Let me preface this post by saying I haven't played a lot of fighting games. After thinking about it, I guess the only fighting games I've put any serious time into have been Marvel vs. Capcom 2, MVC3, and the recently released Skull Girls. I would reckon this fact has a strong correlation to the overall theme of this post; I really suck at fighting games. Which is weird for me to say because I'm usually pretty good at video games. I'm far from producing MLG caliber of play, but I hold my own in competitive Halo and Call of Duty matches. That said, fighting games are an entirely different beasts. This is because there are people in the world that can do this:
[embed:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V5-Qc-k-XME ]
I will never be able to do this. I've pretty much accepted this fact. To reach this level of play, I would probably have to play one fighting game for a year, and nothing else. This video is for a game that has been released for a little over a week, and yet people have already figured out unbreakable combos that can take out an entire health bar. I think this comes down to a case of a negatively skewed distribution. What? Math? I swear it makes sense.
Now granted, there is not scientific data to support this graph, I think you would find this is how things shake out. The people that are good at fighting games are really good, generally leaps and bounds ahead of the people that just play them casually. As such, trying to get good at these sort of games isn't fun when you're constantly getting your ass handed to you in online matches.The past couple years I've really enjoyed watching EVO, and every time I do, it puts me in a mood to play some fighting games. Sadly, this always ends in frustration when I realize I don't have the skill to pull off a fraction of the crazy moves I saw performed by professionals. It's not that I want fighting games to change, I just wish I was better at them.