No, things didn't start out the way I'd have most liked for my ambitious endeavour to beat a game every week through 2008. But I'm pleased that I fufilled my obligations for week one (Jan. 3 - 9) despite starting out the whole plan just two days before, and am looking forward to fufilling my mandate more impressively for most of the next 51 weeks.

For more information on what this is all about, go to the link above.

Busy as hell early in the week, Wednesday evening at 10 left me with only two hours to beat a game by the end of week one. Street Fighter II for SNES on the Wii Virtual Console seemed like the quickest option, but being as mediocre at fighters as I am, an hour passed and I was still on the second of the three harder opponents you face after defeating the main seven. Knowing that M. Bison, the boss, always took a thousand tries, I entered panic mode. Considering it more shameful to give up than to do what you have to, I ended my game and went to options, switching the difficulty down to zero before waltzing my way through everyone.

The only opponent I didn't cream 2-0 was Ken, my own character's (Ryu's) clone, who I've always had trouble with and who was the last of the main seven, making me lazy and careless by that point. After defeating him 2-1 I knew I had to get serious and not embarass myself by losing a match against anyone on the easiest difficulty level, I had no problems with the three second-teir fighters. M. Bison was not as lucky as Ken, either, and went down 2-0. Oh how strange it felt to take him out with my simple newbish fireball/jump/high kick/fire ball as he gets up routine, after almost exactly a year earlier I had to stay up all night to defeat him on the game's default 5 out of 7 difficulty.

I did learn something, though. I did not get the cinematic that I had when beating it legitimately, which suggests that, seeing as difficulty 0 doesn't give you the ending that 5 gives (or one at all), 7 must give you. This tempts me to train hard at SFII to beat it at that eventually; and please, don't tell me if and what cinematic you get if you beat it on difficulty 7.

I'll try my best to keep the illegitimate "old-style fighter on easy mode" defeats at a minimal through the rest of the year, and to provide more interesting information in my future summaries, but hey, you got to start somewhere?