Special Lessons With Mitsurugi

I confess, fighting games aren't really my specialty. I'm only passably good at them-- that's to say, better than many people, but I eat dirt against practiced gamers. I do play a lot of Soul Calibur, though-- enough that this spankin' new SC IV trailer from gamevideos.com is worth presenting here.


It's not really much of a trailer-- but wow, check out the crease on Ivy.

Maybe this is one of those few cases where I fit the profile of the loathed and feared "chick gamer," but I have difficulty getting my head around the idea that fighting games have little-to-no plot. Especially since they usually have some semblance of one-- the story of the competition, the fighters' motivations and personal grudges. And I'm sure this is because I play too many Hentai games, but the combo of scantily-clad, passionate fighters and a loose, half-assed story line as an excuse for action always makes me fill in the blanks with sexual tension and my own little imaginary storylines. Which are usually camp and obscene.

Like, come on, though-- can't you totally imagine that Mitsurugi's beatdown of Xianghua, for example, is just a didactic preface to the respect-instructive, disciplinarian sex he plans to have with her once he wins? She wails, as is her way; "no use," he replies sternly. And when a gal like Ivy (I also visualize that Ivy's packin' a "secret") gets a pansy like Raphael on his knees in the library with that "Demon's Tail", and orders, "squirm!"... I mean, come on, seriously. It doesn't take a sophisticated imagination to fill in a little postscript for the battle.

Fifteen-year-old Talim seems so pitifully earnest, doesn't she? Like, she really thinks she's there for the fighting. Meanwhile, Sophitia and Nightmare snicker behind their hands. She'll learn, heh heh heh.

Also, in my mind Cervantes totally runs a party boat on his ghost pirate ship; coolers of Corona, tissue-paper parrot decorations, limbo line. "Come with me to hell!" He whoops, as he mixes margaritas in the blender. "When you think of cerveza, think of Cervantes!"

...Sometimes, gamers get to the point where they start needing to consider actually going outside once in a while. Usually, though, the idea's debunked in favor of another round of gaming, or talking about gaming, or looking at pictures of games, or watching game videos. In my case, though, it's probably time to put the controller down, huh?