I never became part of the xbox/playstation generation of console gamers, I was always more into free bingo apps on my phone later in life. The most advanced console we had in our house was the Sega Megadrive (called the Sega Genesis in North America). The two games we had for it were the original Sonic the Hedgehog (a game where you held down the right button and pressed another button occasionally to jump over stuff until the game ended) and a football game by the name of Fifa International Soccer. Sonic was obviously the better game, but the football game held a much greater hold over my sister and me for the very important point that it was two player. But oh boy was this game ever broken.
Let me explain the controls in this game.
Arrow Keys
Caused the player you were controlling to perform some sort of mock slow motion run where he waved his legs around energetically but moved at strolling pace.
A Button
- When in control of the ball: Was probably meant to be the ‘cross’ button, but was in practice the ‘give the other player a throw in’ button. Caused the player you were controlling to turn to one side and kick the ball out of play.
- When the ball is in the air: Causes the player to head the ball directly above his head. Pressing it again makes him head the ball above his head again. Repeated pushing of this button will cause him to play sea-lion with the ball until the opposing player gets bored watching and presses C to push you away.
- When the opponent has the ball: Was probably meant to be the ‘slide tackle’ button. In practice was the ‘lie down on the floor’ button, regardless of whether you were close to the opposing player or not. Even if you are close to them, your player would will simply lie down on the floor in front of them and will only disposes the opposing player if they shuffle into you instead of doing the normal thing and pressing C to kick the ball over your head.
B Button
- When in control of the ball: Was probably meant to be the ‘pass’ button, but was in practice the ‘kick the ball 2 metres in front of you and then run towards it’ button. Caused you to instantly lose possession of the ball as your opponent pressed C and kicked the ball away from you.
- When the ball is in the air: Caused the player to stand on the spot and pick his nose, ignoring the ball altogether.
- When the opponent has the ball: The ‘change player’ button. Caused both the player you were controlling and the one you are now controlling to stop in their tracks and watch as your opponent kicks the ball away from you.
C Button
- When in control of the ball: Kicks the ball as hard as they can towards the opponents goal. If they are facing backwards, they’ll flick the ball over their head and then kick it towards the opponents goal.
- When the ball is in the air: Do a crazy scissor kick or bicycle kick towards the opponents goal.
- When the opponent has the ball: Charge towards the opposing player as fast as they could and punch them in the face
Basically, the only button you ever had to press was C. Occasionally you might press an arrow button while pressing C to kick the ball in a slightly different direction, often when you’re shooting on goal so you wouldn’t be kicking it straight into the keepers hands (that is, unless you were facing Qatar. In which case, you could kick the ball from the halfway line and it would still roll under his body. Seriously, because of that game, I have never been able to associate the entire nation of Qatar with anything other than really awful goalkeepers). But yeah, me and my sister still played the game, primarily to laugh at. From the mysterious C button, that occasionally caused players to stop running towards the ball and instantly punch another player in the face, or how you could then run away from the referee as he tried to send you off for that, it was a game so inherently buggy and terribad that it was from its awfulness that we derived entertainment.
Eventually though we did get another console. Several years after the xbox 360 came out, my dad went out and bought the original xbox at a knock down price, and promptly got incredibly bored when he realised the generic WWII shooter he got didn’t allow him to do anything except follow the very direct path it told him to. I hadn’t really played it that much myself, but after realising how easy it was to get incredibly cheap old xbox games, I decided to go down to a local second hand game store and pick up a few myself. One of these was Dead or Alive, a game series I was incredibly shocked to discover wasn’t just a beach volleyball game, as the hype surrounding it had led me to believe, but in fact a fighting game series too. So I put it on and played a few rounds of it with my sister. After some trial and error, this is what we realised the various buttons did.
Yellow Button: Punch
Red Button: Kick
Blue Button: Brush the opponent lightly across the face
Green Button: A variation of brushing the opponent lightly across the face
Black Button: Incredibly complex special move that invariably got interrupted before it hit by being punched or kicked by the opponent
White Button: Yet another variation of brushing the opponent lightly across the face
Right Trigger: Incredibly complex kick that invariably got interrupted before it hit by being punched or kicked by the opponent
Left Trigger: Absolutely nothing
Arrow Pad: Caused the character to shuffle about and occasionally jump 1cm into the air
Two Analog Sticks: Absolutely nothing
Eventually we realised the most effective method of fighting each other was to rapidly press the red and blue buttons while holding down the arrow pad in various directions to see what crazy combo moves our characters on screen would pull off. For some reason, none of the other buttons seemed to have combo moves with them. One of the buttons was called ‘hold’ in the instruction manual, but neither of us could figure out how to work it as all it seemed to do was wave a hand in the general direction of the opponent as they kicked them in the face. Every single combo involved the kick and punch buttons, to the point that it made no sense to try the more complicated kick and punch keys because they were too weak compared to the crazy moves the characters pulled off if you stuck to kick and punch.
We had gone from Fifa International Soccer, where you would press one button repeatedly while holding down the arrow key in various directions, to Dead or Alive where you pressed two buttons repeatedly while holding down the arrow key in various directions. Gaming sure had come a long way since those dark days.
The Cart Driver 
HOLY FUCK I RECOGNIZE THAT GAME JUST FROM THE SCREENSHOT
Minecraft! Arrow buttons to move. Mouse to look in odd directions. Left click to punch a tree and consequently give yourself multiple compound fractures that you ignore as you continue to punch the tree. Right click to place that part of the tree you punched into submission somewhere else. Spacebar to jump! You can hold it down to bounce repeatedly and jump off of the cliff you are unknowingly making your way towards, resulting in more compound fractures in your legs. To simulate the crippled nature that you are now in, hold down the Sneak button! You now move around slower and wont fall off of any more cliffs like the one you just dove bombed off of! One random button opens up your inventory and reveals just how ugly you are in the process, resulting in a desire to punch yourself in the face with the same fractured fist you used to pummel the tree. Better yet, sneak up to a cliff, look over the edge, then let go of the button. The world will be a better place.
Too complicated
Aaah… I can still see those gloomy childhood memorys flashing before my eyes, the times I was always looking at other kids play with nintendo’s or when I visited their house being envious of their Playstations.
Well, I’m at least trying to catch up with all the lost fun by watching anime and gaming like crazy. Tough I do remember that FIFA international from the early nintendo’s. I only played it once and never bothered to take it out of the box again. The only worthwile game I had in my childhood was Mario Bross. Did you ever play it? It’s amazing. Even now I like to play it out of nostalgia on the net.
Also Dead or Alive’s later releases weren’t that much of an improvement. Tekken is the best there is. Mortal Combat comes next.
tekken is THE BOMB. i hear the newest game is shit though. way to ruin the story.
Didn’t try out the last one. And now I won’t either. But Tekken 5 is realy cool. One of my favorites.
Btw, Lee is my favorite character. You know that chinese Kung Fu master who knows different kinds of Shaolin.
tekken 5 is pretty good, but my favorite is still 3 ❤ i always play ling xiaoyu even though she's a puny little thing lol. that or nina or yoshimitsu. lee is pretty cool.
Dammit, I laughed the whole way through.
Remember the visual novels of olden times?
I was fortunate to have my first game console be a Playstation, and the first game that I’d spend hours upon hours dying, killing shit, and ultimately dying again and again in be the first Spyro the Dragon. All you needed to do in that was fly around and breathe fire, and the game was instantly broken.
Still had fun with it though.
The FIFA games have evolved so much since then since everyone online now tries to use the skill moves in random directions to see what combos they come up with, and mashing the shoot button instead of passing. Oh wait.
The crazy spinning off the skill analogue stick to try get round your opponents. Yup, I know that. Played it on a friends xbox
Ah, you dirty console gaming peasant! You have no idea what you were missing back in the 90s. As a member of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race, while you were pressing the C button continuously, I was enjoying the sophisticated flight model of Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat, piloting a meticulous recreation of the P-51D Mustang with an analog stick, defending a flight of Superfortresses from the Jerries in their newfangled Messerschmitt rocket interceptors.
The main reason I’m not a console gamer is because I am too part of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race, albeit one of their working class members
Though to be fair, a lot of PC games aren’t much better. A friend once handed off his WoW mage to a bystander while going on a bio break. His instructinos to this peron were: “Press 1 until you run out of mana, then press 2 until you have enough mana to press 1 some more.”
The bystander topped the damage meters on the next boss fight.
Hey Scamp,
Are you going to blog the new season of Natsume?
No. I don’t even like Natsume that much. It’s all right, but there’s other stuff this season I’m more interested in
Yeah, that C was an amazing… button.
My friends, it has often been said that I like video games. Friends, I like video games. No, friends, I love video games! I love Zelda. I love Metroid. I love Sonic. I love Call of Duty, Mario Party, I love Super Smash Brothers and Pokemon.
Hellsing > Hellsing Ultimate
You are now imagining the Major, Doctor, Captain, and Schrodinger all playing Mario Kart.
New games test less on your mental reflexes but rather , more on how fast your fingers can move and your fingers’ stamina.
FIFA’s games are still using mental reflexes.
Portal~!
Do you mean that game? It’s an interesting one regardless. The second one looks even more interesting.
I still remember Sonic from when I was like, 5 years old (?), and I still remember that part where you run from a wall of lava and how you have to desperately search for bubbles in that underwater labyrinth (Sonic always dies there because I was too young to understand that the bubbles actually did something). Good times, good times.
Labyrinth Zone was all right. It was the water level later on in the game where bubbles were fucking impossible to find that pissed me off
more fighting games you must play, young padawan scamp. also, command list. we discovered that thing and BAM, sweet complicated moves and combos out of nowhere.
i havent played enough of xbox to know what to recommend. nintendo whore ughhh…soul calibur? but i love fighting games so…;/ grand theft auto is always reliable fun, lol.
you want a game that makes use of EVERY button? get thineself a nintendo gamecube/wii and play the metroid prime series.
I wrote this post quite a while ago now. I posted it up because I couldn’t collect my thoughts on C’s finale, so I’ve gotten a whole lot better at Dead or Alive now.
Oh, and for those who use the game, I use Kasami and occasionally Zack. Only 1 costume left to unlock out of the 20 available for Kasumi. If it’s not a rhinestone bikini I’m going to be severely disappointed
I don’t care about this, hurry up and put that darn opinion of yours on the anime C’s ending
Someone is being very hasty. Please refrain from rushing the chef to maintain the meals quality!
You can’t rush genius!
Well you get what I meant, that’s enough for now.
I-I’m pretty bad at gaming… blush
But I do like to sit next to my friends/brother and give snarky comments while they are playing, or alternatively, cheer them on.
The only game I really liked playing was the Sims… but I was like twelve then. And I really just always set them on fire. That was so fun and it made me the sadist I am today.
sigh
But at least I will always be the best in karaoke! 😀
“One of the buttons was called ‘hold’ in the instruction manual, but neither of us could figure out how to work it as all it seemed to do was wave a hand in the general direction of the opponent as they kicked them in the face.”
Hehe, that move is to counterattack, it’s just about timing ^^
I’ve since figured out how to play this game properly. This was more of a first time impression. Still finding it difficult to counter-attack, but at least I know how to block now
I’ve been playing video games since Pac Man and Galaga were new. Button mashing has, and always will be, the only viable gaming strategy. The only difference between Galaga and Modern Warfare is how much money was spent on developing the game. It’s still “hit the button a lot until you kill everything.”
This is why I love Tekken so much and laugh at the puny button-mashing peons who know not the beauty of juggling.
But lose a round to a crouching right kick to the shin anyway.
C button? What kind of heresy is that? Back when me and my sister were playing generic tennis game on the used NES we got as a present, there was no freakin’ C button. It sounds weird. I’m not sure I could even handle it if I were in your position.