As the fighting community, respectively from the east/west regions exercise their own personal style and prowess, they're bound by one of the most controversial aspects that has continued (and surely will continue) throughout the realms of arcades, homes and venues alike...it's the very word that quickly can incite disputes and a spectrum of opinions when the subject of cheapness is addressed.

Of course you've heard the word uttered all too many times if you've played any fighting game (it exists in other competitive genres too of course, but that's another dicussion). Let's face it though, there are winners and losers. Usually the losers feel justified to make claims as to why they lost, which is why you're labeled cheap in the first place. Take a visit over to Shoryuken.com, and you'll discover a plethora of comments from players throughout the country expressing what's fair, and what's not. It's safe to say that as Capcom vs. SNK slowly makes its way into arcades here in the states, that those same vibes of disgust and claims to those lacking skill will be heard.

Personally, as I've expressed in our own forum, the word cheap shouldn't exist. After all, how does one define what's a cheap tactic or player? Seth Killian (aka s-kill), a highly respected player in the SF community and staff member of Shoryuken.com composed a very lengthy editorial piece on the subject. In short, I felt the words he expressed were justified and accurate, albeit very blunt - but it's a message that 'tells it like it is.' While the entire log isn't posted here in whole, I've excerpted most of the common points which I felt should be addressed:

What? Me cheap???

The precise contours of "cheap" are pretty mysterious. Far be it from me to actually be able to penetrate fully the dark workings of the mind of a scrub, but in an attempt to get a better feel for what they’re talking about here (if anything), I’ll try and analyze some apparent commonalities between the wide variety of things called "cheap".

Bleh, if I could recall all the times I've been called cheap, just for the fact of using Chun-Li alone (granted she's quite formidable in Alpha 2 and Third Strike). Though, where's the justification of trying to dishearten a person who you can't defeat??? Over the years, I too once thought aspects such as throwing, chip damage, and anything else you probably can think of purely negated "fair play". Of course, I discovered that such reasoning was not only due to lack of experience, but showed a lack of sportsmanship and competitive maturity on my part? What's that? Maturity? Sure, you can be a full grown adult, but very well may act like a child because you're getting spanked around the screen. Name-calling or even taking other forms of risque action just shows you're a bad sport and in the end, you'll end up making yourself look bad.

"Is that all you can do?"

No matter how you play, no one seems to care much...unless you’re winning. If you’re not threatening their (sorry) dominance at the machine, the scrub doesn’t care what the hell you’re doing. It’s only when you’re doing something they can’t beat that he bothers to drop phrases like "cheap". How can an innocent scrub tell when he’s been scandalized by the dreaded "cheap" play? The easiest way to recognize cheapness is not by looking for certain characteristics to the style of play (that can be confusing, and seems downright impossible since what’s "cheap" seems to change all the time!). No- just wait until you’re losing a lot.

Then, rather than experience the fear that you might have to figure something difficult out, you can rest assured that the reason you were losing was because you were the victim of "cheap" tactics! The advice to aspiring scrubs here should be clear: If you want to ensure that you never accidentally play "cheap" (the precise definition is danged tricky!), just don’t win too much. Everyone knows that not winning too much is a proud tradition among all "honorable" players.

Among the biggest gripes when a player is on a "hot streak" is the posse of players that sit and basically proceed to whine, fuss and protest how they've been wronged by the series of tactics or aspect which they can not defeat. I can remember during a time when I was in such a fuss once I lost, which can happen to the best of us at times. Who want's to lose after all? Alas, most players never seem to grasp the real reasons why they're losing.

"Cheap" tactics violate the sanctity of "blocking". All scrubs seem to feel that blocking should be some sort of unimpeachable stronghold- a scrub "fortress of solitude". Apparently the thinking is "When I'm blocking, no one should be able to hurt me, no matter what!". Where this idea came from is anyone's guess. Ever hear of blocking in Space Invaders? Could Pac-Man block? Blocked any quad-damage railgun shots lately? No. But the scrub still feels somehow especially violated when he's hunkered down, jamming the stick into block, and something still disappears off his lifebar. "What the hell! I was BLOCKING!"

Yes, all too familiar isn't it? I always wonder why when it comes to players choosing to sit and block all day, or perhaps wait in the corner, setting up what they believe is a unbreachable fortress - only to be thrown for example gives them into an "unpleasant reality check that reminds them they were playing make-believe"; and of course the majority of players, will get upset! What I can't seem to understand is why there's such a fuss about a throw, especially since the latest engines consist of minimal damage when it comes to throwing. It's a good thing that Capcom didn't design the game so that blocking would be completely impervious to damage, or else it would be an issue of who could land the first hit and then proceed to block for the entire rest of the round. Then of course, as most have come to express the opinion that doing the same move over and over is cheap. Is it now? My question would be why are you falling for the same move? Example: Chun's low RH. Very effective anti-air move and works adequately as a potential option for zoing (especially in Third Strike!) Mere spazzing on the button doesn't gurantee success, skill does. Option? Learn to reverse the move, analyze your own gameplay and find weaknesses. Don't be so quick to write off the situation as impossible. Contray to opinion, Chun's Low RH is not a win button.

I think it's pretty obvious that there is, at least hypothetically, such a thing as cheap. Imagine a regular SF game, with joystick and six buttons. Now imagine a seventh button, available on each side, labelled "WIN". If you hit that button at any time during the match, you win. It would be simple enough to design. If Capcom started releasing their games with that feature, and you were notorious for hitting that button, I'd be perfectly willing to admit that doing so was "cheap".

How fortunate for us all that this doesn't exist :)

"Cheap" tactics kill with minimal effort. In this respect, they’re difficult to distinguish from just plain good tactics, which are aimed at making you efficient, effective winners. Good players play to win- they’re about winning, not whining. But scrubs become edgy and irritable when they’re killed really easily. They know that killing a serious player should be at least a little bit hard, even if he is a scrub. This resistance to extreme efficiency is well-founded, in some respects. A tactic is great when it kills efficiently, but can justifiably be called cheap when it kills too efficiently.

Okei...so what about MvC2. Players are cheap there especially!

In the MVC2 with the "WIN" button, the best tactics are too efficient in just this way- once people catch on, the game just becomes stupid. It’s not fun, or entertaining. It’s Capcom’s job to provide games that are fun for a wide range of playing ability without allowing the game to become transparent, and to degenerate into simplistic routines for winning, incapable of holding a serious players’ interest. Some answer cries of "cheap" with a different cute little catch-phrase: "If it's in the game, it's in the game." Well, of course. How could that not be true? That doesn't really advance the "debate", except by pointing out that by banning throws (or whatever they're calling cheap that day), what the scrubs are really doing is just playing a different game. So if MVC2 came equipped with that "WIN" button, it would be fair to say that it's "in the game", obviously. But the previous point about actually hitting the button still being cheap also stands. That would just be a really crappy game. Which is what I think it really comes down to: "cheap" is an aesthetic judgment.

That should be a common quote posted throughout all arcades. Take note gamers that when you're referring to something as being "cheap", you're actually stating that the game would be better without it. "In effect, you're staking your judgment against the combined efforts of the best design team in history. During the debut of A3, when most players took advantage of the L/M-ism bugs is a downright obvious cheapned flair and I'd naturally understand if anyone became uneasy simply for the point - they weren't meant to be in the game or were carefully looked at by the programmers. It's of course obvious that these bugs, or what have you would detract from the game. The one exception as Domination 101 brings out that "interrupting normal moves with specials for combos wasn't originally intended in SF2: WW, but turned out to be a happy accident that evolved into the world's most-loved combo system).

"So...how can I tell what's best for the game?"

The best way to tell whether something helps or ultimately hurts a game is to play the hell out of it. If it really turns out to detract from gameplay, then avoid it- fine. But you'll never be able to decide that if you don't play it to the fullest to begin with. - something people fond of denouncing things as "cheap" never seem to do.

Sadly, this would seem to be the case with the latest crop of titles over the past few years. Many old school players simply refused to step into the realm of A3 because of the Vism system, or moves which they felt had 'high priority', expressed dissatisfaction with Super Cancels in SF3 and the list goes on. Unfortunately, how many can really say "I gave it my best, I played it for hours upon hours." Most can't, perhaps you have.

Keep in mind, we're talking about video games here, not life or death. Though to those of you that play the game consistently and ponder winning against skilled players or competing in tournaments will need to remember one point: ...when you claim something is "cheap", especially if it’s something the designers clearly intended to be there, you’re attempting a very sophisticated judgment.

The declared cheap tactics:

Throwing - Of course doing the era of the World Warrior, countering throws were difficult, but they were impossible because obviously players performed a system to successfully initate them. Does that make them wrong? Should throws be banned from the game? No. These days, players have very little reason to complain, and anyone that's really skilled will tell you the correct tactics for countering them.

Keepaway - Granted, Characters that consist of beams and projecticles ARE difficult, but keep in mind that for every attack, there exists a counter-attack. Surely enough a player that has learned how to develop such an efficient set of tactics knows how to escape them when they're executed on them (or else how good can they really be?)

Historically, the greatest dynamics in SF games have always come from the opposition between keep-away and up-close characters. One side tries to keep the other out, the other pushes constantly to get in to the sweet, sweet chewy center. In MVC1, the majority of matches were completely dominated by up-close tactics. In MVC2, the balance has shifted, apparently favoring keep-away tactics. All this means is that you have to think about what you're doing for half a second before going into your same old dial-a-combo routine that you think looks so cool. The fireball (beam/projectile) is the key feature behind all high-strategy in SF games, and one that's been sorely missing from most of the Versus series. Complaining about it's return in MVC2 only shows you to be the arch-scrubs you are. It also completely fails to appreciate any real character variety.

Most importantly, players who feel that "keep-away players only play that way because they're not good enough to do combos!". is not only prejudgmental, it holds very little weight. While many are quick to point out that players are mashing buttons, there's a great deal of timing and precision that must be carefully executed to ensure those 'keep-away traps' work. Since the tactic can be broken at any given moment due to the fact that "air-tight keep away games" don't exist, a player must ALWAYS be on point when playing in this manner. One must be quick to improvise and reaction accordingly to the adjustments made by your opponent. Any player that uses these aspects skillfully will also know that they must be implemented when necessary.

So, is there such a thing as cheap? It's a matter of perspective and unfortunately despite the gripes on throws, block damage and glitches, the majority of people that proclaim such things haven't been able to truly define what that is. Perhaps someone one day will have the answer and enlighten us all, but until then...it will commonly be heard from the batch of weaker players and posse of folk that truly don't understand what they're complaining about. Special thanks to Seth Killian.

Full log can be accessed at Shoryuken.com's Domination 101

··· Bahn