GamesTM squares up to the beat em' up genre and asks what makes it so compelling

Fight Club is portrayed as a dangerous cult buried beneath popular culture, a grimy, grubby, but impossibly cool subculture where The Narrator (Ed Norton) abandons the comfort of his middle-of-theroad, comfortable life to indulge in a primal, violent underground. The history of fighting games has been mulled over many times and even the laziest researcher will be able to draw a hazy line from Street Fighter II: World Warrior to the current status quo where the battlegrounds have shifted from arcades to consoles and the likes of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection and Tekken 5. Now, the fighting game scene is dangerously close to the cult that Tyler Durden created – edgy, underground, cool, threatened by the mainstream. Yet somehow it survives through the presence of its big-name fighters and the players who aspire to be them. But who are the fighters? Who are the people that make up videogames’ very own Fight Club?

SINGLE-PLAYER FIGHTING games are mostly worthless. The AI simply cannot provide an adequate substitute for a living, breathing, thinking opponent, and in most cases single-player modes are merely token gestures. Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution and SoulCalibur III are the exceptions to this rule, but they, like other fighting games, live through the people who play them. It’s not the game that creates the moments through rigid set-pieces. The players are the ones who create the moments, the drama and the memories that filter through to other players via word of mouth and online videos.

In this regard, fighting games is one genre with an abundance of big-name players who frequently travel to tournaments the world over. Familiar international names on the circuit for various fighting games include Ohnuki (Japan), Nin (Korea), BillyKane (France), Ryan Hart (England) and Justin Wong (US). The reason these players are able to reach these levels of fame is because fighting games work as a spectator sport. They are essentially popular for the same reason that boxing, wrestling or any other one-on-one sport is popular – you’re seeing two players at the height of their powers battling in a competitive environment where mind games and tactics are on full display.

As the fighting is enclosed in a small ‘arena’, there are no problems with viewing the action either. Other genres have their own unique problems when trying to present themselves as a spectator sport. With FPSs, it’s the lack of a universal viewpoint that conveys the drama of what’s happening. With racing games, it’s easier to gauge performance on lap times rather than in-game action, and again the lack of a universal viewpoint doesn’t help. With sports games, it’s the lack of defined skill that makes it hard to spot if you’re watching an actual human player or the AI in action.

However, in keeping with the underground ethic cultivated over the years, the fighting game has lent itself perfectly to the spectator format. Those unfamiliar with fighting games can come in with little knowledge, yet immediately understand that Player A and Player B are fighting to survive. The rise of the Internet has helped spread the names of noted players. Shoryuken.com is the central hub for fighting game players to meet while YouTube and Google Video have further enhanced the reputation of top players.

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”ONLINE GAMING IS A VERY REAL THREAT TO THE FLICKERING ARCADE FLAME”