Zangief!


Street Fighter II was a revolutionary game for its time. It made a big impact on the games community. On the other hand, some of its greatest characters were sorely under-appreciated, such as Dhalsim the Stretchy Yoga Master (Plasticman reborn!) and the subject of this quote, Zangief the Russian Bear-Wrestler. Despite his many talents, he has failed to garner any sort of loyal following. I mean, c'mon, the guy's big, slow and stupid. But he's strong! If he can ever manage to land a hit, it might hurt. I'm not really sure because I've so rarely seen it done. Okay, so Zangief is actually terrible. His only possible advantage would be the freakishly powerful Spinning Pile-driver. Unfortunately, this move is pretty much impossible to execute, so it's a moot point in any case. The only person possibly worse than Zangief would have to be the aforementioned Dhalsim, who is slow, weak and stretchy. You might think that this stretchiness would be a point in his favor. You'd be wrong, because his stretchy limbs are nothing more than great targets for your opponents to attack. Yes, punching Dhalsim's extended toe does as much damage as a good solid punch to his head. Another one of Dhalsim's problems is that the only word he can say seems to be "Yoga." I know that it's very important to him, but please, when he wins a match (which is rare enough as it is), you'd think he could come up with something more original to say than "Yoga."

But enough on Dhalsim. Let's get to the point of this quote, which is the often humorous endings from SFII. Especially Zangief's, a picture from which is shown on the main page. I'm not quite sure why they bothered to make an ending for Zangief, since hardly anyone can or wants to beat the game with him. All the same, it is a fine example of the amusing and lame endings for this game. After what must be a couple dozen continues, and a hard-fought victory over M.Bison in Thailand, Zangief is finally ready to celebrate. Suddenly, a helicopter descends from the sky, and Mikhail Gorbachev swings down on a ladder to congratulate his fellow countryman. Of course, we all believe that the President of Russia has nothing better to do than circle in a helicopter over Thailand. Absolutely. He wanted to be there in the extremely off-chance that Zangief would end up victorious. At this point, the two could begin doing some Russian dance. This action seems to inspire Zangief to even higher levels of eloquence (hard not to get higher than "GRRR!"), and his grammar and vocabulary reach almost normal levels. This allows him to use this week's quote, and I believe the last line in the ending: "You dance very well, Mr. President." But 'Mr.' Zangief, you don't fight very well.


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