Fighting Video Games: The Purest Digital Board Game?

Michael Barnes asked me in a comment whether I could pull off an article about how fighting games, as in the video game genre - are like a digital board game. Here's what I think about it:

If you have played Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, it's not just a retro game dressed up as a downloadable title. It's a very well designed fighting game, that actually plays like a 2-Player board game in a way. Let me explain - fighting games remain in this current console generation one of the only game genres that has good local multiplayer - that is - social interaction is encouraged when people play these games. You laugh and cry when you play something like Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. There are no dice - but the dice in a sense are your timing and precision trying to get the right hit at the right time.

There is also a strong sense of theme in fighting games. Many are derivative - but there are some distinct themes to fighting games that stand out.

If Street Fighter is the great 2D now 3D franchise - Tekken is the first great 3D franchise not just in its use of theme (the character roster for Tekken 6 never ceases to amuse me) but in gameplay and elegance in stringing attacks together - you have to outwit your opponent in strategy and not just in "button mashing". Button mashing is an important part of learning attacks - but a fighting game if it's a good one tends to have lots of replay value and good multiplayer support without having to go online for a match like, say, the First Person Shooter genre.

I guess what I'm saying is that Street Fighter and Tekken are to fighting games what the Space Hulks of this world are to board games. Well designed - great theme art - and a general sense of "I want to be the best, YEAH!" warrior mentality that both Warhammer 40,000 and most fighting games share alike.

The reason why I think fighting video games are digital board games is because they allow for human interaction in a way that other multiplayer video games don't - DJ Hero for example has terrible multiplayer - but it's a great single player game. Resistance 2 was an awful, soul-crushing multiplayer experience for me - my online team mates who due to my not having a microphone left me behind not realising their team mate was actually a disoriented high functioning autistic who lacked the ability to keep up as they left me to die.

Fighting video games on the other hand are much more balanced than this - they come with a complete set of pieces and your skill at the game isn't dependent on how well your online gaming skills and internet connection are (I suffer in Australia - long have I been dumped from online matches for causing lag due to our government's horrible internet infrastructure and unjust bandwidth caps). It's dependent on your knowledge of the rules and drafting your characters to suit your needs, sort of like a card game with pixel miniatures. The game pieces are digitised but in a sense the controller is really the main game piece you use to interact with the game - and you can get an arcade stick to expand your gameplay to better suit your preference of controller. I like that, in a game. I've been using my arcade stick for a while and my friends consider it fair because to be honest my motor skills are a lot more impaired than their video game seasoned thumbs are.

The balanced nature of the fighting video game makes it like that Rockem-Sockem-Robotsgame only with digital warriors that fight, sometimes to the death - for your amusement. I don't see fighting video games as promoting violence either - they promote martial arts more like it, much in the same vein that Dragonball Z caused me to try Taekwondo training, which I failed my master at and sulked in fighting video games to battle the shame ever since.

A good fighting game is like a good board game if it has excellent controls and a balanced roster - due to the nature of most video games - financial advantage has no real bearing on the effectiveness of your game unless you have an arcade stick which costs more than a regular controller. I got mine in a game bundle, making it cheaper though. Doesn't make me win or lose any more than I normally do - it's just better for my hands. It's a case where arcade sticks/custom controllers are actually warranted to make video games more accessible to the motor skills impaired or the disabled. And I like that.