From: el27166@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (This Space for Rent)
Subject: Re: History of SF2 at UIUC
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:08:51 GMT

cw21219@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Crying Freeman) writes:

>Part 1) The Age of SPY.

> The first time I saw this game was at a local mall... I played once
>as Ryu and got mauled. I had played Street Fighter I before so I
>knew how to fireball. However, I didn't know how to block. Needless to
>say I got mauled by some Zangief player who thought he was bad....
>(Big deal, so he could block.)

I first saw the game at Market Place mall.  A tall, thin guy who works
at Sears was playing Dhalsim rather well.  There was a very long line,
so I didn't play.  Rather, I'd watch the strategies involved.  I was
intrigued.  I knew this was something I could get into, since I enjoyed
player vs. player competition.

Over one of the breaks, I practiced playing at Dennis' Place for Games
in Chicago.  40 tokens for 5 bucks was the deal at the time.  I kept
getting crushed by a Blanka player while I played Chun Li.  I would also
get hit by the 'thump thump' (Ryu's Roundhouse roundhouse combo) because
I didn't know to block high.  Eventually, one of the 'masters' told me
how to block high.  That was his first mistake.  Then, after watching
another player play Chun Li, I came to an amazing revelation.  The
strong punch had the mystical power to THROW!

After learning how to throw with Chun Li, I practiced on that Blanka
master who had beaten me zillions of times.  I lost first round, but
I won second round, mainly because he always gave second rounds to me
anyway.  Then I won the third round!  Stupefied, he tried again... and
again... and again...  Chun Li continues to be a terror against Blanka
in the original SFII game.  I pretty much use the same strategy as I
did that time when I first learned how to beat Blanka that way...

> Anyways, eventually the local arcade, Space Port, got the game. I
>picked Guile as my character of choice... I had two other friends who
>started playing the game with me... The top player of that time was this tall
>black Ryu player (SPY) who would smear everyone by jumping in with the knee.
>Since we didn't know that you had to block the knee high, we would get
>stunned, thrown into the corned and stunned by the knee again. Slowly, we
>started to develop a vague idea of aerial defense. Yes, we were truly sad.
> 
> Eventually, from reading the net, we learned of some special moves.
>I learned the razor kick and sonic boom, my friend JP learned the Chun Li
>helicopter kick and that devastating move, the head hop!! Yes, we were now
>terrors on the SF2 machine. Eventually we even learned to block high and
>matches became slightly more even. Still, that evil short kick of Ryu's
>would wreak havoc on us and most of the other players around.... 

I also learned all of the moves, but I still couldn't perform them all.
I practiced a little with Guile, since I thought the razor kick was a
very powerful weapon.  Against newbies, it's all you need to win the
game.  I managed to be a pretty decent Guile player, for a newbie.

>After this point, I went to Taiwan, and was out of the UIUC scene for a while...
> In Taiwan, I learned the concept of "ticking". When I first got there, I
>would get smeared by these 10 year old kids who would fireball-fireball
>roundhouse kick me... Some of the better ones would dragon punch me... It
>was pretty humiliating... One day on a streetside, I found out their training
>techniques... They would sit there and fireball each other for whole matches
>to perfect their fireballs. Yup, fireball fireball fireball, etc. for 10 whole
>rounds of Draw games... Some of the better 10 year olds would dragon punch
>continuously for 10 straight rounds.  

Since I already knew how to tick with Chun Li, I thought I would be able
to win games in Taiwan.  WRONG!  They knew how to counter throw there.
I won a few games, but lost much more than I did in the U.S.

> Eventually, I got jab jab thrown to death at some of arcades in Taiwan.
>I learned the Guile standing short kick-suplex tick and could now consistently
>win more than 5 fights against the computer. Boy, did I feel studly. After
>a few weeks of training in Taiwan, I was ready to come back to the US and
>kick butt.

However, there were enough games open that you could practice against
the computer at approxiamately 12 1/2 cents a game.  I actually didn't
get much practice in, since I had other things to do in Taiwan, but I
did learn that Ken/Ryu's short short throw ticks could be very effective.

>Part 2) The Age of Cybergeek

Hey!  I get a whole Age to myself! :)  Wait, isn't it STILL the age
of Cybergeek? :)

> I remember the first day JP (Chun Li) and I went back to Space Port. I was
>ready to unleash my short kick-suplex on the SF2 world of UIUC. When we got
>there, there was a crowd of people already at the machine. One dude pulled
>us over to the side and said "This guy has won over 99 straight matches on
>one quarter!" I looked at him from behind and he was wearing a Fido Dido
>T-shirt (The latest fashion in Taiwan) Uh oh. Someone else has been training
>in Taiwan!!

Although I was playing Chun Li, and knew how to play Guile fairly well,
I wanted to learn to play Ken and Ryu because of their excellent ticking
capabilities.  I never learned to dragon punch consistently, although I
knew how it was done.  When people would ask me how to dragon punch, I
would tell them:  "Move forward and then throw a fireball right away".
I knew this was not exactly the correct way to do the dragon punch, but
it worked.  All of the special moves were posted on some machines in
Taiwan.  This DP motion is actually slower than the 'real' DP motion.
However, this is they way I told it to people at the arcade and on the
net.  Why?  Who knows... maybe someday I would need to switch to Ryu
and be able to dragon punch faster than anyone else.  Was I successful?
Ask the people at the UIUC arcade.

> I decided, "No prob." After waiting out a line of about 8 people I got my
>first shot at Cybergeek. It was a truly pathetic performance. I pulled out
>Guile to face his dreaded 99 straight match Chun Li. "Hya! Hya! Hya! Hya!"
>My 1st round was over... Damn, I didn't even get my short kick-suplex in...
>Round 2. "Hya! Hya! Hya! Hya!" It was over in a total of 30 seconds. My 
>only comfort was that it was happening to everyone else.

Hey, the age of "Fun with Chun".  What you didn't know was that I was
a complete Ken/Ryu imbecile.  When there were only a few people who
weren't good at the arcade, I'd practice jab jab throws on them, since
I thought this would be the future of the game.  One of these people
was a Ryu player named Quinn.  He was persistent, and eventually learned
to counter throw.  Then, I would switch back to Chun Li...

> The sad thing was it wasn't even strong punch-throw combos he was using.
>He would just jump over us and throw us. No one knew how to counter it...
>For a while, Cybergeek would dominate using the Chun Li ticks and the
>Guile short-suplex... After about 5 tries, I had given up even trying to
>fight him...

>Part 3) The golden age of ticking.

> Eventually, Space Port evolved into the land of ticking. There were several
>players who slowly became the regulars of Space Port.  The most popular player
>of the time was Ken. There were several Ken players around...
> Carlos - The fastest button pusher around. He could restun you with Ken short
>          kicks he was so fast.
> Quinn - He really sucked at first, but by paying the ultimate price, became
>          the scariest player around.  He was the only player around who
>          actually preferred Ryu over Ken. Psychologically, most seemed to
>          prefer Ken. (Don't ask me, I'm a Guile player)

Yeah, darn it.  After ticking Quinn with Ken/Ryu, he learned to do it to
me when I was playing Chun Li.  He had good success at it too.  In return,
I played Ken/Ryu and ticked back... that's what started the ticking wars.

Quinn DID pay the ultimate price, mainly, doing so poorly in school that
his dad cut off financial help for his college education.  Ouch!  But
hey, he plays a pretty decent Ryu :)

> Progressive Ken - we still don't know his real name, but we called him that
>	  cause of his hairstyle. He originally played Chun Li but switched
>	  to Ken. He eventually evolved into a fireball dragon punch master. 

His name is Kurt, and he played an amazing game of Magician Lord and
Magic Sword to boot.  I first met him when I went to a weird kind of
club.  In this club, you get up Saturday morning, and attack other
people in the club with large padded weapons.  Kurt used a parrying
dagger and a longsword and was one of the best players in the club.
I eventually dropped out of the club since I wasn't a Saturday morning
person.  He goes to parkland, and you can find him at the Union playing
mortal Kombat every once in a while.

> There were several others, these were just the most noteworthy...
> Regardless, matches would consist of Ken and Ryu jumping in with the knee,
>throwing the opponent into the corner and short short throw, repeat until
>one Ryu or Ken died. At least that's what I remember... As Guile I would 
>always seem to get stunned and wiped out by ticks...

> Even Cybergeek would get ticked to death by these evil Ken players, but
>he could still win with Chun Li throw style. The balance of power was more
>distributed.
> My recollection of this period seemed to be mainly a bunch of short kick
>throw in the corner matches, with the rare counter throw... Eventually,
>Quinn, who seemed to be at the arcade whenever it was open developed into
>the "Ryu-god" as we called him. He mastered the dragon punch and developed
>timing with throws that granted him an aura of fear. 
> I remember that there were two other Guile regulars around and we would
>be terrorized by fireball-roundhouse, fireball-dragon punch combined with
>ticks... The tables would eventually be turned...

Quinn and I had debates over who had the best potential in the game.
At the time, Ken and Ryu were the most dominant characters because of
the close range ticking ability, and the ability to keep players at
long range.

I disagreed with Quinn.  I thought that Ken and Ryu sucked.  They
were useless if you didn't jump in on them.  If they dragon punched,
you could still walk in and throw afterwards.  Their fireball delay
was too long.  He proceeded to rub my argument in my face by beating
me with Ryu.  Argh.

>Note: This is just my recollection of SF2 at the U of I and it's probably
>	pretty warped... 
-- 
Eu-Ming Lee (aka CyberGeek)                      el27166@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
"Nobody told me there'd be .sigs like these."
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