V – Video Game Player

Long-time readers may have realised that I am quite an avid gamer.  I try not to talk about it too much on Muppets For Justice since this isn’t a gaming blog, so it is a side of my personality that I don’t show too often.

However, I have long sought to become a professional video game player. Pro e-sports athletes (the only sport other than sumo wrestling that you can be both obese and “athletic”) get paid ridiculous sums of money for sitting around and bashing buttons on a controller.  I can remember someone winning a Quake 3 tournament and receiving £100,000 in prize money.  That kind of cash could buy loads more games!  But is a particular game that I excel at?

Luckily enough, I am rather good at Tekken.  I was local youth club champion for two years running, and I still have the medal that I made for myself.  It was time to hone my skills and step up to the big leagues.
In a similar fashion to a martial arts student taking a grand pilgrimage to train with a wise old master, I booked a plane ticket to the land of e-sports and high broadband speeds, South Korea.  Over there, Starcraft players are revered as Gods, with legions of screaming fans at their beck and call.  I figured that if I did enough training montages, I too could become the object of affection for one million young Asian girls. Although my weak, Western technique wouldn’t stand a chance against the major Korean players, so I would have to begin my training as a complete novice.

Paul is a triumph of super-hold hair gel.

I had arranged to meet a Tekken master named Ji-hu who would show me the ropes of competitive Tekken fighting.  A young man who hadn’t even reached puberty arrived to greet me at the main interchange in Seoul.  When he introduced himself as said Tekken master, I laughed at him, brushing it off as some sort of bizarre joke.  I couldn’t have been more wrong. The young boy leaped up and plucked my eye straight out of my eye socket for “casting him a dismissive glance”.  As I rolled around in excruciating agony, Ji-hu arranged for my “fat corpse” to be transported to his dojo for training.

Ji-hu was an impossibly strict master.  Now with poor depth perception, I was forced to complete seven obstacle courses before breakfast.  I wasn’t allowed to speak any English at all.  In fact, I wasn’t allowed to speak at all, or else he would have pulled my tongue straight out of my head without a second thought.  I was forced to eat individual grains of rice from between floorboards with a pair of tweezers.  I slept upright on a chair with a mousetrap near my balls that would snap shut if I leaned forward.  I wasn’t sure how any of this would teach me to play Tekken to a greater degree, but I had to trust in my master if I wanted to learn his lessons, even if his methods seemed cruel and unnecessary.

The day of the tournament began.  I chose my favourite character (Bryan Fury if you’re wondering), and I was up against the number 5 seed.  Ji-hu was waiting in the wings with some sort of rudimentary flail, ready to strike should I slip up.  It was time to put my training to the test.

I lost two straight rounds without landing a blow.  I felt like I had become a far worse player since I started my training, as if the dehydration and mutilation I had suffered over the past few days had affected my motor skills.

In severe danger of losing the match, I decided to forget about Ji-hu’s training and revert back to my old tactics.  I went over to the other competitor and thumped him on top of his head, knocking him unconscious. I was immediately disqualified, which I didn’t understand since that’s how I managed to beat all my rivals back home in England. I left South Korea with a cloud of shame hanging over me, and a huge medical bill after Ji-hu flayed the flesh off of my back.  I guess this isn’t the game for me.