So a buddy of mine comes over to my house the other night. We catch up on his life (his job/wife/life sucks) and I fill him in on mine (I’m doing quite well actually) and I proceed to tell him about two new games. I first show him Bulletstorm since he’s a big fan of the Halo/Call of Duty franchise. I demonstrate an Echo and one level (act 6 level 1 I believe it was) where I did my best to explain the appeal of the game. He seemed vaguely interested but didn’t really want to play (could have been for self-conscious reasons. *shrug*). So I pull out Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and explain to him how it’s done by the same guys who have done the Street Fighter series. About this time my girlfriend gets home, so I drop the controller in his hands, point him at the “Arcade” mode and wish him the best of luck while I go greet her and talk to her for a few minutes.
I come back about 10 minutes later, he’s at the last boss, and he’s whipping him severely. And then I notice something… he’s not using any special moves, combos, or even super attacks. Yet he’s destroying the boss like it’s his job. Come to find out he set the difficulty to “Very Easy”. So I pick up the player 2 controller and offer to give him a real challenge.
Now I’ve had the game since the midnight launch, and I have a history of fighting games under my belt. I’m no scrub. I know I can beat him in this game (hubris at its finest). However, I absolutely HATE playing against someone in a game who’s way better than me and getting stomped repeatedly. Nothing kills the fun in a game faster for me.
So we start going at it, and I hold back a little bit to make the matches close. I win a few, he wins a few. I mostly hit the select random character button to give myself some experience with other characters while at the same time, encouraging him to use special attacks and moves. Gradually he starts becoming better and better. I have to start planning move moves more carefully, and often he would surprise me with an out-of-nowhere hyper-combo. So I have to start stepping up my game a little…
then a little more…
then all of a sudden I’ve got a real fight on my hands. I eventually abandon the random characters and go to the fighters I’ve actually trained with (Cap, X-23, Hulk). And then it happens.
The cheapest dog alive!
He selects that blasted Okami dog, Amaterasu….
Now at first glance, the character doesn’t look all that imposing. Sure it’s a wolf (and wolves are bad ass) and it has fire coming out of it (which only adds, exponentially, to the coolness factor), but… I mean… I’m a big green gamma radiated enhanced mutant who can freaking rip up the ground you walk on and beat you over the head with it! Really not that worried.
Until we got the fight going, and all of a sudden I’m in the corner getting wailed on by this freaking dog and I can’t move! I can’t even get off a combo! He’s just low kicking me into oblivion! Now I know there is this in-game ability called “Advancing Guard” that was designed for just such instances, but I’m getting my ass handed to me and I’m really not thinking clearly. And he does this over… and over… and over. And I lose… again… and again… and again.
Is what he was doing a legitimate strategy? Absolutely! Was it effective? Incredibly! Was it pissing me off? You best believe! But then I stopped and asked myself…
Why is this pissing me off?
Was it because he was being cheap? No. What he was doing what was effective, with in the structure of the game, and easy to do. Was it because I was losing? No. I have lost many more games than I’ve won to a wide range of opponents of varying degrees of skill. No, the answer was much simpler.
I felt cheated.
Now be aware, I didn’t say my buddy was cheating. I said “I felt cheated.” Here I was with quite a few hours of this game under my belt, and he comes in with less than an hour and makes me look like a brain damaged monkey holding a controller. My initial reaction was to blame the game, but then I realized it wasn’t the games fault. Sure it allows for such things, but it does offer ways to counter such attacks. I simply hadn’t bothered to learn them. If I had recalled the “Advancing Guard” ability, or learned my character’s move sets better, I would have been able to counter this “cheap” ability and it wouldn’t have cost me five matches in a row.
This incident reminded me that it’s not always the fault of the game or its structure. Sometimes it’s my own lack of understanding of the games mechanics and structure that cause me to fail. While this isn’t always true, as there are some games that’s mechanics are just plain broken, more often than not a game worth its salt has been tested and played enough by the developer to be solid and hopefully fun at the same time. A games mechanics can feel cheap, from Mario’s Lakitu (You bomb dropping bastard!) to Marvel vs. Capcom 3’s Amaterasu, and beyond. I would encourage you, the next time you think something is “cheap” or “cheating”, to ask yourself if it isn’t your own lack of understanding that is causing those thoughts…
Or you could just start doing the same things right back. ;)
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