From: friedman@perch.cis.ohio-state.edu (Mark "Crimson" Friedman)
Subject: SF2: CE - First Contact
Organization: NAIVE - New And Improved Virtual Environment
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 16:49:58 GMT

I got to play CE last Sunday after trekking to the north side of town
to find it.  The "arcade" (basically a corner of a food court) gave
you 3 tokens for a dollar.  "Wow," I said, "three tokens for a
dollar."  Luckily, the machine was set on one token per play, so I
didn't go *totally* bonkers.

So I spend a dollar and wait for the guy that was playing to finish.
He asked me if I wanted to join, but I said "nope", cuz he looked like
he had used the machine for a while.  So I let him finish up and then
I took my turn at bat, chose Vega, when suddenly...

..the arcade-jerks flew out of the woodwork!  Before you could say
"high-school punk", one had stuck in a token and chose M. Bison (M.
Penis being his real name, of course).  He then proceeded to thrash
my ass with the flaming torpedo.

Wonderful: two rounds of learning new moves wasted.  Oh well, shows
you that it's best to go during your lunch hour on a school day!

Yeah, this little gang had played the machine extensively before, and
they all loved the little torpedo move, cuz it's cheap.  Next time at
bat I chose Blanka (the green one, that is: I forgot to try to see the
other color).  This time I won a match and got close on the other two.

This reassured me that the old characters were pretty much the same as
they were in SF Classic.  But I wan't playing cut-throat, I was
feeling out the new moves instead.  Stopping the ball in mid-flight
was kool, but I couldn't tell much difference in the electricity.  Oh
well, if the scrotum would've let me play around more then maybe I
could tell...

Anyway, bottom line on Blanka vs M. Penis' torpedo is just the jumping
roundhouse, just like in SF Classic.  You can basically sit back and
play defense, watching carefully for slides, too.  I'm not too sure
about air-defense, but I think the fierce claw would work.  No prob.
Does the Critter Ball (tm) override the torpedo?  Never tried it
myself.  But the defensive stuff discouraged the wiener from using the
torpedo, giving me more time to play around.  But still, I got beat...

Next time up the another guy was playing Ryu.  Now *that* was a
mistake!  I chose the Gief-Man, the Zangster, the Russian 'Rastler:
ZANGIEF!!! and immediately kicked ass.  Two straight rounds.  That
salvaged my pride for the day: these schmucks were cheap players.  If
I knew how the opponent worked, I could beat him.

Unfortunately, the next dude up took Vega, so I had to "feel him out"
again.  Lost the first, won the second, and got damn close on the
third.  Bottom line here was to do the SPD (spinning pile driver/
screwdriver, eh?) as he recolied from a rolling stab.  Also, I think
the double lariat/top-spin works good when he jumps off the wall.  Can
anyone confirm this?  Oh, and basically just stay in his face: if he
doesn't have the room he needs to work, he's hosed.

"Wow," I said, "three tokens for a dollar."  Oh well, so that was my
first experience on a CE machine.  A few things about the cabinet
itself: man are those graphics cheesy!  The pictures and captions
tried to make it sound too cool.  Plus there was a little story about
M. Penis on it that I didn't read, but it sure smelled cheesy to me!
The sticks had a fairly tall shaft, so the action was pretty wide.
Like someone else said, "gimmie a small clicky any day."

						- Klone Crimson


BTW: My regular SF machine is a kit version, so I wasn't really used
to the play either.  The sticks are small, and the buttons are in a
funky layout:

             0  strong
            / \
      jab  0---0   fierce

  short  0---0  roundhouse
          \ /
           0  forward

Basically a double-triangle.  It looks odd, but it works!  This is one
instance where "home field advantage" really pays off.  :-)
-- 
+----====>>>))) Mark Friedman is friedman@cis.ohio-state.edu (((<<<====----+
|   "There is nothing former   |   "If you put a hungry ferret in your     |
|      about King Crimson."    |      trousers, he'll run around..."       |
|    - Robert Fripp, 5/11/90   |               - Nigel Tufnel (Spinal Tap) |
Xref: sparky alt.games.sf2:382 rec.games.video:10898 rec.games.video.arcade:5365