Author Archive for Christine Adviento

Biggest Game Impact on Me Is..

Having been out of commission for the last couple days with some family issues to take care, I can come out and say I’m feeling a bit better enough to post at least one article.  So here I am.

I don’t just have ONE BIG GAME IMPACT.  Coming from a kid who grew up playing Ms. Pac Man, Mr. Do, and Circus Charlie, I can say many games have made an impact on my gaming career, you could say.

Let’s go back a few years to when Frogger, Donkey Kong, and Elevator Action stood on the floors of our local arcades.  Pole Position was one of the first racing-related games I can remember playing. 

During this time frame when those games where pretty popular, one game stood out for me: Tron.  It was visually appealing and the game kept you interested.   It wasn’t a boring game at all.  It is based on the Disney movie with the same title.

Another few games that had a huge impact on me was Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat II.  Where else could you talk your smack and battle it out at the same time.  Sometimes even some of you guys would battle it outside of the arcade after the game was done because you were just that darn angry.

Hmmm…  Oh!  And that little game we can barely remember: Killer Instinct.  With its oh-so-multi-talented multi-mega combos and combo breakers, this game left kids on the floor either tired to death because they lost a losing battle (but tried their hardest — you know who you are), out of breath because they did a combo breaker on you, or they left you angry because all of the above happened plus a whole bunch of smack talking.

I think the reason these games had such a huge impact on me is because I not only played and learned off my friends who were also regular players, I was able to meet people from around the area from other arcades who were friendly enough to want to battle and to take on challenges.

I know that video games, especially nowadays with the consoles, it provides us with a much bigger opportunity to spread our gaming skills, to battle others with whom we many never ever get a chance to, and even still, be able to make friends along the way.

Gaming for the most part I think promotes some creative thinking, the ability to make friends, frenemies, and enemies AND still be able to game hard, and it provides the necessary tools to analyze situations.  A lot of smart and intelligent people play games, don’t forget.

If I have left anything out, please feel free to add on.

Ode to the Arcade

Remember the days of spending your nights and weekends and maybe even your days at the arcade?

Remember practicing and trying to get better at your favorite video game so that the next time some punk tries to battle you, you can beat him to a pulp on the game?

Most of us can remember spending much of our time at the arcades playing games and hanging out with our friends. Meeting up at the arcades only to leave one arcade to go to the next.

Arcades are few and far between. Most of the arcades are at tourist spots, like Pier 39 in San Francisco, CA or Las Vegas, Nevada located in many of the grand hotels that line the strip. Everything from old school Dig Dug games to Guitar Hero they have it at the arcades.

But what happened to our local arcades? They’re gone; dead in the cemetary to rest. Consoles came about and change the whole gaming dynamics. We now game online in the privacy of our own home. We can talk all the crap we want without having to really see anyone or punch anyone (not unless you guys are really friends then that is just a different story).

With Xbox360 Live and PSN, and the ability to play online with Nintendo’s Wii, we now have an arcade at our fingertips without really leaving the house (not unless you’re going to your buddy’s house to go play).

I’m sure there are still some people that miss the whole feel of the arcade and some that don’t miss it at all.

Just remember, the next time you see an arcade, think of how gaming use to be and how the arcades and consoles changed the gaming world.

Happy Gaming!

Another Random Gamer Girl Rant: Game Stores

All the gamers know where they’re located.  All of you  know them as well as the maps we use on Final Fantasy or Zelda.

But is the shopping experience at these video game stores different between males and females.  That depends.

Maybe it’s just me and I have had a lot of really mean people talk crap while playing video games, but there are SOME stores that have employees that treat their customers differently.

Here’s a situation that happened not too long ago.

I called into this store trying to inquire about a game I was looking for.  (SOOOOO not going to tell you what the game was other than the fact it was a semi-old game).  That’s not the point here.  As I was saying, I called this store to inquire about their inventory and see if they had the game in stock.  Sales clerk checks his database, or so he says (I hear keyboard tapping).  He tells me it’s in stock and I can come pick it up whenever I had the chance.

Thinking to myself, “Thank goodness I called.”  WRONG!  SO WRONG!!!  I got to the store to try and pick up the game, and the game is not in stock!  I first checked the shelves, then I realized… the shelves are barely in alphabetical order.  So I ask up at the cash wrap to have them track down the game I was looking for.  NOTHING.  The guy at the cash wrap, who by the way, was not the guy I spoke with on the phone, told me the game I was looking for was not in stock and that I should check with another store.  This scenario has not only happened once but multiple times with 3 different stores around my area.  It has me thinking that the guys, and sometimes even the females that work there only dish out information to whom they deem ‘GAMER’.  Everyone else just falls into the ‘STUPID’ category.

I’m not one to seriously gripe not unless something really horrible goes on (like at PacSun and Forever21 –but we won’t go there), but this was just a minute issue compared to other situations I have been in.

Which brings me back to the concept.  Guys / males get far way better treatment at game stores than girls / females.  Parents?  Forget about it.  They’re dead meat!  Everything a parent or parents go looking for, the sales clerk has a plan for that.. counter sales!  So then the parents or parent ends up buying stuff they really don’t need.

Very few video game related stores have associates that will treat their customers equally.  And those very few stores I can appreciate.

Random Gamer Girl Rant: Does Gaming Stop?

Okay, supposedly there’s this time in your Life where the gaming just stops; or so I heard.  Or maybe it came out from some guy’s mouth.  Don’t remember, don’t care because it’s not true.

Sure, Life has its ups and downs and forces you to rethink situations at hand.   It doesn’t necessarily mean that the gaming goes away forever.  There’s a time to take care of things.

Being a mom, a Gamer Girl, a part-time worker seeking better working opportunities, my gaming doesn’t stop.

See, I have responsibilities to take care of just like most of you out there.  I have a family to take care of and a teenage daughter to graciously monitor when need be.  But there are those precious moments when you hear, “Let’s shoot.” “Let’s race!”  “Let’s Wii Sports!” (And that’s just coming out of the husband’s mouth).  Gaming at our house is not every moment of every day.  My husband goes to work and to school.  My daughter goes to school, comes home and does her homework and studies; hopefully you kids out there are doing the same so that you may one day be successful.  But when we have those moments where it’s empty times, what comes to mind?  It’s Video Game Time!  The husband plays his Madden and his shooter games, my daughter and I like our RPGs and our Mario Kart / Mario Party games, not to mention shooter games as well.

Gaming doesn’t stop if you’re a true gamer.  You may grow up and have responsibilities to take care of, but the gamer in you never goes away.

What does this all lead to?

See, all of us gamers here at the DualShockers Online Community, we all grew up during different time lines.  But nonetheless, we all got our start playing video games at an early age.  All we knew was Pong, or Frogger, or Galaga, or SFII,  the arcades, or maybe even the old school Atari console.  Whatever the case may be, most of us started out somewhere playing video games at an early age.

There are some older adults out there that strongly believe that at some point in time the video games have to go away; that it’s only for the little kids and the teenagers.  I really don’t believe this, nor do I care what these individuals believe in.

I was taught growing up to stand up for what I believe in and to hold strong values to my name.  (Respect and appreciation are in there too)!  I hold the gamer values strong to my beliefs, and I believe if you’re a true gamer gaming doesn’t stop forever; sometimes it just gets put on hold.  Usually it is beyond our control that this happens, but after the storm passes, gaming comes back and we all feel better.

Girl Gamer Part IV: Random Acts of Violent Gaming 2

It’s another installment of the Gamer Girl files.

So a bunch of friends and I decided to hop into one car and take a visit to Japantown in San Francisco, CA to go shopping.

After hours of walking around and checking out the shops we decided to go to Japantown Bowl to see what games they had.  Lo and behold, there it sat..  At the very entrance — what seemed like the entrance to the best place on Earth — sat a KI machine.  Swear we heard the angels singing.  Anyways.

We did our usual rounds of battling each other and tag teaming, and just practicing our moves.  (Swear it felt like wherever there was a KI machine and us around, trouble loomed).

Three guys dressed like, i guess you could say thugs, walked in and approached the KI machine.  They watched us battle each other, the heard us smack talk to each other.  Granted it was within our group and we don’t take smack talk to heavily between us all.

I guess these guys felt it was upon their authority to deal out some major whoopin on us and asked us if they could battle.  Of course, why would the boys turn down competition?  I being the only girl there, having been dressed up and all dolled up for once (skirt, blouse, nice light jacket), of course someting WAS going to happen.  It was bound to happen at some point.

So we all decided and agreed upon that in order for the battles to be fair we would tag team versus the other group.  And so we did.  Until it was my turn.

So yah, here I am dressed up (not in jeans, a t-shirt, and light hoodie).  A girl playing KI with a bunch of boys. 

Round 1 begins, and the guy turns to me and says, “Get ready to get your ass beat.”  Yah, okay.  My only decision was to watch how he played, his moves on screen and off (the button mashing or lack there of).  He wasn’t buttonmashing but nevertheless his game style was pretty cheesy for my taste.

Round 2 began and all I remember hearing was, “Sir, the round is starting. Get ready for a REAL man to lay a B* smack on your ass!”  I know he wasn’t talking to me.  At this point in time, everyone MADE me play the whole 2 rounds (3 if he had beaten me on the 2nd round).  So I am standing there, in a skirt, a nice blouse, and my jacket.  I kept thinking to myself for the next few seconds, “He did that on purpose.” 

At this point I really didn’t care about the game because this fart knocker called me Sir.  So I did what any girl, or any other gamer would do.  I turned to him told him to ‘F – Off’ because at this point I’m just fuming angry! 

He returns his attention to the screen as do I all while my friends are smack talking to him.  I throw a few combos as he does the same back to me, but as I am already agitated and angry with the comment he made, I decided to just beat him up with Fulgore.

Game ends, he’s mad, I’m angry, and everyone else is irate.  He turns to me after I beat him and says, “Sorry.”

SORRY!  Sorry’s not going to cut it.  So I then told him, “Thank you for the opportunity to beat you at KI in front of your friends AND the mass of strangers watching right now.” 

And my friends and I left to go to Pier 39 to go walk around, eat,  and shop.

Girl Gamer: Part III — Random Rants

We are a rare breed, us Gamer Girls.  You can’t really pick us out of a crowd even though you boys think you can.  It’s pretty difficult to do so.

WHY?

Because we don’t look like gamers.  We don’t always dress with fanboy / fangirl art or flash our Super Mario Princess Peach shirts around.  We may wear them occasionally but how do you know we just don’t wear the shirts because we like them and not because we game?  See! You really can’t tell us apart from any other girl.

But you’ll know exactly who we are when you see us; maybe at a local entertainment venue where there are video games, or you might see us at your homeboy’s pad multi-playing with a shooter game.  You just don’t know.

How do you treat us?

How do you treat your mom?  Do you pretend your playing GTA and bash her with a tailpipe?  Heck No!  That’s your momma! She gave birth to you!  You treat us Girl Gamers with respect, the way you would treat your momma.  Not unless we give you a reason to disrespect us then that is a different story.  (Sorry not handling out names this time)!!!

Not ALL the Girl Gamers are … um, …. Mean.  If you provoke us enough and you say stuff that would really make us angry, then that’s when stuff starts to happen.  And it gets worse if we’re with our friends.  (Again, totally different story if any particular Girl Gamer hangs out with ONLY girls.   Which in that case, I suggest she just runs…. runs like her Life depended on it; and her girls too)! 

Look, I know that the video game industry is male fueled world.  Give or take maybe, 90% of the work force are male.  That would leave about 10% for the female race.  And that right there, you’re not even guaranteed a gamer out of the 10%  (not unless they’re in the testing department — different story).  Us girls are just as likely to pick up anything you boys can do, and we can probably do it more efficiently if not better.

Us Girl Gamers are all different looking, different dressing, different everything.  We’re just really hard to find.

I can tell you from experience that once you find a Girl Gamer who can actually play alongside the guys, hang like the guys, and still keep your girly traits, most guys will respect you more.  But hey, that’s just my opinion and from my experiences.  Granted there are still some idiots out there who are still running on primative time, most guys like girls who can play games.

Where do you find us?

That I can’t really answer; we’re everywhere though, I can tell you that.  Just not at the arcades — they’re are barely any left.  We might be online on PSN or Xbox360 Live.

Killer Instinct: Random Acts of Violent Gaming

What was it about this game that everyone went so crazy about?  It was pretty much everything.  It’s many combo-hits to the rather cool looking characters (not to mention the guys mega-drooling over Orchid, the over-sized breast enhanced character).

After the slow usage of SFII was the whole Mortal Kombat series; then came Killer Instinct.  Something old with a new twist.

This game was everywhere thanks to the demand of it.  It seemed as if you could go to any arcade and there it was, in all it’s KI glory.

This was yet another game that I, a GIRL GAMER (GAMER GIRL) learned to play.  No, my mentor didn’t teach me.  It was pretty much learn on my own kinda deal.  But with a lot of male gamer friends, I learned quicker and managed to bring my own style to my gaming.

It wasn’t long before my friends and were hitting up all the arcades across town battling people.  It got to a point where we would be out NOT doing video game related things that we’d end up at an arcade or a bowling alley and them having the KI machine waiting for us.  Countless times I can remember other people battling us getting angry.  They would yell out ‘CHEATER’ or ‘CHEESE’ while we would battle.  No one cheated when it came to KI.  To my knowledge, everyone that I hung out with played fair.  It seemed that everyone we played against were the cheaters.

I guess it wouldn’t have mattered what game I played or learned to play because there would always be some  meathead in the background with their opinions about gaming.

Like this one time at a bowling alley in Daly City, CA.  My friends and I had every intention on going bowling but when we walked in that dang machine was sitting right in front of the door!  We couldn’t pass up the machine.  We figured one game and we would all share taking rounds.

It didn’t quite happen that way, nor did we even get a chance to go bowling.

See, where in some kind of KI territory or something.  We didn’t know it at the time but I guess we were.  As we were taking rounds, a guy no older and no younger than we were at the time, comes up and says, “Yo! Let me in.”  Yeah… we had no choice.  What were we going to do, say NO?

So this guy, we’ll name him ‘XFart.’  XFart sticks in his money to play and chooses his match.  That match is over as quickly as you can say HEY XFART LOST!  So he’s a bit angry that he lost.  He was pretty decent playing the game but he was definitely no match for my boys.  I on the other hand, had no way of winning over this guy.  From my viewpoint, his gameplay was CHEESE.  STINKY FATTY CHEESE.  I didn’t think this XFart guy was going to use all of us to battle him.  After cycling through the homeboys, I was the last one on the roster for him to battle.  I really didn’t want to.  This guy gave me the heebie jeebies for some reason.  And with good reason I should have called it quits.  But I was egged on to beat him — and I am pretty sure it had to do with everything about me being a girl and him losing to one.

In all my arcading gaming, I was never so fearful of playing a game.  There have been previous times before this that guys called me the ‘B’ word or the ‘C’ word but I never shook with fear.  Playing XFart, I was shaking.  My hands were shaking and I had the chills.

It was the 2nd round and I was using Orchid. (Yes, I learned to play Orchid, okay)?  As I was completing my final finishing combo, which by the way was a combo breaker, …. XFart slaps me on the side of the head and ALL HELL BREAKs loose.  My homeboys and his homeboys start exchanging fists and the mayhem continued outside.

See, apparently getting beat by a girl is no joke.  Some people take it so seriously that they’re willing to make sure it never happens again.  In my case, that didn’t happen.  But there are some really ruthless people out there gaming.

Girl Gamer Part II: Random Rants in No Particular Order

Did it ever come to mind that being a gamer is difficult enough?  But being a girl gamer in a male-dominated industry?  Even more difficult.

Having been raised on the whole ‘ARCADE’ and ‘CONSOLE’ generation, I’ve heard almost everything from, “You’re a girl! What are you doing playing video games?!” to “You’re such a B****!”

I’m telling you.  Having a good majority of guy friends that are gamers, they will back me up when I say that they’ve heard it too when I played video games at the arcade.  Other rude males who would talk crap to me while playing; could have been to psyche me out of my game but I highly doubt it.  It could have been because I was beating them and they didn’t want to lose to a girl.. Me.

But the did and it irritated them to lose to a girl.  Mind you, I may not have been the only female that would walk the floor of the arcades.  There are those girls I call LURKERS; they walk around behind their guy friends, their boyfriends, or they walk in with their girl friends;  do they play a game?  Not all the time.  Half the time they stand there, watch their boyfriend or their guy friend(s) play the game all while they stand there.  Or if they’re there with girl friends, they giggle, prance around, find some game they think they can play and find out soon enough that they don’t know what they’re doing, which I am sure they don’t care.

For me it was always about being different.  I loved the video games – I love the attention it gave you especially if you were good at one game.

I remember battle after battle, round after round of various fighting games and a puzzle game where I know I infuriated people and vice versa.  (More of me infuriating others)!

Being a gamer girl is much harder.  Guys can dish out the funk, talk crap to each other, and it won’t really be a big deal.  Or on the other hand, you get these certain Type-A personality guys who just keep running their mouths about how good they are, how they’ll beat you down like there’s no tomorrow, but can’t back it up with the action.  So they get angry… better yet angrier and it usually results in a fight of some sort.  Being a gamer girl, I’ve had the run of the mouth syndrome shot at me so many times I learned to turn it into dealing out a smackdown on the video game and not in real life.  (I’m a girl, I’m not willing to pound on someone because they’re running their mouths).

I don’t or rather, didn’t know too many girl gamers that would frequent the arcades.  There was this other girl who played SFII really good but she never entered the tournaments.  She would just play vs. her boyfriend and his friends.

There were random times where some guys didn’t know what the heck was going on because they would see me at a SFII game or a Killer Instinct machine playing.. and they would just stand there and watch me play.  Then all I would here is, “Can I jump in?”  YEAH SURE.  JUMP IN!  I have had some guys tell me to go easy on the them on the game.  Well what fun is that if I go easy on them, and they’re just buttonmashing?!?!?  NO FUN!  NO FUN!  So I just continued to play the way I normally did.  They would lose and I would win.  It didn’t do so much for my self esteem, but it felt pretty good to have my friends behind me supporting my every gamer move.

I know that being a girl gamer is difficult but I believe, in my experience, it opened new doors to other gaming opportunities and some really good friends.  I’m not saying that the arcade was a breeding ground for dating, but being around these guys for a heck of a long time, they grow on you.  And the next thing you know it feels like family.  So if there was ever trouble around me, which there was, I had people to back me up because of the fact there were males out there who were… let’s just say, ready to be physical and hit me.  And mind you that was just the half of it.  I had racial slurs thrown at me, I’ve had people threaten to beat me up after I would leave the arcade.  It got THAT bad.  And that was just  at the arcade.  Console gaming was getting rough to as certain guy friends had other guy friends who would run their mouths as well about what a “girl” should really be doing.

So don’t just think that being a gamer girl is easy.  There are other underlying issues that we, I know that I,  have had to and will continue to contend with.

Dance Dance Revolution

No this isn’t some random review of DDR or it’s latest song list (although I dig some of the music on there).

NO!  This is something way better than a DDR song list.

So, every year for the past maybe 10 years, my family and I take a trip to Reno, NV or LV, NV as a summer family vacation.  Oh the Arcade Games! Oh the ticket games!  OH LOOK! DDR!

Maybe there was a time a few years back where my knees could endure the wrath of the DDR arrows, now I’m not so sure.  Even with my well supported running shoes, I am still not sure; so much for self esteem, eh?

Hey! I can play on medium mode.  I can.  Even better that I can play on easy mode.  I didn’t stop playing because I was too embarrassed when I missed arrows or what not.  I stopped because of my knee and my knee surgery.

So back to the whole vacation thingy.  Having been around video games and arcades a lot, I notice little things.   Maybe being a girl and my always having to look around makes me notice things.  As such:

Why do people in other arcades out of the state of California do MOST DDR players play with slippers on?

Look, I know it’s summer time.  You want to be cool (cool as in not warm or hot but cool.  Not like .. Hey.. I”m cooler than you kinda cool).  I just don’t understand the concept.

See, to me that is just a some kind of accident waiting to happen.  I have gone to tournaments and seen footage online to know that even with sneakers you can slip and fall and crack your body into pieces.  WHY THE SLIPPERS?!?!?!?  I don’t get it.

I have played DDR countless times with sneakers.  I almost slipped twice — WITH SNEAKERS!  And here you have these crazy kids wearing beach slippers playing DDR on the most difficult level; and not even getting the arrows down correctly anyways.

A Girl Gamer? WTH?

Yes, we all know the drill. Look up! Look around! Yes there are girl gamers, they’re just hard to find. We are out there! We are a special breed. But there’s just one thing about me; I’m even more special.

See, I am a mother, a wife… a girl gamer. I grew up playing Frogger, Elevator Action, Pole Position? Who remember the likes of Dig Dug or Mr. Do? Am I showing my age yet? I can tell you I look like your average teenage girl. (I’ve been known to be mistaken for a high school student).

Us girl gamers come in all shapes, sizes, colors, races, ethnicities, heights. And we like different games. Some of us choose PC over Console. Some choose the Console over the PC. Some just choose the handhelds and the mobile games.

Me, I’m an equal opportunity gamer! Please don’t let me run down the list of the systems my family has at home; it’s quite an extensive list here at our house.

Back to the whole girl gamer issue.

Now, a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon some interested words online regarding Girl Gamers. It said something to the effect of ‘girls should just be putting on their make up, doing their hair, and painting their nails.’

I have a problem with that. While I’m sure we respect one’s opinion on the subject, I can still disagree with a passion. I think a Girl Gamer can still put her make up on, wear painted nails and put on a skirt AND still play games. I myself don’t wear make up other than lip gloss, eyeliner (sometimes), and nail polish and I still game. How a person SHOULD act or look has no effect on whether the person SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be a gamer.

We are all gamers by choice. You, me, him over there… YEAH YOU! IN THE CORNER! There are sexist, hypocritical, prejudice people out here who think on a one track mind. Fortunately for the rest of us, the World doesn’t run that way. We all think and feel for ourselves and make our own decisions.

We Girl Gamers get the grunt end of the stick because we’re girls. Because you guys think we can’t game like the rest of you. It’s really not true.

I can recally many a nights staying up till 3 or 4 am playing a few RPGs and telling myself, “you have work in the morning… go to bed.” Or those countless nights staying up and saying “one more level.. let me level up one more level…”

Look, all I’m saying is just try to have an open mind about the Girl Gamers out there. I know some people are just ‘wrong’ to think of such goofiness as such that we shouldn’t be gaming. But there are things in Life more important than BITCHING about how girls should stay home and cook, clean, wear make up, and go shopping; much more important things.

I don’t really care if i get a ton load of hate mail or hate comments on this. Again, you all have your opinions, but in my experience and with all my friends, and the guys that I know, they all value the Girl Gamers existence. So =P on you meanies out there!

Street Fighter II : A Girl’s Story

STREET FIGHTER II : The Intro:  A new friend and a new game

It is one thing to play to Street Fighter II. But it is definitely something to be female AND play Street Fighter II. This is one of my stories.

Everyone upon everyone, or so it seems, can recall their first encounter with this game. I was a 10th or 11th grader in high school. A friend of mine and myself decided to go to a local miniature golf center because they had an arcade there. We walked in and there IT was in all its glory — nestled between two other games I wasn’t even interested in. It didn’t necessarily call out to me, but we were definitely bored and just went looking for games to play. We went around the arcade floor playing other various games and decided to hop on the Street Fighter game. As we stuck in our two quarters into the machine, I somehow sensed that my Life with gaming would be forever altered.

There was an array of characters to choose from, but there was only one female; Chun-Li. Like most girls would in most situations they would choose the female option. Being that my first time to have played this game, I chose Chun-Li for the simplest 2 reasons — 1) she’s a Female and 2) her moves were going to be definitely easier than the Males. In having not ever touched this game, we began button mashing while trying to read how to play. (Yeah, stupid mistake to just pop in quarters and not read the directions before you play, right)?

While learning and playing, a young guy, seemingly around my age was watching my friend and I play — or at least attempt to play Street Fighter. Being a girl, my blocking skills were basically uneventful. This young guy that was watching us play kept yelling out to me, “BLOCK! BLOCK! HOLD BACK THE JOYSTICK! BLOCK!” I was getting a bit irritated to a point where I was thinking to myself, “who does this kid think he is..?”

After dying a horrible death from button mashing and being beat up on by my friend, I introduced myself to this mysterious guy as he introduced himself back to me. We all talked about SFII and video games. I found out that this guy can game, especially with SFII. He proceeded to insert his money into the machine and schooled me on the ins and outs of basic to intermediate fighting moves and tactics; oh yeah, and blocking.
Days passed and him and I would meet up at the very same arcade to practice our SFII skills almost everyday after school.

PART II : The Next Phase

One day to our surprise the arcade got in a huge screen TV and hooked up the SFII game to it. Mass amounts of SFII players flocked here to battle each other, tag team battle, and practice when no one was looking (or at least try to). There were a lot of really good players, and I mean really good players. Some would battle other really good players and some would battle and do some crap talking while playing. Out of the time I would spend with my friends playing at this location, I only saw one other female playing and she never wanted to battle me. (I think she thought she was better than me –the whole ‘I’m Better Than You Are in Everything’ concept). But I guess that would be another story.

PART III : Tournament Day

It’s life being a mall rat only cooler. You’re an arcade rat. Maybe that’s all I was at the time, An arcade rat. Spending my after school moments (after doing my homework, of course) at the arcade practicing, battling, and tag team battling with my new best friend who taught me how to play. We were there so often workers, management, and security knew us not by face anymore but on a name basis. One day, while practicing, we saw a notice tagged on the game that there was an upcoming SF II tournament that was scheduled. Being the goofy pair of friends that we are, we entered; as did a lot of other gamers. Little did we know the turn of events that would occur.

PART IV : A New Hope — or an interesting set-up
Tournament day is here. I wasn’t sure I was ready. I was anxious, scared, excited, and nervous. I saw classmates from school, friends from the arcade, even my parents showed up.

*Random Detail About the Tournament:
1) You were allowed to sign up and use only two characters of your choice
2) I was the only female in the tournament

About twenty minutes into the tournament, my name was called. I was up! ‘YIPPPPEEE” I thought in my head. That ‘YIPPEE’ turned into “OH MY GOSH!!!” Something just happened that:

1) no one was ready for
2) was beyond my control or anyone else’s for that matter

It wasn’t that my excitement was gone, it was just now laying low; really low.
So I heard my name called, it was my turn to battle. Who would be my opponent? That one Asian kid that just beats almost everyone? Or do I have to battle someone who thinks they’re good but they’re really not? Of course not! The next name called would only have to be my mentor, my really good friend, David. No one upon no one saw that coming. Everyone was shocked! It was as if management and staff wanted to see us battle against each other since we spent most of our time after school together training and playing.
How do you battle your mentor? Your friend? You do it with appreciation, with a smile, with grace, and with humor. And you give all that you’ve got.