Back in the early nineties, versus fighters the likes of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were all the rage in arcades. Capcom, who had only fairly recently landed an undisputed smash hit with Street Fighter II, had a tight grasp on the market and both SNK and Midway were following in its wake with a fair few succesful releases.

And then... there was Sammy. This indie Japanese developer - which later merged with Sega - saw it as its task to produce the next big thing on the fighting game market. Or they quite possibly just saw Mortal Kombat and wanted to rip it off completely.

Survival Arts was quite erm... "different" from anything anyone had ever played. Its gore factor ensured it was a major crowd pleaser back in those days, which is difficult to comprehend for audiences spoilt rotten by 20 years of sweet Mortal Kombat lovin'.

The plot summary, in lovely Chinglish as always, is as follows:

"The birthplace and how the series of physical martial arts with a great deal of force called "Survival Arts" were earned became mysterious for quite of some time. However, eight warriors spreading over different countries have learned some of the most important skills of Survival Arts, while they continue learning more about it. Each one qualified for the Survival Arts tournament to see which survivor will win and obtain all the secrets of Survival Arts."

What you probably won't be able to make up from this without actually playing the game, is that everyone is basically fighting each other to avoid having their souls eaten by an evil man in a cape that looks like Richard Simmons' and Brian May's bastard lovechild.

So yes, the plot isn't going to win any awards, but however lame it is, it does seem somewhat "inspired" by that of many a Mortal Kombat title. True as that may be, the gameplay is mostly based on the fighting system of "special move focused" fighters such as Street Fighter II. That, and you definitely can't accuse the good people at Sammy to not having been creative with their character designs. A lot of the fighters in this game seem to have been the product of a horrible acid flashback and programmed into the game immediately after the crystal meth really started to do its nasty business.

Surprisingly though, despite all its obvious flaws, Survival Arts is actually quite playable. Controls are amazingly responsive and animations are fluid. I recommend giving this a try to anyone who's into their cheesy fighters.

Street Fighter: a review

Street Fighter, hmm, isn’t it? Hm? Small hadokens in the park, shoryukens for goalposts? Yes, we all know it’s arguably still the most popular fighting game franchise in the world, what with all the updates to updates to remixes and two of the most horrid film spinoffs known to man. The problem is everyone seems to forget it didn’t all begin with the glory that is Street Fighter II. Basic logic deduction tells us that if there was a sequel, there had to have been an original. Strangely, only a select few fans of the series seems to have actually sat down and played the first one, so a “nice” reviewer would probably say it’s faded away into obscurity and has been forgotten throughout the course of history. A realistic reviewer, however, would say it has been wiped from collective memory because it’s a load of old shite.

Part one in the series introduces a few characters that would prove to be a mainstay in later installments. Ryu and Ken are obviously there, but let’s not forget about big British bouncer Birdie (I can alliterate nay further Cap’n!), Gen, Adon and Sagat. A long time ago, back when fighting games didn’t have need for a complicated storyline, Ryu – looking suspiciously like a spotty ginger teen from such cinematographic masterpieces like Porky’s - went to face some people with the sole objective of handing their backside such a booting their grandchildren wouldn’t be able to sit down from it. That’s it, just straight into the hoo-hah, no fussing about with silly things like storylines.

So far, so good you might assume. Sadly, the part where Street Fighter really takes a hairpin turn for the worse is the gameplay. You can perform punches or kicks in their light, medium and heavy variety and Ryu also has the hadoken, shoryuken and tatsumaki (affectionately known as “the wheel kick thingy”) at his disposal. However, actually coaxing the special moves to come out of near-permanent hiding is another issue entirely. Having no problem spamming the living hell out of ye olde dragon punch in any game since part 2? Well, prepare for some masochistic enjoyment if you ever decide to lay your hands on its predecessor.

Indeed, you’ll be hammering the light punch button profusely to make any sort of special move come out in this game. As they do disgustingly huge amounts of damage, it’s no surprise actually pulling off a special move in the original Street Fighter was the 1989 equivalent of landing a sick combo in Mortal Kombat 3 and finishing off your opponent with a Fatality. The inputs are so ridiculously precise you’ll have more luck getting in Gemma Atkinson’s pants and finding a winning lottery ticket in there than actually being able to do these on a consistent basis.

The overall silliness continues at the end of every match, where the opponent either taunts you or concedes defeat in the most convoluted sound quality ever to violently have its way with your eardrums. Chinglish meets alien meets Borat would arguably be the most fitting description for it, and “downing a shot when anyone laughs out loud” is a luminous idea for a drinking game (albeit more and more intensive as alcohol consumption goes on) when playing this game with a few mates in attendance.

Now, how to judge this game. Is it shit? Yes. Should it have been made in the first place? Well yes. In despite of every naughty four letter word I can utter about it in my motivated ranting and raving, we are still dearly indebted to it. Without it, the greatest fighting game franchise of all time would’ve never seen the light of day. This confused reviewer might not be able to understand why this game was fairly successful in the first place, but he sure is well chuffed it was.

“Yoo have a lawt to learn befo' yoo beat mee. Twy again keed!”

A warm welcome to new readers

Hello and whatnot.

Thursday June 10th, 2010 marks a historic day indeed, as I create a blog because I'm bored and should - in fact - be writing a paper. No matter, I'll try and keep my new brainchild fat and happy with regular updates such as reviews, columns about gaming in general and the occasional picture of my collection.

I hope you'll enjoy reading my entries as much as I'll enjoy not studying while typing them up.

Merry Kwanzaa!