Tell us what got you inspired to play fighting games?

Current Fighting Games Fighting Game Discussion
21

I’m more of a late joiner, haha.

I was always looking for games with the feel of unlimited replay value for about six months or so, buying a chunk of the first person shooters, but they all ended up feeling the same. I heard the news about Street Fighter IV in the summer, and saw the Anniversary Collection used for $20 and bought it. I popped it into my PS2 and had too much fun playing it. I was playing the CPU all the time until HD Remix came out where I could finally play other people.

Naturally, I got my ass handed to me all the time and always wanted to get better. I was pretty happy when I finally started getting wins against the Ken scrubs and some other players. After I started to be beating the HD Remix casual constantly, I took my “skills” to GGPO and started getting my ass handed to me repeatedly again, which I loved.

Ever since I’ve been playing on GGPO, and now that there are good players on HD Remix, that has also been added into my list of currently played games. Still loving Street Fighter and other fighting games. What I see in fighting games that gives them unlimited playability is that you can always improve yourself and get better. I’m definitely not the best, but for only have been playing for six months, I’d consider myself alright.

22

When I was a kid I loved arcades and video games period. When SF2 hit on every 7-11 around my area is when I really go into fighters. Then eventually FF 1/2, SS 1/2, MK 1/2/3, SF2:CE/HF/Super/ST, KI 1/2, Primal Rage, etc. If there ever was an arcade nearby me or at a random mall I always hit it up. When MvC2 came out was when I found out about SRK and local tournaments. Now I’m pretty much playing online with random players and friends. Though I still hit up any arcade near me whenever I have the time to go and play.

23

its great to read everyone stories :china: also by the looks of the poll most of us have been playing for more than 10 years :china:

24

[sarcasm]Oh boy, everyone’s stories in this thread sure are interesting. [/sarcasm]
You know, this thread would be much better if everyone didn’t have the same damn ctrl+C and ctrl+V stories. I got it for SNES when I was 2 years old, blah, blah and I’ve been playing ever since. I actually want to hear some interesting stories from OGs that have been playing it ever since.

Yeah, when I was young my cousin used to take me to an arcade close by called ‘More Fun’. I liked Vs games and MSH. This is not important. The arcade later became known as ‘Smiles’. This is not important either. What’s important is that they got Marvel and my cousin taught me alot of stuff with it on DC. Oh, the local videogame store around me had a couple of cabs. I remember they had Garou and Marvel. None of that is important at all.

Flashback to 2 or 3 years ago. I’m in high school and I have nothing better to do so I hear about this mystical ‘Chinatown Fair’ and decide to go there one night after school. Also, my cousin is out of the picture seeing as how he does heroin now. So I go there and it’s awesome sauce. I never even knew 3S existed. I definitely wanted to come back there again.

And I did. They had this new game called Arcana Heart (please no jokes) and it seemed pretty cool when I played it. A couple of months later, I came back and this time there were alot more people and they played really well. I tried to copy what they did and soon enough, I began to meet these people. So after playing it alot, I realized what an awesome scene it is and how cool the people are, like Sabin for example. I didn’t play it too seriously since I wasn’t any good at it and it’s pretty difficult to learn if you’re new. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I joined SRK.

25

I grew up in an extremely rural area, so I had been completely unaware if the whole arcade Street Fighter explosion. Luckily, my father had a habit of buying video games he wanted to play and diguising them as a gift for me. One example was Street Fighter 2:CE on the Genesis. I think I was ten years old. He couldn’t understand the specials, but he would always pick Guile because he was such a badass. I would sometimes let him win as to not prove the theory wrong.

I remember bringing the console and game to a friends house and tearing them all up with Claw. I’m not sure how I figured out all the moves back then, but needless to say, that is my only memory of them playing with me.

Although I’ve enjoyed Street Fighter for 10 plus years, I put 3 years because I moved to a bigger city in 06’. That’s when I was introduced to my first arcade and a dusty ole’ McV2 machine. I quickly developed an unhealthy addiction to my opponents agony, and a serious lack of laundry quarters.

26

I got tired of Smash so I decided to play some real games.

27

In my opinion, fighting games -> Halo, COD, CS, etc etc because it has this rule: NO BITCHING.

If you win, you get all the credit, and no one can bitch any credit away from you. If you lose, it’s all on you, so you have no right to complain to others (I’m looking at you, Halo 3 teams). That adrenaline and allure is just what I like.

But what got me into fighters was probably MvC2, and the countless rolls of tokens I put into that crack every weekend at the casino arcade (parents loved playing slots and dropped me there when I was young).

28

back when I was in kindergarden or first grade, my uncle had a copy of Street Fighter II for the SNES. I was scared to even try to play when he was there so I used to watch him play through arcade mode with Guile. I started actually playing the game a few weeks later when my uncle wasn’t around so that I could one day actually play him and such. Since I didn’t own one [a SNES], my visits to my uncle’s house were the only times I was able to play. And everytime I would play him, I would get my ass handed to me. LOL.

As the years past, I always went over and played my uncle in various games for the PSX, such as Street Fighter Alpha 2, 3, Tekken 3, and even Rival Schools (still love RS to this day. Guess which character I got my username from :wgrin:).

Now, I’m here, playing Street Fighter 4 after trying out SF III for about 2 years with only my uncle’s house as real experience. I’m definitely aiming to change all that within the next 3 years or so. So there you have it. :woot:

29

I first started playing fighters with my cousin, stuff like mortal kombat, etc, and i would button mash whenever I went to the arcades. I didn’t start getting into it on serious note until 2000 with CvS2. Its a long story, but I met a very important person and he got me into the scene.

I’ve kept up on it, although my last five years in Germany left me with no fighting game scene, save for DOAU via online (ugh), although my last few years before graduation found some people who were really hardcore about SVC chaos and SFA. I also looked at Marvel seriously for the first time, although i still barely knew what to do with that title back then.

I got interested in how people posted their matches online via youtube and set up an account. I learned a method to capture live matches that was fairly cheap, reliable and portable and it, along with my love for fighting games has become my hobby.

30

I’ve always had a fond place for fighting games. Kind of started with Killer Instinct. I read the instruction manual and just mashed out some combos. I got people mad at me sometimes because I’d mash out Fulgore’s teleport combos and crap like that. I knew I was mashing too. It was fucking dumb luck. Around the same time I did end up getting SF2 like everyone else. Fucking loved Hadoken and shit. I would go around saying it all the time.

Fast forward to whenever VF2 came out. Went to the arcades when I was a kid and used Pai. She had like the absolute best strings at the time and I just mixed it up with PPPK, PPP:d:K and PPP:ub:K. Those shenanigans got me in mad shit, when I was just a punk kid getting 20-game win streaks. Of course, I’d follow it up with OTG, since no one ever tech rolled back in the day.

I was pretty on and off with fighting games up until high school. There was an event for fighting games in the school lobby. It was CvS2. I never played CvS2 before, but I thought my prior SF knowledge would help. So, I picked like Iori, Ryu and Sagat. I knew about Iori’s rekkas so he was a safe bet. I end up busting a lot of people with gay shit like turtle fireballs and uppercut. Because people aren’t patient and just like to jump and shit. I met a lot of people with a drive for fighting games and we vowed to try taking fighting games seriously.

Flash forward another year, I visit my now co-founder of my G3Evolution crew in Mississauga and he introduces to me Guilty Gear. So, I’m like “WTF is shit? Looks crazy.” We start playing and I hear the horrible truth that Bridget is a dude. So, of course like the scrubs we are, we pick Sol and Ky. That began my love affair with GG.

So, we suck balls at all the game we try to play and we don’t really know. Moving forward, we end up inviting GTASF to one of our tournaments. Great experience, meet some great people and learn about fighting games to an even deeper level. It was nice of Nagata to bring some real competition down, so we could see where were at. Around this time, I believe I joined SRK.

Now I have an established group of fighting game players. I personally enjoy playing just about everything out there. I’m not top-tier in any game by any means but I’m one of those guys who plays everything for 3D to 2D to old school.

That’s about it for now. There’s a whole next story to how I starting liking the games I like (MBAC, AH, GG, VF. etc.)

31

Well, what got me interested in fighting games believe it or not was melty blood. Which I came across in an anime convention in August 08. I before was a blasphemous brawl player that thought the game was the best thing since sliced bread. I still respect brawl and melee as pretty good games, though. What totally turned me into a hardcore nut was watching Kuroda on youtube. In fact it never gets old to me…

Oh, yah, and when I first saw third strike videos I was discouraged from playing it since it had parrying and all that. So, I never got into it until I realized I could play it on GGPO online. So, I was basically waiting for HD remix to come out for a few months since I thought it was the pinnacle of good fighting games.

32

When I was 6 or so I pilled up a chair to a Street Fighter 2 machine, stood on it and beat the fuck out of some guy who was beating the fuck out of other people.

…plus the game was cool. I think that was when I began liking games in general.

33

I started as a kid on Fatal Fury 2, Sam Sho 1/2…but that was not the epiphony of my career…

The epiphony of my entire life was going to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. You want a “different” story…you got it…

My passion for SNK games took me to the arguable deadliest city in the world on multiple occassions. I witnessed Military Police at the malls holding guns, newspapers with gang members heads blown off in broad daylight… and this was something rather different compared to what I had become accustomed to seeing in the USA. It opened my eyes to realize just what we take for granted here in America in all regards…money to spend, nice houses, nice cars,** HARD WORK, SACRIFICE AND DEDICATION**, all this materialistic stuff many of us Americans may not realize we take for granted…you realize it when you go to another country and see the REAL part of the country…and so against all odds even against my parents I went to Ciudad, Juarez Mexico, where I met plenty of people…saw plenty of gorgeous Mexican women lol, was treated nicely…and went there with the attitude to learn and get better. It was the Juarez National that I realized just how deep the talent level is in Mexico…meeting Khannibal, Abraham, Esteban, Kane9999, Taekua, Razx, Zerge, Benji,Skato, Sergio,Vegar and plenty others was the most fun I’ve ever had at a tournament.

The dedication in Mexico to KOF is astouding…the Juarez National was like Final Round or EVO in terms of the sheer hype and dedication…and easily EVO in terms of the level of competition.

It is just something that has to be seen for yourself in order to truly appreciate it.

So Juarez, Mexico was my complete turning point…the more I went there the more I changed…the more I began to appreciate what I had here in America…and realize even petty things such as rivalries don’t mean much in the big picture of things…and also that America has a long ways to go to remotely catch up with Mexico in KOF 2002 and XI in general…

The more I yearned to go back…the stronger I got in KOF, and the more determined I became to be the best…

Even at the risk of my own life I would go back to Juarez, Mexico to get stronger…

-DG

34

Uhhh, SF2 was like the first fighting game from the arcade that we would play.

Before that it was just like olympic/sport games like fencing, kendo, karate, boxing, double dragon when your team mate hit you so you had to get revenge lol. Man double dragon had the coolest ‘rock physics’… lol. Bounce it against the wall and you can pick it up again and keep hitting the guy – AMAZING!

Haha anyone remember mashing it on the arm wrestling game that had zangief and ryu looking dudes?

Of course when you got bored of that there was this disc throwing game. Oh man, that was the funniest shit making the girl dive face first to catch the disc – took us forever to figure out to throw and catch that one at age like 5.

Go california/olympic/sports games…

BMX dun, dun dun dun, watch out for the bull skull!

35

I checked 5 years on the poll since that’s when I became seriously interested, but I’ve been playing fighters since we got Karate Champ on NES as kids; me and my brother had some serious grudge matches in that game, and we were way to young to realize how terrible it was. After that I played SFII CE on genesis (I just mashed buttons with Blanka, and my bro always complained I was cheating) and Mortal Kombats uber violence was the first incentive I ever had to actually learn moves (forward, down, forward high-punch!) Anyhow I had casual interest until I metamorphised into a scrub when Soul Calibur 2 came out, thinking that my Kilik was the shit since I always thrashed the computer with it. Around that time my Dreamcast loving friend in high school let me borrow MvC2 and all of the flashy moves gave me a newfound interest in 2D fighting. I went out and got a cheap copy of CvS2 about 5 years ago which really set me off on the genre, and also introduced me to characters from a lot of franchises I’d never heard of but quickly became interested in. A few years of online gaming and human competition ultimately broke me out of my scrubby habits, and nowadays I play pretty much every relavent fighter that comes out at a decent level while keeping a good attitude. The graphics don’t really matter to me anymore, but I think they matter when attracting newcomers to the genre so I’m glad SF4 is lookin pretty.

36

I guess I can say I’ve played fighting games for a while now, starting with MK2 on genesis with my bro pretty much everyday when we were younger. We didn’t play competitively but we played to win.

Fast-forwarding to when I hit middle school was when I learned of some competitive games (at the time…) like A3 and MvC1. I began learning and convincing friends of mine to play, as my bro grew out of them. Most of my comp was friends so I wasn’t expecting to become great, just good.

It was when I started playing my dreamcast in the last year of middle school that I truly learned about fighting games. Marvel was that game (MvC2). I didn’t realize how addicted I was to that game and before I knew it, it was always in the dreamcast. Through the rehash of sprites, I recognized SFA3 sprites, renewing my A3 play and then learning about dreamcast’s excessive library of FG’s, I couldn’t stop. Garou, KoF, 3s, Project Justice, GGX, I played them all, but of course I prefered 3s. Mad respect to Garou/Project Justice though.

I eventually learned of SRK through a site called Fighters Gen which is gone now, but I was told by a member there that SRK is the place to go for Fighters (I wish I remembered his name though.) SRK not only got me into fighters for good but helped me convince friends to play competitive and taught them new strats and even to start new games. I wanted to join but didnt end up, thinking it was full of pros discussing intensely about fighters and glitches/tourney results, so I ended up joining in high school.

Currently, I stick to what I know, being 3s, some CvS2 and now SF4. Now that I’m in University, its a lot easier to start off summer events as we have extra the extra month. After some thoughts and suggestions, my friend is trying to get some people together to start up some sort of casuals to get even more people into fighters so you know I am in. Doesn’t look like I’ll stop any time soon though.

I guess this is all one way of saying SRK was my connection to fighters and it will be for anyone I decide to convince into playing fighters. :rock:

37

Just like almost everyone here, I was part of the SF2 craze as a kid in the early 90s. As time went by, I lost touch with the fighting game scene. And then sometime in middle school, CvS2 was coming out and it was pretty hyped for me. I loved playing it, but one thing got me into the serious side of fighting games - the Xerocrew CvS2 combo video. Those custom combos blew my mind. Years later I kept playing it, and I eventually landed a job at an arcade (MGL), where I continued my fighting game fanboyism.

And after all these years I still play fighting games. The ironic thing is that one of my friends that I met this year was the younger brother of a Xerocrew member, which brings me back to my roots.

38

I used to rape ppl in MMOs.

I got bored.

Then at school I saw a marvel vid w/ Demon Hyo.

And now here I am.

39

My first encouter was fo course SF2WW in the local arcade.
I was around 11 or 12 years old, and I couldn’t get in to play it. I was just watching the demo on a screen outside.
(you need to be 16 to get in an Arcade in some countries in Europe).

I never had the chance to own a SNES.
(My parents never wanted to buy my a console as they were saying that it is going to ruin my life…
They were pretty much right…)
So I have never played SF2WW basically.

4 years later, There was this bar in front of my high school were they had a SSF arcade machine!

It all begun there.
Of course, we were skipping class to play SSF pretty much all day all the time!
I started playing as Cammy! It was the first fighting game character I have mastered.

I thought that she is mad hot, and that it’s pretty cool to have a li’le hot bitch beating the shit out of huge dudes with huge muscles.
I have always played (and still play) exlusively female chars in all fighting games.

I basically got hooked to FG because of the hot female chars, and it became an obsession!

After SSF (Cammy) this bar receved a Art of Fighting 2 machine!

So I fell in love with Yuri and played it everyday.

Then I got a part time job in a imported games store, and I could finally buy my first video game console, a NeoGeo with Samurai Spirtis 2 (Nakoruru) and Fata Fury Special (Mai)!
Man, I think it was the most beautiful day in my life! I remember that feeling better than the first car and even better than the first time I had sex!

I had my friends everyday at home, and we played these two games all the time until the release of KOF 94.

I became a hardcore KOF fan, and played the series until 97 (Bluemary, Yuri, Leona and Mai).
…And played Street fighter Zero2 in the arcades everyday as well (Sakura…).

Then… I quit fighting games!
I decided that I will NEVER EVER play a FG again when I lost to a guy and threw my NeoGeo stick out of the window!
(I was living on the 6th floor, so of course, is was in pieces).

I thought that I am just getting nuts when I lose, and that I can’t freak out like that because of a game.
So I dedicated myself to Snowboarding, picking up chicks, driving my car, playing tennis, going to parties and started to be one of those super-social-fucking-Justin-Timberlake-wannabes and stopped being a geek for a while…

…

UNTIL THAT DAY!

When I saw THE ULTIMATE ANGEL who changed my file for ever.

My beloved little screaming brainless chinese bitch! :lovin:x1000!
Fell in love with the char, fell in love with the game, got hook to FG in general again and started to waste most of my freetime (and money) in arcades again.

Bought a PS2, got the game, spent over 1000 hours in training mode, registered to SRK, started making my own custom sticks, stopped going to “parties” and social meetings not involving gaming, bought a Jam garage kit (and had it painted), got dumped by my girlfriend…

Thank you Jam! you helped me to retrieve my true self!

(I still snowboard though…)

40

There isn’t really much room for “what got you started” type of stories anyway. Really. Now for actual fighting game story, then yeah I got some.

tl;dr

[details=Spoiler]
I was always fascinated by the over the top special techniques in fighters, matter of fact I still am, and that’s why I like anime/2D/2.5D fighter a lot more than VF/Tekken types. I mean look at the hadoken. Seriously who the hell came up with that? It’s a damn flying BLUE BALL that has a burnt-in image of pair of hands tightly grasped and ready to smash your puny little 10 year old ass. “WTF” was an understatement of what I thought of these moves when I first saw it. I probably laughed like a buffon and scared a few nearby children now that I think about it. This shit was so out of the world, soon whoever that could perform the “hadoken trick” with lighter by gathering lighter gas and igniting later, became the coolest kid for the day among my friends. When we went to pools kids like us just had to do the hurricane kick underwater. Don’t even lie to me, you did it, and you bet your ass I did it. No damn kid on the block could resist doing street fighter move underwater and if you didn’t you had no fukken SOUL, or at least no dick, which was and still is a popular, timeless insult amongst asian kids.
Coupled with that wtfness with 16-bit muffled voice, no one, hell as I learned not even some of Japanese folks that I would have met years down, understood what those voices said. Everyone tried to figure out what the voices meant but no one got it right. Korean oldschool arcaders(the ones that write analysis guides and shit) to this day, call the hurricane kick “ATATATUgen.” It’s not a “Sonic Boom” it’s a fukken “RODECKU”, damnit. Stupid rookies. Interestingly enough, Koreans also called the shoryuken “allyoucan,” like you American dudes although in korean the phrase didn’t have any meanings. Damn perverts. Anyway, we played fighters for special attacks, and it wasn’t unusual that we’d play on our rules, like no jumping and fireball only. Since no one in my grade school gang knew how to actually pull the moves, everyone had different ways of pulling them! You read “fireball war” and you are rolling your eyes at me now mister but back then that shit was complicated. My buddy to this day is convinced that Ryu does shoryuken by d,f,u + punch. For some reason I learned to do fireballs b, df + punch. If all else failed, you better rotate that stick and mash. Dude, mash harder you’re losing!! Told you you had to mash faster. It was until probably 95 ish after I moved to states and started playing with these unreal, high tech fancy arcades that have fukken movelists PRINTED ON next to the controls!! For real, that shit blew my mind.
What was supposed to be scrap paters for math problems would instead be filled with my rendition of street fighter moves, I done it all. I was so obsessed with this crap that I was eventually able to draw most moves except for Zangief and Hondas. It was okay to pretent that they didn’t exist because they are pair of faggots. I mean who fights in a middle of street with nothing but panties? I would be right few years later(learned that right here in shoryuken, what do you know). I would eventually learn to draw body porpotions correctly after a while. I have never been any art classes but I now can draw decently, and that’s thanks to fighting games.
It was these obsession of special move attacks that got me dig deeper and research about the game. It’s no different from any other games, really. It’s just like how people learn how to walk mid air in FPS, and what not.

After moving into states I would quit fighter for a while. I didn’t speak English well and I took caution not to stand out. There was some Korean American kid who owned an SNES and play SF2, but that dude was a big ol jerk and I stopped hanging out with him for a while.Then after a few years I got friends who played fighting games, which I thought was cool. My first competitive fighting game would be King of Fighters 95 on motherfukken Game Boy, we played this shit pretty much all lunch, school football games. As a young high school freshman nerd I could not afford all that battery life, so I would save money, get a set of rechargable battery, and rotated them. I to this day remember glitches in that game clearly; Ralf had 95% life super and Nakoruru was the biggest bitch ever. My friends weren’t just fighting game nerds, they were hard core nerds period and I felt right at home. I could talk about Final Fantasy and not be looked as a wierdo. It was good times. [/details]