Let's attempt to play Street Fighter 2 online

Okay! Cool, I have Xbox Live now. Let's see what else I can do with that, besides much easier downloads. I guess I can play multiplayer games, now. I don't really play multiplayer games, though... mostly I just play role-playing games.

Well I AM the King of Pong. Let's see if anyone is online and looking for a Pong opponent.

Half an hour passes.

No. Oh but someone I never heard of sent me a voice message! Huh, okay! Let's see.

Click. Wikkada dodsa sni Pong sheh gum?!

I don't know what that means but she sounds angry with me. Am I doing somethign wrong, here? Maybe I'll play Pong some other time.

Oh! There's always Street Fighter 2! Or rather, Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix! Easily my favourite version of Street Fighter 2 - and that's up against some stiff competition! I was always pretty good at Street Fighter. This will be fun. Time to show the world my skills and prove myself the ultimate World Warrior - but actually against people from across the world, rather than my brother this time!

'Ranked match' or 'casual match?' To hell with you casual players, I'll go ranked. Ain't nothing casual about this. This is serious. Let the world judge me by my actions here tonight.

All right. Let's do this! Hadooouken!! and all that. I'll pick Ryu, because as everyone knows, Ryu is the easiest character to master and therefore the best one to choose. Let's see them get past my classic fireball-then-hurricane-kick-then-wait-for-them-to-get-up-and-dragon-punch-them combo.

JAPAAAAAAAN!

Japan. Awesome. My character's home ground. The other guy is playing as Dee Jay. He has no wins, no losses, same as me. And his screen-name is all caps. Loser. I've got this in the bag.

ROUND. ONE. FIGHT!

A succession of loud grunts and screams is heard. None of them are in a Jamaican accent.

Crap! This guy is like... how the hell does he do that? Like, jumping diagonally into the air and kicking me three times. I could never get that move to work. And he just... he just blocked the fireballs!! What the hell is that?

More grunts. A final scream, echoed twice.

YOU! LOSE!

Dee Jay: Your problem is you don't have any rhythm!

My problem is that you're the best Street Fighter player in the history of the Universe, mate.
0 wins, 1 losses. Okay, fine. The better man won. Let's just start again. Who's next?

YOU-ESS-AYYYYYYY!

Ken's stage. The one with the crates. And who am I f...

FIGHT!

THUD! BASH! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! *Crate smashes*

Bloody... Dee Jay again?! Come on, this guy already beat me! Surely there's no sport in beating me again. Oh, wait. This is a different guy. Wheras the first one played with incredible speed and grace, this one is just doing a jumpkick that's really hard to dodge over and over. Hmm. Maybe I can beat this guy... if I use my head....

Okay if I do a straight-up jumpkick I can stop that move of his. Here we go. YES! Fuck you!! Try it again, smart guy! Aha! Got you again! And again! Yeah I can stand here and do a straight-up jump-kick all day! Jackass.

Long pause.

Yeeeeah, now you don't know what to do, do you? That jumpkick always worked so well in the past, eh?
Man... this move looks just like the famous 'Crane kick' from the original 'karate Kid' movie. Haha. Seriously it's just like that. Waiting for him to come close, jumping up, kicking him in the face. White karate suit, black hair. Hahaha.
Oh he's doing it again. Okay I'll just... gah! Too late! Stop that! Give me a moment to block or something, you bastard!

Dee Jay hammers kick after kick on my guy, raining blows down on me like Luke on Vader.

YOU! LOSE!

Dee Jay: Your problem is you don't have any rhythm!

Fuck you!!! You're the least sportsmanlike street-fighter I ever met! And you can stop grinning at me, too, you stupid fucking national-stereotyped fucking cartoon.

0 wins, 2 losses. I guess I got unlucky with the Dee Jay twins. Let's start again, again.

CHIIINA!

Ah! Fighting Ken this time. Ryu vs. Ken: the oldest rivalry in fighting game history. This truly will be a battle of skill. One on one. Slightly stronger atacks versus slightly faster moves. He's wearing lime green. I am ready.

Three rounds later.

Jesus! How do these people get to be so good at Street Fighter 2?! This is like playing chess against Kasparov! Are these guys professionals? Do they just spend their lives working on their Street Fighter 2 skills, living only for the next match, taking no pleasure in victory but only in learning from their disparate opponents?? Kinda like... Ryu. Huh.

0 wins, 3 losses.

Four matches later...

0 wins, 7 losses.

This is ridiculous. How are these people so good at playing Street Fighter 2? Why am I the only one playing as Ryu? Is Ryu the loser's choice? Have I made him the loser's choice? Is it like, 'Oh don't be Ryu, you'll associate yourself with that British guy with the 7 losses.'

YOU-ESS-ESS-ARRRRRR!

What? Oh, sure, okay. Who wants to beat me now? Akuma. Awesome. That's the character who's exactly like Ryu except he has better moves. Oh and now my screen is juddering so I can barely move. Now I'm playing Kasparov with a blindfold and no bishops.

New objective: hit him. Don't let him get a 'perfect score', or 'Flawless victory' as we called it when I was a lad.

BASH BASH BASH BASH INSANELY FAST MOVES FIREBALLS FROM THE AIR ANIME RUSSIANS LAUGHING AT ME IN THE BACKGROUND.

Oh! Oh, I hit him! By blocking, crouching and doing the heavy kick. I swept his leg out from under him and knocked him to the floor! Ha! The mighty Akuma, on the floor! Sure, when he gets up he'll pulverise me, but right now he's on the floor and I'm not. Ha ha ha!

Akuma: ...

0 wins, 8 losses.

At least I got him on the floor that time. It's like earlier, when I was using the Karate Kid Crane Kick on the second guy. Maybe I should try that again.

Or... what was the OTHER famous piece of advice from that film? What was that... line...

"Fear does not exist in this dojo! Does it? Pain does not exist in this dojo! Does it? DEFEAT does not exist in this dojo! DOES IT??"

No, SENSAI!

All very inspiring stuff! But that's not what I was trying to remember. I need some practical adv...

"Sweep the leg."

Hmm...

"Sweep the leg, Buch."

Staring up at the screen, I wipe my bloodied nose, horrified... but nodding.

INDI-AAAAAH!

Black karate suit this time. Cobra Kai never dies. You bet your ass. And I'm fighting Chun-Li, surrounded by elephants, outside the Taj Mahal. My victory is at hand, just as I dreamed it.

And much like everyone else except me playing this game, she's very, very good. But now I have my secret weapon. Every time she tries to get close and pummel me... I sweep the leg.

And I win a round! I lose the next two, but who cares? I won one!

Here we go then. The last round. The LAST ROUND. I could actually win this match.

SWEEP THE LEG, RYU.

As the music swims in my head, building speed with every beat, so does my fighting instinct. I can win this. I will win this. She's probably riding on the confidence from winning the last two rounds. This will contribute to her downfall.

The elephants are trumpeting. They can sense something is wrong... something different. The dark hadou? Or just the sheer rage of an ordinary man pushed into the dirt by Street Fighter professionals... One. Time. Too. Many.

FIGHT!!

And I am. I'm fighting with all the strength I can muster. I'm channelling great oceans of adrenaline, poring them into a single, oversized, Japanese foot. Hitting her like a battering ram. In the shins.

And she's jumping all over the place, bouncing off the walls, firing that short fireball which is apparently now not short (bloody HD Remix...). And she's hurting me.

But I'm still sweeping the leg. And when she's too high for that, I'm doing hurricane kicks. I'm fast, relentless. And she doesn't know what's going on. I caught her by surprise.

As she yelps and bounces and hits the deck, I just keep hitting. Sweep, fireball, jumpkick, sweep, sweep... over and over in every combination, humiliating her like the skinny, slack-jawed Italian boy she is.

And then... just after she kicks my head three times fast...

A fireball. A peoper one. None of your lean-forward, bum-backwards, half-range fireballs. A hadouuuuken!

For once... I don't recognise the scream.

YOU! WIN!

Ryu: You did quite well, but you need more training to defeat me.

Yeeeeah!!!! Holy.... fuck... yes!! Yeah, you need more training, buddy! You need to lose eight times in a row, matey! That's the only kind of training that can really prepare you for this nightmare! You need to fully understand defeat, through sheer repetition, before you can inflict it upon your opponents. You go and train, loser. You don't belong here in the big leagues!

I guess I'm finally getting good at this! My hands are shaking a little, and I'm grinning ear-to-ear.

1 wins, 8 losses. Ha-HA-ha-ha!

Next match! Bring it on!

BRAZIIIIIIL!

And I'm fighting Balrog, the Mike-Tyson-looking boxer. He tends to stay on the floor. Too slow and heavy to jump. Ha! He is so going down. He has 0 wins, 0 losses. Pfft. Rookie.

Okay, Iron Mike, let's dance.

Three short rounds later...

YOU! LOSE!

Balrog: My fists still have your blood on them!



Yeah, I bet they do. It's because I don't have any rhythm. I'll go back to Pong.