Supple Think: IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE

IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE

by alzabo

Posted on Sunday, March 9, 2008

If you've ever been to a vs fighting game tournaments, the above video may be familiar and quite funny. Or it may remind you why you stopped going to play in arcades.

I recently re-visited a site that was a popular spot for X-Men vs. Street Fighter tournaments 10 years ago. The vs. fighting games are all alone in a infrequently visited part of the arcade, two new VF5 cabs are there along with the old and battle scarred cabinets that in my youth housed Vampire Saviour, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Street Fighter 2 Turbo and many others. These cabs now hold the final games from that long gone era, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike and the previously mentioned SF2T. I'm impressed at the staying power these games have, with dust on their controls it's obvious that they rarely see more than 1 play per day. I like to think that the operator keeps them out as a reminder of happier times, like a widow keeping her husband's ashes on the mantle.

As I ran my hands over the scarred and new dusty plexiglas of the control panel I fondly remembered all the time I spent standing in front of these cabs a decade ago. I gave the stick a twirl and the buttons a quick press to see if it was maintained, to my surprise it was in perfect condition!

In my mind, these games are not a effigy to old arcade games. They are a promise and a hope. With Street Fighter IV and King of Fighters XII on the way, maybe cabinets like these will see action again by a new generation of competitors. Eager to slam the control panel in the heat of the moment and add their own marks to the plexiglas.

It'd be poetic if it wasn't so silly. Article Permalink

Supple Think: IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE

IT'S MAHVEL BAYBEE

by alzabo

Supple Think

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