It is still strange to think there are people who struggle to swim, who find it unnatural or awkward.
I feel the same way about people who don't know how to play chess.
Their parents never taught it to them?
Why not?
It's important!
It's the game of kings.
People think this implies kings play it, or used to.
Wrong.
It's a pun.
I like chess. And, as usual, I tend to hate people who take it too seriously.
None of this rook-to-E4 frippery.
None of this "Compte de Buckfenwald's Gambit" opening movery.
I like old men in the park chuckling amiably at the inevitable failure that comes from getting too clever with their pieces, when they ought to know better.
I like the excitement that comes from watching your opponent stumble into a trap you hung all your hopes off of, and the frustration when they don't.
My dad taught me how to play, off a crappy plastic set we would set up on lawns and beaches.
He bought a nicer set later that - thinking back on it now - I didn't really notice much, but I'm absolutely in love with now.
We do not play anymore, really. Not for any dramatic reason; I simply beat him without contest now. It isn't fun for either of us.
Not to imply I'm an excellent chess player, by any means.
When I went to Seattle, I met a youthful
He trounced me and it wasn't fun.
I'm going to talk about Super Smash Bro's now.
I'm about equally good at both. Which is to say, passable. Adequate. Capable of holding my own.
More importantly, I am skilled.
The Gamecube was the first system I actually owned, and SSB Melee was my late middle school/early high school...it was my introduction to playing videogames with people, really. My brother had the TV so we would cram into his room and play for hours - we being me, him, and any of his handful of friends who were surprisingly competent. I was the odd young one out, but I had an advantage in this area.
Playing mattered to me. To these teens it was a worthwhile distraction and an entertaining time, but to me it was an opportunity to prove my cleverness and equality
Don't misunderstand me - I played videogames because they were fascinating and amazing. Denied them in my youth, I was raised to a feverish curiosity by the mere glimpse of a game on a distant TV set.
I want to make that clear. SEEING videogames got me EXCITED. I would literally hang outside my brothers window and spy on him playing Warcraft II.
I got in severe trouble for breaking my DOS computer when I loaded a game that I knew would make it crash just to play it anyway. TWICE.
But that was the point. If you hit this brown thing, you turned into a frog. It was wonderful, it was...potential. It was pure potential of experience, of finding things out and doing them.
So. Super Smash Brothers was my first console game, and I played it with such incredible fascination it sounds weird to talk about it now.
I would play single player, of course, but that isn't the heart of SSB.
I mean multiplayer, with four people and a few others shouting. Super Smash Brothers requires an audience. It is a spectator sport.
But I would play just as happily without anyone else, in "Practice" mode.
You could spawn any item, you could play any character against any number of others. You could adjust the camera, and most fascinating of all you could adjust time.
So I learned every character's moves, every items effects, every stage, every pokemon. And then I went back and did it again in slow motion.
I would literally watch my character lazily twirling through aerial attack chains like it was a....I don't know, a rare bird or something people find really fucking interesting.
The natural conclusion to this is to assume I became a whirling dervish of death with a controller in my hand and everyone bowed down in deference and wonderment.
FOR AN IDIOT THAT CONCLUSION IS I MEAN. Have you ever been a younger sibling to a host of older kids? You don't get to stay and play if you whip everyone at your stupid videogame. You get kicked out of the room and you have to go read a book or some lame shit. While you listen to them have fun.
So: You don't hone your skills to dominate the game. You learn everything so you can control it. So you can orchestrate a good show.
Maybe someone is lagging behind a bit. Help them. Discretely. Attack their enemies. Fumble an item into their hands.
Maybe someone is showing off and playing a weak character to brag.
What's more entertaining? If they get summarily pounded, or if they crush their foes with Jigglypuff anyway? What makes for a better story?
In the end it always came down to my brother and I, of course.
We would duel. We had special rules.
Super sudden death so the first blow ended it.
Ninety nine lives so we could try everything we knew.
A versatile stage. Medium items. Nothing overpowered.
He would be Roy, I would be Marth. Of course.
It was satisfying. Incredibly so. Dodging around, shielding, feinting, dodging down. Air dodging. Catching items.
We were good. Your thumbs would get sore.
But we weren't excellent, not at all.
Competition SSB is nothing like what we played. Competitions aren't games.
I looked up some stuff once, later, on the interbutts.
Forums were full of acronyms for move combos. Full of super-wave-dashing Samus tricks, full of using glitches as regular gameplay material as easily as B attacks.
It was technical to a fault, it was min-maxing in the very worst way.
This is why fighting game
They go about it all wrong. They memorize opening gambits and White-Queen-to-G9 and then they go out and either crush unknowing rabble instantly or end up spending ten minutes of furious standing around cancelling each others moves out.
It isn't a game, it's a travesty.
I can say this with conviction because I've seen true super smash bros. I've been a part of its magic, at the holy mecca of smash bros essence.
Caleb's parties.
It's fucking rare, it's fucking beautiful, and it's the best example I can give of Smash Bros done right: The Dorf
Does he give a fuck about winning? Absolutely not. Does he often win? Yes. Is it by the skin of his ass? Yes. Does that make it all the more magnificent? YES.
Caleb's Drunken Ganondorf is legendary.
Let me tell you why.
A) It takes skill. Truthfully. He is the slowest, strongest character in the game, to a point of absurdity. You cannot hope to hit your opponent. Like, ever. So what do you do? It's very zen. Punch where your opponent will be. Caleb will charge up a fucking insane corkscrew haymaker of dark energy facing entirely the wrong direction, and Mr Clever Dick will dodge right into it and get his teeth punched out his kneecap.
B) It's utterly natural and unforced. It isn't ever about "hey, look what I can do" or "let me do this". The Dorf is merely one element of the greater game, and so has a place and time. Hell, he doesn't even do it most games.
C) It's indicative that he understands the true way of the game. He knows what its for: Entertainment. For everyone, not just the four playing. So he Russel Crowes it up and gives it to them. Whether they want it or not. Fantastic recoveries. Incredible throws. Solid fucking beatdowns and hilarious beatings. Noble deaths. Shows of dexterity, of skill, and of effort. Spectacular failures, more often than not.
That is what group videogames are about. Stupid things done with skill and grace. Astonishing things accomplished accidentally.
That is what you hear people talk about later, when the subject comes up. That is what people remember.
So that is my goal!
But here....nobody knows how to play chess.
It is disheartening. But there are some exceptions.
I will talk of them later.
