From: cw21219@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Crying Freeman)
Newsgroups: alt.games.sf2
Subject: History of SF2 at UIUC Part 2.
Date: 15 Oct 92 23:42:11 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

If I rember correctly, I was at the end of the Age of Ryu/Ken
tick wars. At this point, there was a SF2 community developed in
Champaign-Urbana. My roomate, myself, and another friend usually
went and played together... (Wilfurbutt, me, and JP)

We still had our main characters (actually, basically our only
characters...) I played Guile, Wilfurbutt learned Ryu (he had started
the SF2 addiction a little later than us, so he was a pseudo newbie
"training" with us...

Anyways, there were several locations of street fighting.

A) Space Port

 The "regulars" hung out here. This was the place where cheap moves,
ticking, throwing, and ruthless play flourished. The regulars here
were definitely the best around this area...

Space Port Regulars (our nicknames for them before we knew them)

1) Ryugod AKA Quinn
	This guy seriously seemed to be at Space Port from the
	time when it opened till the time it closed... I remember
	when he started playing... He really sucked, but after
	about a week he learned the short short throw tick. Basically
	that's all I remembered him doing for the first month or
	so he played... Eventually though, he developed into the
	nastiest player around in terms of timing, throwing, and
	other subtleties of the game. (And when he learned Guile, man
	did he become truly nasty.)

2) Cybergeek AKA Eu-ming
	We read some of his posts on the net, and figured out who he
	was. Basically we couldn't stand him cause we thought he was
	the cheapest player in existance. :) At this early point in his
	career he was basically just a Chun Li player. His main strategy
	would be mixing throws with pseudo air combos. (They weren't
	autostuns, but people still weren't completely skilled at rapid
	succession blocking, so they would often get stunned. 

3) Friendly Guile AKA Joe
	He was a really friendly guy. He was a Guile and Dhalsim player.
	He would talk to you while kicking your butt. I just remember
	times where he would be doing the noogie till you die tick and
	would laugh and joke with his opponent that you can't get out of
	it. I personally like the guy, but I think some people probably
	got annoyed from being laughed at while being creamed.

4) Round Guile AKA That chubby kid named Brian
	He was a double chinned Guile player who was pretty good. He could
	and would do all the standard ticks pretty well, and had really
	good timing with the razor kick as a counter tick. He and Quinn
	had close enough timing that they got stuck in Guile's handcuffs
	a couple times cause Quinn would latch on with a throw at the EXACT
	same time as the razor kick. Basically, once combos became a
	factor in the game, he became washed up because he remained just
	a plain old ticking Guile.

5) The QUASIBOOMBI AKA Hamad (?)
	I think that's his name. OK. I suppose I should explain where the
	alias quasiboombi came from. Basically, boombi means indian in 
	filipino (which my partners in SF2ing are) and he looked sort of
	middle eastern, but we didn't know what nationality so eventually
	he took on the name of the quasiboombi. (This is from our late night
	philisophical/tactical SF2 discussions and yes we were pathetically
	hardcore SF2 players)

	Anyways, he was a Ryu/Ken player who I think
	originally played at Market Place (a local mall) but trained at
	Space Port cause the quality of competition was much better. At
	first he basically sucked due to the poor environment he originally
	played in. But he improved quickly. Now he's basically the top
	Ryu/Ken player down here. However, he is one of those noble honorable
	non offensive throwing Ryu/Ken players who REFUSES to throw offensively
	even if you jab-jab-threw him. He is one of the best defensive
	throwers around thoug

6) The Japanese Zangief AKA Tak (?)
	At first I felt really sorry for him. He would always come in,
	real quiet, didn't speak much English, and would get his butt
	smeared again and again playing Zangief. But then one day, he
	suddenly evolved into a Zangief terror powerhouse. To this day
	I haven't seen anyone that level with Zangief. It was like he
	was one with Zangief. He would use every move Zangief had and 
	developed creative and annoying tactics. (The most annoying was
	that he would do constant standing short kicks which most characters
	couldn't kick through. He also has scored numerous kills with
	the Zangief jump up and hold his breath move. (His victims were
	suffering from Zangief panic spasms)
 
7) The Hawaiian dude AKA Carlos
	Actually, he's hispanic, but somehow he ended up with the 
	Hawaiian dude nickname. (beats me.) Anyways, he is mainly
	noted for his finger speed. He was just so fast on the buttons
	that he could win by Ken/Ryu short kicks and ticks. He could
	also do a jab-jab-jab-dragon punch because his jabs were fast
	enough that they wouldn't knock the opponent out of restun range.
	Basically, if he won, he'd usually win by the stun.

8) The Round Chun Li AKA ??
	He was a pure Chun Li player. Most notable was his statement
	"That's so wrong!!" everytime he was thrown, or whenever something
	went wrong for him. It was pretty funny playing him.

9) The short black Blanka AKA ??
	That was this one dude who used to play Blanka and get really
	into the game. He used to hate ticks until some were developed
	for Blanka... Anyways, he talks alot and gets really into the
	game. He's one of the best Blankas around these days and is
	a pretty friendly guy. One of the most amusing things I find
	about him is that he'll talk to "Blanka" while playing. 
	"C'mon Blanka get up...", etc.

BTW on a side note, I remember back in the old days of SF2 the only
people who seemed to cry cheap were Blanka players... We always figured
it was because without throwing, Blanka was the most powerful player.

That's a bunch of the regulars who played last year at Space Port...
At the time, throws were the key to the game, cheapshots were the
way of life. 

There were a bunch of other arcades but the competition there wasn't
quite Space Port level.

B) Lincoln Square - Aladdin's Castle

This place was ruled by who we called 
"The Cambod"
These guys were a bunch of high school (~14-15 year old) kids who
dominated all the competition at Lincoln Square. They were pretty
decent and would go to Space Port every once in a while and pick
up tips, train, etc.
1) Suey 
	He was a master of all characters (almost). Originally he
	played Ryu, but became a master Guile. He has pretty
	quick reactions and really good timing. He was eventually 
	the level or better than most regulars at Space Port.
2) Rav Jr.  
	We called him this cause he always wore a red cap like
	one of our streetfighting friends (Rav "Ryuken") He was
	a pretty decent Ryu/Ken player.
3) The quiet one.
	He also played Ryu/Ken and Dhalsim. He was a pretty decent
	player as well.

C) Market Place - TILT

I never really ran into any tough competition here. We weren't even
that good back then and we could smear people at Market Place. There
were a couple of Market Place regulars but the only ones I can remember
are this really tall guy who plays Dhalsim and this geeky guy who I
can't remember who he plays. I remember we beat up on him pretty bad
for a while but Market Place was just an area of fresh meat to beat up
on.

D) Country Fair

This place was of a similar level as market place, except there was
an Ex-Space Port regular who played there. We called him the "Progressive
Ken who used to play Chun Li" He had a progressive haircut and was one
of the best fireball dragon punch guys around. He's a mortal kombat player
now though.

It's funny, we visited Country Fair a few weeks ago and they're at the level
of jumping in and throwing. We (me and JP) played round robin Guile for
about 30 minutes on one token and demonstrated things that they thought
were rumor. (Invisible throw). Of course I only got it out once, but I was
trying to do it most of the 30 minutes. Anyways, the competition there
was pretty weak.

E) Savoy 10

This is a movie theatre that has an SF2 machine. Once we went out to
play when Wilfurbutt and another friend just started playing. There was
this one guy who showed up and ticked our rookie trainies to death 
with Chun Li strong punch - throw - strong punch - throw - repeat. He
wasn't that good, but these were complete newbies. Needless to say I
came in as Guile and did the lame-o short kick suplex tick on him for
about 10 straight matches. It was lame, but it was so satisfying. (For
all of us) Anyways, we've seen him lurking around, but we just call
him Wilfurbutt's cheap enemy. 


Well, that's longer than I expected... Dang. 

Next: The Age of Development.
-- 
 Kenneth C. Wang	| University Of Illinois Champaign-Urbana	
 			| Internet: c-wang@uiuc.edu			
			| AKA Che-Yuan Wang
Newsgroups: alt.games.sf2