From: el27166@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Eu-Ming Lee)
Subject: SF2: Blind Guile playing
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 09:07:28 GMT

About a month ago, a friend and I were tag-team playing Guile.  We were
taking turns learning to perfect the magic throw.  Anyway, this guy started
playing Ken.  It was obvious that he was a novice, so we let him experiment
with the character while we experimented with the magic throw.  He didn't
even seem to notice it was anything out of the ordinary when we did it.

Anyway, since it was my quarter, I'd play first round, my friend would play
second round and purposefully lose so I could play the third round.  At
first we amused ourselves by performing the magic throw on the poor Ken
novice, then we tried to show him how to throw a fireball.  Alas, he
didn't seem to catch on very quickly to throwing fireballs and kept
uppercutting the air a screen length away from a magic-throw ready Guile.

Each game we'd narrowly win by a fierce punch's bar of energy.  After about
two or three dollars, it was obvious that this guy was not destined to
become a good player.  After about twelve games of three long rounds each of
Ken punching empty air and kicking as soon as he left the ground, he had not
learned how to time his attacks correctly.  Bored, I decided it was time to
lose my quarter and go eat.

So I said, "Hey I wonder if I can play by sound alone?"  I crouched down
with my head underneath the joysticks looking at the ground while my hands
operated the joysticks and buttons.  I listened for mistimed jump kicks
and short kicks.  As it turned out, I was able to beat poor novice Ken
without looking at the screen.

My friend said, "Hey that looks like fun," and decided to give it a shot.
He put his head beneath the joysticks just as I had and played blind.  He
threw a slow sonic boom, heard it "SMACK" and followed up with a backhand.
Ken was dizzy after the backhand hit.
After hearing the backhand hit, he inched up to the correct jumping
distance for a combo and did an aerial fierce, crouching strong, razor kick
combo.  Ken, undizzied, walked up and did a crouching roundhouse which
knocked Guile down (maybe he was trying to magic throw ;).  Ken jumped into
the air and was promptly knocked out of the air with a razor kick.  He
immediately tried to jump in again and was razor kicked again.  End of game
for Ken.  The Ken novice stood there astonished that he had been by two
players who didn't even look at the screen.  Not only that, but he was
nearly perfected in the second round.  Even worse was the fact that this
was the same player that he had beaten the last twelve rounds in a row.
At this point, novice Ken wisely moved on to the other SF2 machine.  We
were able to finish off the computer and eat dinner in peace.  The funny
thing is, we were really trying to lose.

I suppose that one day, a stranger will wander into the arcade and
challenge me to a game of SF2 while he was blindfolded.  He'll probably
win--- that'll be the same day the devil wins my soul.  I just hope they
get the Championship Edition in Hell sooner than we do in Champaign/Urbana.
-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Eu-Ming Lee (aka CyberGeek)                      el27166@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
"Nobody told me there'd be .sigs like these."
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-