Eric C. Baur GuestSpotter

Now Playing: Against Other Human Beings for a Change

Here Comes a New Challenger!

Let me start out by saying that I'm an old-school gamer. I'm fortunate enough to have been around for every generation of video game. I've twisted the dials on a Pong machine. I was there for the rise (and subsequent fall) of arcades. I sat on a very uncomfortable bench inside Wal-Mart for 10 hours to ensure that I'd get a PlayStation 2 on launch day. Simply put, I love video games and everything that they entail. However, lately something has been missing.

For the longest time, I couldn't figure out what it was. I own all of the major systems and pretty much every game I've ever wanted. It wasn't a lack of games nor was it a lack of new games. Whenever a new game is in development, I'll track its progress until release. If I'm still interested after the reviews come out, I'll go buy it. Strangely though, even if the game is superb, I almost always still feel let down. The thrill of the hunt is somehow more fun than the kill. This was not the gaming experience of my youth. Back then, even if the game was a real stinker you would still play it to death and have a special place for it in your heart because games were not as easy to come by when your allowance was only $5 a week.

I began to question my allegiance to video games. Maybe I was getting too old for them. I am 27, and most of my friends are into other leisure activities such as golf and fixing up their homes and cars. Perhaps I had saturated myself with too many games. At least once a month, my wife will give me a hard time and say, "I don't think you have enough games. Do you think we could hook up a 9th system to this television?" What happened is that although I still actively followed gaming and purchased new games regularly, I rarely played the games. This went on for several months. I had even pondered selling parts of my collection on eBay. I was at a gaming crossroads, and I had no idea which way to go. In fact, it took an act of God to get me back on the right path.

The first few mixes were fun...now it's just overkill.

That act of God came in the form of a severe thunderstorm that trapped me inside our local mall. I was shopping for my wife's birthday when the storm hit, and it was so bad that mall security was at the doors suggesting that nobody leave the building. I was finished shopping so I decided to make my way to the arcade. Going to the arcade today is a bittersweet experience for me. I remember the glory days of the late '80s and early '90s when arcades were packed with rows and rows of the latest machines, and no machine cost more than 50 cents to play. Today it's a different story. Arcades are now filled almost exclusively with the largest, most expensive, and dullest games known to man. On top of that, the games usually look and play worse than the home version--or, they just are the home version. Still, I had a few extra bucks in my pocket and nowhere else to go.

I went into the arcade and was greeted with the obligatory DDR machine belting out the latest remix of "Butterfly". After that was the endless line of boring redemption games that I'm not sure even small children would enjoy. Around the corner was a worn-out Blitz 2000 machine and a broken Gauntlet Legends machine. Yawn. Wait a minute, here's something new...Need for Speed: Global Challenge. Boo-yeah! I love the Need for Speed series. This has to be great! I sat down and put in my tokens. What a rip-off! It was an exact port of Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit II, a game that I've been playing at home for almost two years. Already knowing the track like the back of my hand, I easily came in first place. Then I was greeted with a "Game Over" screen. "But I came in first!!!" I said out loud. The game didn't care. In the good old days, you got to keep driving until you lost. I was livid. That simple "Game Over" had reaffirmed my disdain for today's arcade scene and put me in a foul mood. I decided to spend the rest of my money on the classics. I played a few rounds of Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man, and a game of pinball. Then I made my way to the fighting games. I was really in the mood for some old-school 2D action, but all I saw was 3D. Soul Calibur II, No. Virtua Fighter 4, No. Tekken 4, No. Then I saw what I was looking for--that tried-and-true six-button layout that my hands practically melt into. It was Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I had only played it once or twice before, but I knew my wealth of Street Fighter knowledge would be enough to get me by.

I put my money in and made my way to the character selection screen. It took me a while to find them, but I picked my two ringers: Ken and Ryu. I chose Wolverine as my third. The match started up, and I immediately started in on the computer. As I suspected, all the moves and combos from previous iterations of Street Fighter-based games had come over pretty much intact. However, I was thrown for a huge loop when I hit the fierce kick/punch buttons and my guys started tagging in and out. When I discovered that there were no longer three punch/kick buttons, it was yet another nail in the arcade scene coffin. A Capcom fighter that uses only four attack buttons? Blasphemy. Still, I adapted quickly and was defeating most of what the computer threw at me. Then it happened.

Who loves ya, baby?

"HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!" flashed on the screen. I looked over and a little girl had joined in. I'm terrible at estimating ages, but I'd place her somewhere around 13. She had a sucker in her mouth and didn't say anything as she picked an all-female team of Sakura, Chun-Li, and Cammy. I laughed to myself thinking, "Girl Power!" The match started, and because of her age, I decided to play nice and give her a break. Instead of jumping in with my usual combo, I jumped back just to see what she would do. She didn't do too much. She threw a few fireballs and jumped at me with various kicks. She tried a few simple tag combos that I easily blocked. After a minute I got serious again. I jumped in with one of my more reliable combos. She blocked it. I picked at her for a minute and then went at her with a more technical combo. Blocked again. She threw a few more fireballs and jumped around a little. I was becoming annoyed. I saw an opening and jumped in with my most devastating combo, ending it with a super. She blocked every bit of it. I was dumbfounded.

My heart was racing. I had butterflies in my stomach. I realized that losing was actually a possibility. These are things that never happen when I play against the computer. To paraphrase Matt Damon from the movie Rounders, "I sat down at that game, and I felt alive." I found what had been missing from my gaming life: human competition. As I mentioned earlier, I'm pretty much a lone wolf when it comes to gaming. Since the late '90s, I've been playing games mostly by myself. I have learned to quickly and easily pick apart computer AI. But playing against someone else is a different matter. Humans are 100 percent unpredictable. And this match was proving just that.

I looked over at the little girl for a moment, and she looked at me. Then she made her move. She had been toying with me. She came at me with everything she had. She was pulling off double-digit combos, super cancels, super tag combos, and more with the greatest of ease. I simply wasn't ready for it. Still, I wasn't going to give up without a vicious fight. This was my arcade. I was the veteran here. I went at her with combo after combo, some successful, some not. She did the same. I took out one of her guys, and she did the same to me. Finally, we were both down to our last character. I had Ryu and she had Cammy. I was ready to rumble because Ryu is my best fighter. I jumped in with a kick and followed it up with a dragon punch. I landed them both. I had her on the ropes. I faked a jump-in punch and then threw Ryu's super fireball. She blocked it completely and immediately unleashed some ungodly 18-hit super KO combo that put my butt neatly into a little doggy bag.

I was stunned. I had been owned by a 13-year-old girl. Still, it was one of the most memorable matches in the literal thousands of matches I've played in my lifetime. I had to show my respect. I turned to her and said, "Great match!" She took the sucker out of her mouth (for the first time) and gave me a little smirk. I turned around and walked out of the arcade smiling. Looking back, that whole match is funny for two reasons. One, because I used to be the 13-year-old who would school all of the older players at Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, and two, because that girl never took the sucker out of her mouth the entire time we played. It was like playing a game against Kojak.

Still, I left the arcade exuberant and rejuvenated with gaming joy. I knew what had been lacking in my gaming life. This was reaffirmed a few nights later when I visited a friend who is as into gaming as I. We played four-player Tetris Worlds on Xbox Live for about an hour. I came in last place in every single match and had the time of my life doing it. It didn't matter that I lost. I was having a great time playing with other people who were as good as, if not better than, me. It's funny. Before that fateful match, I was quite smug about my video game knowledge and thought I knew everything. It took a butt-kicking from a 13-year-old girl to remind me that gaming isn't just about the games, but also about the people you play them with.