I Am Street Fighter

I was invited to play an Arabic card game last night. I passed and sat on the couch and watched a documentary on Street Fighter II. It was pretty cool.

Actually, it was about the Street Fighter series in general, but focused on II since that was THE significant title.

If you have fond memories of playing SFII as a 10 or 11 year old, then this doc is for you. If you didn't grow up with your eyes glued to tv screen as you spent hours perfecting your combos then skip it. This is nostalgia. That's all.

It's kinda cool because it shows you how much of a freakin impact SFII had on the gaming community. It changed everything. Most of the interviews are with people in their 30's who grew up on the game in the arcade. They're looking back and telling some crazy stories. It's neat. It transcends gaming and draws parallels to any other sub-culture that revolves around a shared interest like music film, games, comics, whatever. Die-hards, man.

Now I get subscriptions to heavy metal magazines, motorcycle mags and fashion mags. But as a youth those fashion mags were replaced with gaming mags, man. I used to read up on the latest cheat codes, walk-throughs, tips, tricks, gossip and industry rumors. I remember seeing SFII for the first time, amazed at how life-like I perceived those sprites to be. They looked like they were actually breathing! It was next level shit. SFII was a whole universe unto itself. It ruled.

This isn't the greatest doc ever. But if you played SFII and want a 72 minute trip to a time when nothing else mattered other than getting the newest SNES game or the latest and greatest LEGO...then check it out.

Ken was my main character, btw. Probably followed by Guile. I thought Ken's helicopter kick, dragon punch and fireball were the best, man. But Guile's sonic boom was pretty sweet, too. I dabbled with Chun-Li cuz I liked her downward kick when she jumped over people. And E.Honda's crazy fist of fury thing was pretty sweet. It was awesome when you landed Zangief's spinning pile-driver! But Ken...he was the most well-rounded. And he was clearly a little more bad-ass than Ryu. He was my boy.

Yeah. Those were the days.