Am I really about to...lose??

You may be surprised to hear that I attended a gaming party last night. 

My friends Rob and Austin invited me along to an acquaintance's birthday party.  Every year, it seems, this friend invites everyone with a computer and network equipment to his house to play StarCraft as adversaries in an 8-12-person war.  Computers were strewn about the room, and people spent a lot of time shouting obscenities and concentrating mightily on the game. 

I don't play these kinds of games, mainly because I don't have the patience to master them.  Though these games have the benefit of forcing the player to learn strategy and multitask, they have the major drawback of being majorly addictive and free-time-draining. 

So what did I do while everyone else was playing?  I  brought over my Sega Dreamcast and played Star Wars: Demolition and Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.  I need to give you some backstory on MVC2 before I explain to you what happened that fateful night... so here is is:

It's a fighting game, and it utilizes pretty much all the same moves that Street Fighter 2 used.  Basically, if you know how to do the special moves for the characters in Street Fighter, you'll know how to use the characters in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.  When it came out, it was the most popular game (or at least the most popular fighting game) in America, according to Wikipedia. 

And I am fucking amazing at it. 

Those who know me realize that even though I have a clearly healthy level of self-esteem, I don't normally say shit like this.  The reason is that I always figure there are lots of people better than me at any given thing, no matter how good I get at something.  Also, I was never the very BEST at anything when I was in grade school, and I always tried to avoid humiliating myself by talking trash or boasting without being able to back it up.  My shyness and lack of confidence probably held me back in some areas (like sports), where I was good but probably didn't reach my potential. 

Since I wasn't totally addicted to video games as a kid, I didn't brag on those either.  I simply didn't play most video games long enough or with enough motivation to get as good as the video-game-heads.  But there were a few notable exceptions. 

As a kid, my exceptions were EA's Bulls Vs. Lakers and the NBA Playoffs and Techmo Super NBA Basketball.  Both were on the Sega Genesis.  I could essentially slaughter anyone in the former game, and my friends and family knew it.  I didn't talk about it much, but the few times I was challenged by strangers, things got ugly.  One time, a friend of my brother came to visit, and he decided to challenge me in Bulls vs. Lakers.  My brother warned him, "Dude, you're gonna lose."  He was talking smack, saying that he'd definitely win.  I said "Well...okay," in an 'if-you-insist' tone of voice. 

There are several problems playing me in BVL.  One is that you can't get the ball up the court, because I mastered the art of stealing the ball off the dribble and stealing passes.  The computer made it very obvious to both players where passes could go, so I would run a guard into the most obvious passing lanes and steal the ball out of the air.  Also, when you got to know the characters, you realized that the all-stars had 'sweet spots' on the floor where they could execute running 360-degree dunks, tomahawk slams and layups that were impossible to block.  Basically, if I got tot the top of the key or inside the 3-point line, I scored at will.  Worst of all for my opponents, I was a deadly outside shooter -- and I knew who all the good 3-point shooters were on every team, even bringing them off the bench for more firepower if they weren't starters. 

By halftime, I was up by about 40 points and he reset the game, saying, "That was ridiculous, man.  I couldn't even get the ball past half court!"  My brother was like, "I tried to tell you."

As an adult, my exception is Marvel vs. Capcom 2.  As a kid, I used to hate fighting games.  Everyone seemed to be much, much better than I was.  I could never do any of the moves.  And kids would spend tons of money on the arcade versions and get so good that if you tried to play on a machine, you'd get annhilated.  I especially hated Street Fighter; the moves were too hard.  Mortal Kombat was okay because the moves were easier. 

But then I grew up, and bought a Dreamcast.  And in the meantime, Capcom had introduced comic book characters to fighting games.  As a person who hated fighting games, I should have stayed bored.  But as a comic book nerd, the idea of being able to play a video game as Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wolverine and Cable was too tempting to let slide.  So I bought a Dreamcast, bought the game and started playing the computer on a high difficulty level.  Since I couldn't master the moves, I used Training Mode here and there; I also changed the button configurations so they were more intuitive for me.  Once I figured out how to beat the computer, I realized that people weren't used to playing the computer at a high difficulty level, and hadn't been forced to adopt similar cutthroat winning strategies.  

Eventually, I became so good at MVC 2 that I would openly talk smack during games.  At times, I would laugh at a sweet move I pulled off; occasionally, I'd give painfully biting advice in a serious tone after an opponent's misfortune such as "Yeah, you probably should have blocked right then."  My older brother, long an obsessive video game fanatic, played me once in MVC 2 when I first got it and beat me easily.  A year later, he played me and I whooped him before he even knew what was happening.  Another of my brothers was like, "I can beat you" and my first brother was like, "No you can't."  And I said, "He's right, you know...you really can't win.  But feel free to try, and let me know when you get tired of losing."  After throwing his best combination of characters at me for 5 games and getting pounded each time, he finally admitted defeat.  It became a joke.  I was a juggernaut.  If I used one of my top teams, a conensus among my friends grew that I could beat anyone.

Well...almost anyone.

Back to Saturday night: when you are in a room full of comp-sci grad students who are hardcore gamers, it's almost inevitable that one of them will be able to beat a guy like me in my game of choice.  Combined with the fact that I hadn't played in several months, you had the perfect storm.  I ended up facing the biggest fan of fighting games in the room for just one match.  He was really good...and on that night, he was better than me.  I didn't go down easily.  It was a long, drawn-out fight; towards the end, my left hand was cramping from gripping the controller too hard. 

But towards the end, when his characters all had about 25% of their life meters left while my characters were all about 2-3 hits away from getting K.O.ed, I realized that I was going to lose.  I even said it out loud: "Wow.  I'm going to lose this fight."  You could hear the shock in my voice.  I couldn't believe it.  Because of the pain in my hand, there would be no miracle comeback of the sort that I'd had in my few close matches since I got good.  My aura of invincibility had been destroyed.  It was like the end of a brief era.  It was so surprising that I kept talking about it even after it was over.  I hadn't lost in years, yet here I was, defeated.   

That single match opened uncharted territory for me.  It was a good experience...but not in the way you might think.  For me, the best thing about losing was not any humility restored or gained, or any major life lesson.   My greatest accomplishment that night was realizing that I'd actually reached such a high level of confidence in the first place. 

I had gone in riding as high as high could be, I lost...and the sky didn't fall.  Judgment Day never came.  My psyche had survived, and even accepted the loss graciously.  And life went on.  For the first time in my life, I felt what it was like to lose when I thought I couldn't.  It hadn't affected me deeply, and I knew I'd be back.  That was my most important lesson of all. 

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