Everyone who was a real cool dude in the 90’s knows about the arcade classic Street Fighter 2. Capcom’s less famous original Street Fighter game gets mentioned every once in awhile based simply on its historical interest. I recently read something interesting that I had never known about it:
“The dedicated versions of the game used special pneumatic controls that were connected directly to the game board via air hoses. Depending upon how hard the control was hit, the game would choose the type of hit the player character would perform. These controls wore out or would constantly require adjustment due to abuse.”
So at one time, those kids who you see slamming the hell out of the buttons would actually have had a reason to be doing that.
More, from a newsgroup posting:
“The harder you hit the button, the harder the punch. (Instead of “Jab”, “Straight”, and “Fierce” buttons that we’ve grown to love from our SF games over the years, this just had two buttons..one for
punching, one for kicking. If you tapped the punch pad lightly, you’d get “Jab” and if you wailed on it, you’d get “Fierce.” The original SF came in two flavors…one with the pressure sensitive pads, and one with the 6-button layout we are familiar with.”