a headline.
Those are both irrelvent points at the moment, mainly because this is going to exaggerate everything as much as the press and parents do ( did you expect anything less ?) . Anyway back to the paper, you read the story which gives you the blandest run down of the game, with all of the points of why this game apparently makes the children do these things , showing complete disregard for their mental health, the fact they were bought the game by the parents, but more judging of them later.
So lets look at this weeks title : I know what your thinking that their were many titles that I could of picked to begin with , but going back in time ( and due to me digging out random stuff from my room ) Ive decided to start with the a gamers classic:
Ah yes , Street fighter , a class arcade style game made by the developers at capcom. A staple in the beat em up genre for many years, this game is considered to be one of the best standards of fighting game around . It reclaimed its throne after many years in the gaming wilderness when the fourth instalment of the games was brought out. ( lets all forger that street fighter 3 and such happened, they weren’t that bad , it was just not the next step forward). BUT the point of this blog is to say what good has come from this .
Now you may think I can say imagination and competitiveness in gamers, but this ones a lot more simple . Hand eye coordination in a big way .
I didn’t think a blog could generate silence but I think this one just did…
The reason that I make this point is that the REALLY good players of this game have to learn combinations that would be confusing to the average person , one of the main staples of the street fighter series is the lengthy combos that can turn a fight around a merit of the developers is that they never strayed away from this and also made it that if you screw up the combo you simply wont pull of the move. It has then taught the player not to button bash and to make sure they look at what they are actually doing the combinations , thinking a move ahead, realizing that the wrong hand movement could actually mean they mess up and could cost them the match.
If anything Street fighter can teach people with little knowledge that fighting games arnt the mean nasty thing that people make them out to be , that with a good plot they could actually teach rather than what people accuse them off. In fact , with technologies advances these games could become a great work out for any age .
End of transmission till part two .
