Learning to Fight

I am climbing the viciously steep wall between my abysmal execution skills and actually getting to play Street Fighter IV.

Most games I play are very easy - in particular rpgs, where skilled or knowledgeable play actively makes the game easier by giving you a more powerful playing piece. Other games have poor incentives to do things the hard way, and I've never found making my own arbitrary challenges compelling. I don't really PVP.

Hence, my skills are flabby.

SFIV is a compelling case for trying to fix that - the learning curve starts out fairly brutal, but it's long - all that improvement goes somewhere, it has utility. It's a very pure form of PVP with a huge and vibrant community. Their jargon has the seductive note of depth, their champions are awe-inspiring (Daigo "The Beast" Umehara's epic parry comeback belongs amongst the great competitive sporting moments). Becoming mediocre at this game is a worthy goal, and has a lot of gaming cultural currency :)

So while I wait for my Hori stick to arrive, dreaming of playing Rose or Sakura with finesse online, I throw Ryu's fireballs at the lowest breed of AIs, hoping to hit seven in ten. And when I fire up a PSP or DS game, I reach for the hardest difficulty, hoping to shed a little flab.