A Visit To The Mecca

Hello All!

It's been a little while since I updated the blog. Street Fighter is a game that requires some space in between blogs for me to hash out what I'm thinking about and to see improvement in my own playing.

So I recently had to go on a work trip to El Centro, California. There isn't much in El Centro. It's painfully hot during summer months, and frigid at night. We can attribute this to the fact that it's in the middle of a barren desert near the California/Mexico border. El Centro is far from anything fun to do other than a couple of casinos on American indian reservations (which by the way I won $1000 dollars at) and Tiajuana, home of the 'Donkey Show'. As hard as it was to avoid the Donkey Show, I somehow managed to rise above and not let proximity be a factor in having fun. Sure, El Centro is boring, but if you're not afraid of travel, and sleeping at a rest stop before you have to get back to work the next morning you can rent a car and make the four hour pilgrimage to Los Angeles.

Now, I'm new to the Street Fighter series, but since before the console version was released I have been watching youtube videos of Street Fighter 4 recorded at a place called 'Arcade Infinity'. For me, this was my first exposure to high level Street Fighter play. I hadn't yet seen any Japanese vids, any old 3s vids, or SF2 vids... nothing but Street Fighter 4. I also knew that this was one of the handful of places in America that had the arcade version. Like many living in the midwest, south, north, or southern Atlantic seaboard I began to long for the opportunity to have an arcade with SF4 near to hone my skills in. The Arcade Infinity ranbats had entertaining commmentary, and amazing skill. I loved watching Ed Ma use Ken, Valle use Dictator, Gootecks use Rog. I was hooked even before I'd touched any iteration of the SF series. So to a fanboy like myself the off chance to go to California for the first time ever and play at this arcade was very exciting for me.

The drive to Rowland Heights was scenic and LA traffic is indeed all it's cracked up to be. After making a couple of pit stops to eat, and have a couple of drinks in San Diego, I arrived with my friend, Terry, to the Arcade. A.I. is nestled in the top corner of a double story strip mall that you would swear was broken down in Tokyo and reassembled in California. Nothing is in English on any of the well-lit signs, it really takes you somewhere else and I instantly fell in love with it. Being a fan of Andrew Zimmern (Bizarre Foods), I ate a dinner of stinky tofu, pigs ears, and some kind of pig intestine concoction, I choked down half of it and made my way up the flight of stairs to the arcade. Bear in mind, I have not been in a REAL arcade since 1990 and back then it was all about 'Bad Dudes' and 'The Simpsons', so I had no idea what to expect. Once inside it was very dark, very loud, and very awesome. It was packed full of skill based specialized import games from Japan. Guitar Freaks, an insanely fast version of Guitar Hero seemed to be all the rage as well as some crazy game where you flail your arms widly underneath a miasma of sensors to a pattern similiar to DDR. I found the SF4 machines in the middle of the place, a huge HD screen duo, and a two smaller more traditional cabs catty corner. All surrounded by 10-15 people who were spectating and waiting to play. I remembered from a Gootecks podcast that I needed to put my quarter down on the machine if I wanted to play. I was actually nervous because there were quite a few people watching, I seemed to be the oldest person there (which is becoming the norm at SF events for me), and the people that were fighting as I was spectating looked very good. When it was my turn to step up I went up against an Abel who had a 5 win streak going, much to my own surprise I won! I think I surprised some of the people there because I could hear cheers and awe behind me when I pulled out a couple of my BnB combos for the win. The next guy on the machine sat down, turned to me, extended his hand for a high five and said "See, us white people can play this game too!". He picked Rog and beat me down pretty hard the first round, but in the second round I rushed him down, dizzied him and won, the third round he missed his ultra and I hit him with mine for the win! I couldn't believe that I won my first two fights at Arcade Infinity. I was on cloud nine... but the winning would stop there. I guess the good players were having a smoke break because I didn't win another fight in the next three hours, but I've never had more fun losing.

The following weekend I drove to Denjin Arcade in Simi Valley, Ca. I watched SBO quals this year, and it was surreal to sit down at the same machine that I saw Combofiend playing on when he won his trip to Japan. This place is jaw dropping. It's about an hour north of LA proper, but it really is worth the drive. If you are into fighting games even a little bit, this is the place to be. There are countless cabs with SF4, CvS2, Xmen Vs. SF, SF2, SF3 3S, KoF, and all of the crazy dance, guitar games are in their own small room away from the fighting games. The day that I went to Denjin there was a ranbat going on. It was to be live streamed over the internet. What luck right!? I got to be in LA, and off of work the day that this was going on. Sure, I knew that I was going to go two and out in this tournament, but I couldn't pass on the opportunity to embarrass myself in front of the world. I payed my five dollars to register and was informed that I would be fighting first. I sat down at the cab, a webcam pointed at my head, two guys on microphones next to me calling the play by play, and I couldn't help but think that somewhere some guy new to the game was watching and wishing he was in my shoes. I had no idea who I was fighting, but I was taken apart easily in four straight rounds by a C.Viper. I've never really fought a good C.Viper, so it was a learning experience to say the least. Come to find out the person I played was a well known SoCal Abel player by the name of Bustabust. I had, of course, seen him on countless streams and was just happy to get the opportunity to get my ass kicked by him. I knew that in my first fight I would be up against someone of note as the good players generally aren't put up against the other name players in the early rounds. In my second fight I fought an Abel. I don't know who he was, but I recognized him from some video where gootecks walked around talking to people at Denjin Arcade. When I sat down this time I was on the machine without the live stream. I had a deep sense of not wanting to go out without winning a round. I was a little more relaxed and really had nothing to lose. I had just had a blast playing KoF with Terry who had never touched a fighting game before in his life, I was also getting used to having 20 people behind me watching me play. I won two out of three in two straight matches, thus taking my first match in the losers bracket. I couldn't beleive it! I actually won a match at the mecca against an Abel player who could execute and definitely knew what he was doing. He hit me with a couple of really good block strings, but I had the discipline to wait it out and hit on my opportunites. Sure, I mashed a couple of times and interrupted his rekkas with EX dragon punches, but hey, a win is a win right? In my third match I lost to another Ryu player who just out-classed me. From there I went to a couple of bars...saw Rod Piazza (if you like blues you'll know this guy), and went to the Dresden Room (from the movie swingers) and had a couple of rum and cokes. It was 11:30 pm and I said to Terry that I kind of wanted to go back down to Arcade Infinity for one last run at it. Terry was totally cool with the idea and drove the hour back south to A.I. When I got upstairs I noticed a bunch of people from the tournament. I got on the machine, and was up against the Ryu player that had knocked me out earlier. I gave it five or so tries, but he beat me all five times. Each fight was better, but in the end someone put a token down and I had to give up my seat. This rufus player ended up scraping the Ryu that had beaten me at the tournament. I sat back down at the machine and fought the Rufus. He was very good, excellent execution and mixup... I fought him five times, each time analyzing and improving. Finally I had what I think was the greatest fight of my short SF career. I did everything right! He pressured me, I remained disciplined and blocked, I anti-aired where I needed to, I hit my combos, and mixed up my game...and I'll be damned if I didn't beat the guy in two straight rounds! I still get excited thinking about this breakthrough that I had. This was my first time really adjusting to and beating a highly skilled player without really making any major mistakes in the process. I'll never forget it. The guy got up and walked out of the arcade without even looking at me, and I went down to some Taiwanese bar and played a drinking game with some waitresses until last call.

I have to say to anyone that has played the game for a while, but hasn't had the chance to play it in an arcade setting...it's something you just have to do. I see the game in a different light now for some reason. I'm playing better than I have ever played, I'm not getting angry or dejected on loss anymore, and I'm calmly analyzing loss and trying to learn from it. There is something about throwing your token in and having 20 people watching you (not to mention 1000 people on live internet stream) that just makes you want to do your very best no matter how much of a beating you are taking or might have taken the 15 times prior. There is also something about getting up from the machine once you have lost and watching the person that beat you fight that is calming and not anger inducing like online play can be. I think playing without all of the emotion I've had in the time since I've started is starting up happen a little bit for me and it's been great. I feel myself improving and I'm starting to see some of the things that I need to work on. If you live anywhere near a real arcade be it Denjin, A.I., or Chinatown Fair... do yourself a favor and get there. Win or lose, you will have a good time.