William Chow's Personal Web Page

 

My Vancouver experience has been more limited to the more recent games of the late '90's and the new millenium. Sure I did play some games when I went to UBC during the late '80's but there wasn't anything really exciting back then.

At this point in the video game industry, home console games were just starting to come into the spotlight. Home graphics were getting pretty acceptable for systems like the Super Nintendo, and PC Engine and Sega Genesis systems.

I only really started to get back into arcade gaming a little bit when games like Dead or Alive and Soul Calibur and King of Fighters '94 came out.

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I remember that most of the games I would ever play would be at those scummy arcades on Granville Street.

Since most of the games there were fighting games which at the time I really sucked at. I just sat there bashing at buttons hoping that some sort of combo or special move came out. I suppose that only really worked on games like Tekken and Soul Calibur.

After much practice on the home consoles, (you can read some of the long horror stories), I have gotten better at fighting games.

Playdium at Metrotown was not the first arcade to have Tokyo Wars but it sure was one of the cheaper places to play it. It is a sit down tank driving and shooting game. Quite a lot of fun when you have a couple of the linked together so you can do 2 on 2 teams.

I was playing the Drummania game at Metrotown at CHQ one time. The stool they have is kinda busted and sits kinda low for me. The result is I tend to get my sticks caught under the drum pads. This is always a problem because if I am not holding the sticks tightly, they will fly out of my hand. Well, one this time, not only did I go to low and I hit the underside of the pad, the sticks came flying out of my hand, they flicked up and hit the screen and landed back on my lap. I was able to quickly recover but the surprise of the fluke threw my rhythmn off a bit but I survived to the end of the song... I wish I could say I planned that, but I didn't!!

I was playing Gundam DX at the UBC arcade during one of their ally you can game days. I was playing the game and I was trying to finish the game using guntank and I got to about level 6 of 13. Then some loser joins in as Zion to challenge me. I played against his Zaku. Not bad of a player but I beat him down. Ok, fine. Maybe he would leave me alone. NO. The moron challenges me again. I waited until he selected his mechs and was about to start the game and I left that terminal and started a new game on the adjacent terminal. Har Har. He was stuck where he was for that round playing with himself while I started my game again on the new terminal. This time, he got the hint and didn't bug me anymore. If he did again, I would have really screwed him up by picking Zion too and pick something like the Char's Zaku or Gelgoog and stand around him so I will get hit by friendly and unfriendly fire. Of course, if you are a big target that takes over half of your life meter when you die, then that become pretty tough win the round when one of you is trying to kill the enemy and the other one is waving his arms yelling "SHOOT ME!"

 

One day at Metrotown, CHQ put 2 DDR and 1 Para Para Machines in the main concourse and put them on free play. I skipped a day of work to go in and play. They had a tournement for high scores. Of course, I won the hard setting for Para Para without any opposition.

I was talking to some of the other girls who won prizes in the easier setting. I said, "I don't play on easy anymore since that is girls. (ie. refering to the writing on the ring on the game "cute girls and maniac guys". Well, this Nazi BITCH who handed out the prizes said that I was being "sexist". She also says that I was "irrepsonsible" and I should "grow up!"

Of course, I gave her a good reply. "I said, if it is such a sexist remark, I challenged her to turn the machines back on again, and we can let the "girls" refering to the winners to try hard. Of course, she said NO and I already knew the girls in line have rarely tried hard if ever. After stunning her there, I proceeded to say. "Yea, I am playing hooky from work right now, yea, that is pretty irresponsible." "Yea, I wasted a whole day here playing kid's games, yea that is pretty irresponsible." But you know what, "These aren't my kids, and when they get to a point when they get a job, play hooky, still get paid, and play Para Para on the hard setting; then they will be MATURE enough to challenge me. I waved her off, held my winning gift certificate in my hand and walked away.

Almost 6 months after that, I saw MOKA's name appear a couple times at hard at CHQ. Pretty good score, but score is not a good indicator of profiecency and speed, only accuracy. I used to play cheap and play the easier and slower songs really accurately to keep a good combo and get high scores. Problem is I look stiff and look really stupid doing it so I don't play points. But it is nice to see someone was inspired by me to try their best.

Chad at Playdium giving the Wave Rider the ride of its life.

Here is me strutting my stuff on the steel mat.

Here is Victor and Jude doing a session play on the Guitar Freaks and Drummania.

This is not really a Vancouver story but since it is the only one, I will just throw it down here. It was at Disneyland, at Anihiem and I was playing Soul Calibur. A bunch of little kids were watching play Sophita. Well, in this version of the game, you are able to control the camera angle of the finishing move after you win a round. So I would intentionally change the camera angle to a butt shot with the zoom on. I kept asking them if they saw what colour her panties were. Bwahh!! Don't let me babysit your kids! They'll come back demented....