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Virtua Fighter (Series)
Sony, PS2, PS3 (2002, 2007)
Fighting for virtually nothing
Learning a martial art is a
worthwhile endeavour, even
if you do have to spend
years getting smacked in the nose
by a mentalist instructor because
you once back-fisted a girl in the
tits. Martial arts are worthwhile
because, ultimately, they make
you healthier and more capable
of defending yourself (or more
capable of hospitalising someone
trying to defend themselves). But
imagine a martial art that asked
you to dedicate months and years
of your life to perfecting, yet made
you physically weaker, mentally
deranged and socially maladjusted.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you
Virtua Fighter.
Before you decide to play Virtua
Fighter, please think it through, as
not only do you have to dedicate
mountains of your time to it in
order to be any good, but it’s also
necessary for you to befriend
another unemployed person
with the time and inclination to
do the same. Otherwise, once
you, eventually, crawl out of your
bedroom, after three years fighting
against training bots, you’ll realise
that nobody else gives a shit that
you know all of Jeffry McWild’s
throws – they probably just
thought that you had died – and
worst of all no one will ever play
against you because they will never
be able to win.
Virtua Fighter just makes too
many demands. There are 1,000
milliseconds in every second, and
it wants you to pinpoint the exact
one in order to get the timing
right on each counter. And after
you’ve spent days perfecting a
move, all you get in return is some
rubbish shin kick. Where are the
flashing lights, fireballs and bouncy
breasts? If you’ve invested such
a considerable amount of time
learning this move then you’ll want
something more exciting than a
pathetic shin kick, that’s for sure.
But the worst thing is, when
you’ve finally memorised the time
delay of every single recovery
and stance transition, another
‘brand-new’ iteration in the series
comes out and Kage-Maru’s
elbow animation has completely
changed, or one of his knees is
a few milliseconds slower than it
was before, completely screwing
up all the hard work and time that
you’ve put in. At least if you get into
a proper fight you can just go nuts
and pick up a rock. But in Virtua
Fighter you have to actually learn
stuff, and learning is the one thing
that videogames should never,
ever, make you do.
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