Blogs - Basiik

Before all the internet cafes, I had experienced online multiplayer at home. My family had bought our first PC during my early junior high school years. [we were relatively late on the home PC thing]. I have had some basic hands-on experience in elementary school with an Apple Computer and it's 5.25" floppy drives.

I had a school project and my mother drove me to Staples to buy some materials. On this rack was a wrapped Warcraft II jewel case. It was only $15 dollars as opposed to the boxed versions for $40. I begged my mother to buy it for me. She was reluctant, but I urged her because it was much cheaper than the boxed version. I didn't understand it at the time but... it was shareware! Was I pissed when I got past the second mission.

Over time, I gather the bits and pieces of the definitive Warcraft II collection: Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and it's expansion, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal. I began 'glittering prizes' my way through the campaign. [Warcraft II is where I learned to type, forget Mavis Beacon!]. Soon, I began construction my own maps until I expanded my Warcraft II harddrive footprint to 500 megabytes. That's over five times the space required for a fresh installation!

I hooked up with a friend, Dan, in church to play an online session of Warcraft II. We both had a slow dial-up connection. Setting it up took over 40 minutes. I don't recall much of the match, but I remember being carried by him through out. When the game started on the "Gold Separates East From West" map, he was in the one o'clock position, with me and the computer at two o'clock and five o'clock position, respectively. Dan played Humans and I was Orc. The computer was also Orc. It was a two on one comp stomp.

[The game balance was biased towards Orc.
Orc grunt > Human Footman.
Dragon > Two sequential Gryphons!]

I was excited as I started laying down my town hall. After my peon had finished building the vast building all by himself, I sent him to labor on a farm. I believed I went to rush a tower for defense, but I was interrupted by an enemy Orc Grunt. I had no defenses, just enough peon meat to satisfy the enemie's axe. My back up came in the form footmen. Dan had sent all his available units to stop the massacre at my base. He told me to tower up, to which I did. Victory followed soon after.

Orcs appealed to me for two reasons. One because they were overpowered. Back then, I was a pansy and I hated to lose. The total opposite of what I believe in now. [I refuse to play anything on easy difficulty, I rather never beat a game than win on easier difficulties.] The other reason why I chose them was because they were BADASS. Not some pansy [ironic, lol] humans. The Orcs were awesome back then and they still are now.

I remember the first time playing Doom was actually Doom II. It was on my aunt's laptop. The brightness setting was incredibly low to the point where I could barely make my way down the hall in to the first room. All I would see are muzzle flashes and then I would die. I would try shooting the muzzle flashes but the keyboard only scheme was beyond me at that age. I was plenty scared and never got back in to the game until years later.

In late junior high, I took up Counter-Strike. I achieve a high level of play after a few years. It was one of the three major past-times during high school. Another past-time was Quake III. It was a personal preference, and I was the only one who played amongst all the people I knew. It was all about Counter-Strike at the internet cafes.

Counter-Strike was an addiction that drew the worst in people. Much profanity and beef came along with the internet cafe territory. One time, I was playing at a local internet cafe that I had just discovered. I was manning a horrid 512 x 384 resolution. The standard at the time was a 3D accelerated 800 x 600. After playing at a disadvantage, and plenty sick of playing Where's Waldo on the computer. I snapped. The CRT I was playing on had a slide out tray to hide the monitor buttons. I slid that out inserted my gum. Pulled out the CD-Rom tray and snapped that off. Spat all over the keyboard. I sat there until everyone else was ready to leave.

Quake III wasn't popular at all in New York. I've tried to convince people to take it up. Showing them rocket jumps and 360 degree spins in to rails. While impressed no one was interested in playing. Until one day, I challenged some of my friends to a 7 on 1. With the last ten or so minutes of our Counter-Strike session, we all booted up Quake III. I won the match 27-0.

Nowadays, my accuracy in Quake III has improved to approximately an 80/60/35 percent ratio for the RG/RL/LG, respectively. My map control is below the average Quake player. I probably spent too much time playing against bots in high school. Any time on the internet was spent playing Counter-Strike.

I turned back to Doom in college. In all the years of first person shooters, never have I played anything so visceral. Quake I and Quake II single player was boring compared to what Doom has to offer. Now, Doom has stuck with me past college and I have begun mapping. What better way to put all my observations to use?

The second game I recall wanting was Street Fighter II for the Genesis. It started all because of church. My mother brought me to church and next door was a pizza parlor with a Street Fighter II arcade cabinet. We used to watch the game demonstration when we went next door to get ice. My lust for some playtime grew too strong one day, so I asked my mother for a quarter. My game session probably lasted 30 seconds. Which was just enough time for Ryu to fireball an 8[I think] year old to death.

Back then I didn't have a lot of exposure to video games, so I probably didn't do much more than jump punch and eat wake-up fireballs.

I asked my dad for Street Fighter II one day. He bought it and left it with me and my mother, while we sat in the car waiting for him to finish his errand. I was so anxious. The way children perceive the passing of time is interesting. I probably only sat there for 15 minutes.

I devoted an immense amount of time playing Street Fighter II. Still, not as much as my Sonic 3 sessions at a 'whopping' 3 hours! It sparked a slowly growing competitive aspect of my personality. My practice soon came to fruition when an 'uncle' from church would come over and play a few rounds with me. Of course he would let me win most of the rounds, but there was something different about how he played. It was a combo he used that I've never seen the computer do [basically, other than a jump in roundhouse in to a crouching roundhouse]. With Ryu, he did a crouching FP in to a Fireball. What the hell was he doing!? Being the cocky bastard I was, I still thought I was winning legitly. It wasn't until years later did I understand what he did.

[2D Fighter's Remark]

The value I hold in Street Fighter 2 permeates to this day. There is no other 2D fighter so deceptively simple, yet, maddingly complex and balanced. Marvel fighters? Simplified hitboxes. Blazblue? Offensively biased due to pacing/punishments/animations. SF4? Floaty [my only gripe]. Street Fighter II:HDR and SF3:3S, in my opinion, is regarded as the best all-round fighter. Why? Beyond the simple inputs, it contains the right balance of speed, mix-up's, combo length, and HP values.

The first game I have ever played was on the Nintendo Gameboy [brick]. It was a starting trend to play Gameboy back in elementary school. My classmate owned the console and everyone was itching to have a turn during recess. Around that time, my father bought me a Genesis [model 1] and a subscription to Sega Visions. It was something he did of his own volition. I remember trading a tear out poster of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker [on the back had a Joe Montana football game] for exclusive playtime with the Gameboy for one recess.

Back at home, on the Genesis, I was playing Altered Beast. I was most probably playing with my dad, although, I do not have any real recollection of it. Soon, I invested more and more time away from my ninja turtle toys to play the Genesis. My dad began hiding the new games because of my eagerness to know what new cartridge he bought me. I've always known where he hid them. It was on top of some books on the bookshelf [the unit was black] still in it's contrasting white plastic bag. C'mon! Give me more credit than that, dad!

I broke his heart one day. Until that point, he was purchasing games that were two player so we could both play cooperatively. I asked for a game called Twin Cobra. I thought I knew better, because why else in the world would they name it TWIN Cobra? It has got to be two player. He kept saying it was one player. I thought he was stupid, so I said, "I want it anyways.". When the game would arrive, I will prove him wrong. The game arrived and to my disbelief it was single player. It kills me that I never apologized to him.