Info on the Old School SF Scene?

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
201

Heh. I feel blessed. In my country (Trinidad), HYper Fighting is in every arcade, and is STILL played EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. DAY. Some days are obviously more busy than others, but the machines are there, and you WILL find someone to play against eventually. Not everyone is good, though, but almost everyone thinks they’re top shit with Ken, so you can usually get at least a few wins smacking hapless shotos around until they realise what they’re not going to win. :stuck_out_tongue:

(On the other hand, there are still some genuine beasts hanging around, but you usually have to go looking for them).

Just today I had to beat up some poor schmoe with Bison (the only character I play in HF, heh). It wasn’t particularly fair - while he would hardly have beaten me anyway, his stick had a short in it, where tapping forward on my stick would cause his character to randomly jab. On the other hand, my side wasn’t great either. Charge motions were a bitch, and blocking low was touchy (does this sound familiar to anyone? Many arcade here are still stuck in 1993, which isn’t a bad thing bcause there are still good games, but on the other hand, the condition of the games is often suspect; not to mention, there are some places that, depending on your skin colour, you don’t want to venture into them without back up and/or not after it gets dark). Still put up a good fight. He had Ken first, naturally (99% of the people here play Ken and.or Ryu… mostly Ken though). After I got rid of him, he switched to… Dhalsim? I don’t think I’ve played against Dhalsim in HF since 1998 or something. And that time I actually got my ass handed to me very very badly, but that was then. I’m a much better player now than I was then, not necessarily that much better at HF, but that much better, period. Anyway, he kinda seemed to know what he was doing, but I thikn the stick fucked him over. I don’t fear 'Sim, so he was gone. Then he switched to Vega. Now outside of a particular stupid situation, I think VEga dies to Bison. Oddly enough, in this fight was when my stick decided to act up, so he actually had me pinned in the corner for a couple rounds, not to mention randomness like wall grabbing me out of torpedo. Then I said “Fuck dis shit”, and torpedoed and thew the hell out of him.

As I said, it wasn’t particularly fair, but he wasn’t going to really win anyway.

I finished the game, and then moved onto SS4 (after beating the guy who was on - he was the same guy who I beat in HF before, poor guy, though had he continnued he probably would have given me more trouble here since I suck at SS4; sad to say I then lost to a scrub with my scrubby Amakusa, then switched to the even stupider Slash Sogetsu and won with his usual crap), and MvC1 (got a 26 win streak with… Captain America and HUlk? I pissed the hell out of this one guy who kept picking Morrigan and Wolverine, but really didn’t know how to play either; some guy who sorta knew what he was doing with Strider, War Machine and Wolverine came in when I was around win 18, but my OLD SCHOOL SKILLs beat him down several times more even when I clearly should have lost; even at the end, I only lost due to time and a small energy difference; then I switched to a real team of Hyper Venom/Strider and demolished him for good).

Interestingly enough, I’m probably one of the few “old guard” gamers still playing. I’m one of the few who has been actively playing since Sf2 came out in 1991 here, and even though I absolutely SUCKED back then, and still sucked for many years afterwards, I have been playing for so long that I’ve outlasted most of the other old schoolers. With some exceptions, most of the really good players here are fairly young - they probably wouldn’t even have been able to reach the controllers when SF2 first came out.

It’s interesting that there have been new players replacing the old here, though of course things aren’t quite as busy as they were back in the early 90s. Ah, the benefits of living in a 3rd world country, where fighting games still reign supreme at the arcade, where HF is still seen as THE game to settle disputes on, and you can still find decent competition in any of a dozen places, depending on what time of the day you go. On a random Saturday you can still go and find a good 5-7 person crowd around HF. On the other hand, there’s a dearth of new games. If you like 3S, CvS2 or MvC2, you’re outta luck. I think there’s maybe 1 or 2 places in the entire country total that have them, and two of those places are places I wouldn’t dare of walking into without a posse. And since I don’t have any friends who really play arcade games much any more, it’s kinda of a problem. If I want to play new stuff against good competition, I would have to go back to living in NY. :frowning:

202

If you want I can find the book, as I have the names but I want that mini FAQ you did as to who where those guys in terms of game play and where are they now

203

Hello.

I was at Tomo’s house 2 weeks ago, when I got the call.

Gerald Abraham called me and told me some version was out called aniversary edition. I was like WTH is that? he explained…then he asked me if I wanted to come show dominance like the old days. Since I am 33, and Tomo is like 28 I was asked Tomo…“Tomo, you want to show these jackasses who’s boss?”

He declined, hes too busy. However. I told Tomo I would do it for old time sake to show people even after 11 YEARS and being too old to compete I can still be one of the best in the world.

Jason (Apoc) Tell these guys how it was on CE, Hyper Fighting and Super.

I would come to the tournament with Tomo. Charles would bracket me and Tomo in different brackets. And everyone else, including Watson, was playing for 3rd place. I have, the most Wins at Worlds finest behind Tomo, at over 30. And I was #1 or #2 on the board, only behind Tomo for 3 years straight. Watson was always #3.

Tell these dudes the time ALL the vegas players challenged me to SF and I came and what was it? 40-0 until I had to go to the bathroom!

Loves those days brother. Jason, your a great man.

Also, youll find me name in the Hyper fighting Book, youll see my name is right below TOmo’s at #2 on the rankings.
Youll find me in the Super/Super Turbo book in the back under "your worst nightmare"
And youll find me as a lead author in the A2 book, which was a rally good guide. My name is on the cover.

Jeff Schaefer

204

That sucks…I was hoping that he would make a comeback with the new SF2 AE, and I was looking forward to having matches with the best, I want to see him against Daigo and Kurahashi.

Jeff, lets get a petition going to get SF2 AE in U.S. arcades and rally up tournies bro.

Keep trying to get him to make a comeback.

205

Holy crap it’s Jeff Schaefer!

Last time I heard from him, he was on alt.games.sf2 ranking Alpha 3 characters based on what character Valle was kicking his ass with that week. LOL. :stuck_out_tongue:

Checks his A2 book Hey, his name IS on the cover! (Along with Jason Cole, Matt “Slasher Quan” Taylor, Mike Watson and Graham Wolfe). I actually never noticed before. I thought I had read every square inch of this fine fine book, but I guess I missed a spot. :stuck_out_tongue:

Tomo’s 28? Hey, that ain’t that old! Besides, you’re never too old to beat people up at HF. ^^

206

If this is Jeff Schaefer, its an honour 2 hear from a legend, I wish Tomo would come here and post also with Mike Watson.
I remember when me and the school read that mag here in England and wondered how ood were u guys

207

man imagine how long a quote whould be from that second guy, jesus you guys have some good stories. all i can remember was that i was like between the age of 4 and 7 when my nextdoor neighbor had street fighter 2 alpha on snes and i had super street fighter 2 turbo and the new challengers or something on genesis. either way i had 2 on genesis. man street fighter 2 was the shizznit back then. mortal kombat 1 and 2 was the only thing that rivalled that game in my tiny world back then. god being a kid was fun. i wish i could relive those days. me and my neighbors would always play alpha 2. but they where like 9 and i was like 6 so you could imagine how badly i got beaten.can’t remember much from back then though, all i can remember is that SF2 is the bomb. im gonna try to buy some old snes games at the mall today if i can find any. great stories guys. im gettin anniversary collection next month too.

208

What’s up with Tomo nowadays??? Why’d he quit???

209

I think Apoc OR somebody else told me, that he had disagreements with Jeff or Mike Watson on who was better or peeps thought that one of those guys were better than Tomo or something like that

210

Man. In Villahermosa, Tabasco, all the SF2 we ever got were like the crazy cheater hacks (this one was ‘dubbed’ Alpha Magic) where you could Shoryuken and get like 903 fireballs coming out of Ryu/Ken’s armpit (and the one-hit kill Tiger Uppercut that made a Yoga Flame come out of Sagat’s armpit).

Then, well, KOF’94 came out, and EGM was having ravaging orgasms over it. So I played it, loved it, and well, now I’m an SNK homo.

I feel cheated for never having a good SF2 scene. Sucks that all the cool shit about SF2 I should have learned I didn’t learn until this year.

211

I just remember playing StreetFighter II at the arcades and Liquor stores, then coming home and playing with my friends all night on the Sega Genesis. I would always get wooped at the arcades, but beat the same friends on the home version. Maybe it was the pad, even though I prefer a stick now.

212

I remember this tricked out version of SF2 at a Maynards store back in its early days. First of all you could do air hadoukens, and then jump again, all the moves were do-able in the air. With MBison pressing start changed what character you were. Also the hadoukens were huge…Now that I think about it, I have no idea how it happened at a local arcade store back then…like 1993-4? Clearly it was hacked…but how?

213

Many of the posts in this thread are both informative and just plain awesome to read. I’m wondering whose permission I would need to use a few quotes here and there for a book I’m authoring about fighting games.

214

seriously. dope.

215

This may be the best video game related thread in existence, like, ever. Seriously, I had no idea there were so many old-school players out there who were willing to share their experiences. Simply awesome.

And while I won’t ramble on too long with my own old-school story, I will tell you my first SF experience took place in a grimy 7-Eleven store in Hollywood, the same 7-Eleven I would later bear witness to looters storming and pillaging during the L.A. Riots. I was on my lunch break when the SFII cabinet caught my eye and kicked my ass. I ran back to tell my boss “you’ve gotta see this new game!”, and we ended up taking an extended lunch break as I remember. :wink:

Anyway, a few months later I ended up trading like a gazillion Genesis games to Game Dude (yes, THAT Game Dude) for an SNES and a copy of Street Fighter II. The guy behind the counter was like “are you sure you wanna do this?”, and I’m like “c’mon man, it’s Street Fighter!”

BTW, I still have each and every Gamepro SF guide, and yes, I still have much to learn from them. :wink:

216

Heads and shoulders better than any thread on the site.

217

This thread is too good. Props to all the old school players :stuck_out_tongue:

I was really young when I first saw SF2:WW at some random arcade that my dad brougt me to. Me and my bro played eachother; I played Blanka, and my bro picked Honda… I lost… It was funny, as we were picking our characters, this girl that was even younger then me told me to “pick the girl” and tried to move my cursor to chun li to “help me” pick her. Also while she was watching us play she would mash on my controls every now and then, prolly trying to “help” me again :stuck_out_tongue:

Ahh the memories.

218

…I first played Street Fighter at the 7-11 in jcasetnl’s post. Small world.

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Awesome thread, best on SRK, just makes me sad when people talk about the death of SF :sad:
i played SF1 on c64 and WW at at the arcade a bit but i was very young back then and dont remeber much.
Anyone in here from australia that was actually a teenager or adult or something back then that played this game seriously and remebers stuff from the golden days? that would be great if i could hear a story about the OG Aussie SF scene since i was too young back then to travel to diferent arcades and stuff.

220

wow. someone revived a 3-yr old thread. =/
they should sticky this thread. =D