I have a confession to make. I am a fighting game tragic. Now what I mean by the term tragic is that I spectate, speculate and eulogies about all forms of fighting games. I never miss an EVO or an Fight Club video and I have several of Gootecks fighting guides on the ipod. However, and this is a very large however, I am absoultly no good at any of them. In Super Street Fighter IV (SSFIV) I can barely Hadouken, in Marvel Vs Capcom 3 (MVC3) the choice of teams overwhelms me and in Mortal Kombat... well I am unsure of my failing there as I live in Australia.

Anyway after a weekend of watching this years EVO tournament I have decided that it is time I readdress this situation. Why now after several years of inaction? In part it might have something to do with watching an 8 year old dominate in MVC3 (You can see that here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQu-wS7isfU) or that I have now financially committed myself in a massive way, more on that later, or perhaps this weekend more then ever I saw everything that I love about the genre on display and decided that it is time for me to get busy with it.

Now having decided to get involved, the question is "which game to play?". First off Mortal Kombat is out. I am no way inclined to run up against Australian Customs, those men and women are slightly hardcore in a way that is hard to describe. So no MK for me. MVC3 looks tempting but I have found out that a new version is on the way ,of course it is Capcom, and well I do not want to shell out a $100 AUD for a now obsolete game. So that leaves only SSFIV. Damm I knew it would be that way. I say this because this is not my first attempt to 'play' Street Fighter IV. I have had the PC version since launch but was so disgusted with my feeble attempts to compete with the CPU that it has not been on my hard drive for a long time now. So I thought that if I was going to have go at this it would be on a new platform and what better way to jump in then with the recent release of the Arcade Edition for 360. $48 AUD later it had all begun again.

This was not the 'massive' financial commitment I mentioned earlier. Oh no. You see in my previous attempt to play Street Fighter I went a little...Mad....

So $300 AUD later and I was a happy man. Three weeks later I was a sad man with a fighting stick.

Yet here I am again having spent around $400 on Street Fighter and still no where near being able to even contemplate going online and 'enjoying' the game.

But this is where it will all change. Rather then quietly try and fail to get myself playing (again), I have decided that the route of public shame shall be an added incentive to stick to it. So here we arrive at the purpose of this my first ever blog entry, fear of public humiliation. What better way to stay the course then to force one self into the public view. My goal is to document my progress with the game, hopefully every week, as I try to apply years of spectating and idle thoughts to actual combat.

Now of course any positive GB user feedback is quite welcome, as is user derision.

So here goes nothing I guess

Capt Ventris

Good luck on your journey to become the world's number 1 street fighter. One of the hardest parts that I've personally found out about playing a fighting game (especially online) is that you have to get used to losing a lot if you want to get better. Seriously, the people online won't give you any mercy, you'll have to develop a tolerance to losing (and hate mail/mics).
 
GLHB

Man, I know how you feel - I'm exactly the same. Every time a new fighting game comes out or there's an event I say "fuck it, this will finally be the day I break through", spend a bunch of time reading all the hot forums, watching livestreams and thinking of cool shit I could slap onto my SE stick. After a few days of getting brutally sodomized online I'm relegated back to arcade mode and lose interest shortly after.
 
From one tragic to another, I wish you the best of luck on your quest.

Customs will not take mk away 8)

Haha man you made a good choice with that stick. Just don't get frustrated with it it will take time into getting to grips with the stick. I know it took me ages to get over it.

I attempted the same thing with Street fighter and it really helps getting GB users feedback.

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/turbomonkey138/the-new-and-improved-guile-quest/30-49585/

Good luck man !

Let me get you started with the first in a good tutorial series.

If you live in the Melbourne area, your in luck because that has some good players that might help you. Check out events at Couch Warriors and there is an arcade called Timeout that has 10 linked Arcade Edition units.

I returned my fighting stick- I prefer the fightpad. I didn't grow up with arcade sticks so I honestly don't see the benefit.

I feel ya. But just like anything else, practice and experience counts. Unless you're naturally talented, you cannot cram learning this stuff, since what you do with your hands is akin to picking up a new musical instrument. 

Wow, I was actually having the same discussion with a friend of mine this morning. I used to play a lot of SFII back in the SNES days. I just recently purchased SSFIV for my PS3 about a week ago. I ran through a couple arcade sessions and figured my Akuma was decent enough to at least compete admirably against people online. Boy, was I wrong. After losing much more than I was winning, I became discouraged. But, you have given me hope, anew. Cheers, friend.

EVO will do that to you, I also decided to work on my SSF4 play after watching EVO non-stop this weekend (kinda sad I missed the day 1 pool matches). Also I ended up buying a copy of BlazBlue Continuum Shift after watching the BlazBlue finals...not really sure how that happened. That said TbirdSF4 made some really good beginner tutorials (you can find those here) that explain some basic game theory that I found really helpful.

After power-up I bought a ps3 just to play MK9, though I stopped about a month later since I didn't like the feel of the game. Now, I'm spending $150 on a hitbox, and am gonna start playing AE and third strike online when it comes out.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

Have been putting in a few hours so far this week as different characters trying to find the "right one".

And as I do live in Melbourne I am certainly going to check out the local fighting scene.

Cheers again to everyone for the help. And see you all for next weeks update

Just don't stop playing   if you want to get better, that should be your number one rule. 

Just gotta accept that when you get into fighting games, you're going in for the long haul. These games take time. I've been playing on and off since Street Fighter IV came out in '08, and it's been more than 3 years since then, and I only finally feel like I'm getting better. I can see my improvements, yet I still have a long way to go. I also finally accepted that I will lose more than win, and that every loss will help me get better, as long as I analyze and understand why I lost. It's also a great way to help your temper and anger issues if you have any ;) 
 
I think to get to a competitive level it'll probably take me another 3-5 years. Of course this is based off of my own schedule, where I can't devote 12 hours a day to games.