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Sheng Long and The Ghost of April Fools' Past

Posted by Nadia Oxford

Guard your funnybone: tomorrow is April Fool's Day. It's the most wonderful time of the year to be a games writer, and the most aggravating time of the year to be a gamer.

I've never actually participated in any kind of April Fool's joke. Despite my twisted, pulsating sense of humour, I've never been a fan of practical jokes. I can't stand crank calls, Punk'd, anything that derives a laugh from someone else's gobsmacked expression and/or explosive anger. Though, I have been the victim of crank calls that I felt stupidly honoured to be a part of (I worked in the grooming salon of a PetSmart a few years back and was asked if we sell unicorns. I told the caller to try Narnia).

It's still a lot of fun to lean back and watch the gaming community try to out-ridiculous each other every April 1st. Even better, the tradition pre-dates the Internet-based fandom considerably: the infamous “Sheng Long” edition of EGM (published April 1992) probably wasn't the first instance of games writers indulging in spring jack-assery, but it was definitely the prank that launched a thousand imitators.

To recap, EGM ran with Ryu's mistranslated victory slogan in Street Fighter II for the SNES--”You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance”--and turned a string of Engrish into a baffling hunt for Ryu and Ken's Master. If Ryu played through the roster without getting hit once (!), and resisted Bison until the timer hit 0 without sustaining damage (!!!), Sheng Long would appear, “toss M Bison away,” and fly at the player with super-fast Hadokens and Spinning Bird Kicks.

Turns out nobody stood a chance against Sheng Long. EGM first lamented that nobody on staff lasted more than a few seconds with the ethereal Master, then confessed it was all a hoax. A well-spread hoax, at that: game magazines around the world re-printed the trick, and fresh howls of torment rose from Street Fighter II fans as they attempted to do the impossible.

Really, though—ten rounds without getting hit once? Dodging Bison like a ballet dancer shot up with speed? Right off the bat, it's a recipe for a broken controller.

Either way, the race has since been on for game magazines and websites to outdo one another. Looks like The Mega Man Network has cast the first stone this year with, “Mega Man X9 Announced a Day Early.” Oh, you almost got me there.

So, any favourite game-related tomfoolery you want to recall in honour of April's premiere?

Related Links:

Where, Specifically, Did The Street Fighter Movie Go Wrong?
Licensing Tragedies: Malibu's Street Fighter Comic
The Five Characters You Won't See in Street Fighter IV

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Posted Mar 31 2009, 10:07 PM

Filed under: street fighter ii, fan stuff, nadia oxford, egm, prank, sheng long, april fools

Comments

Roto13 said:

April Fools jokes that aren't started and finished on April Fool's are cheating.

EGM was the king of April Fool's jokes. Now it's all on the interwebs and it's usually pretty bad. They're mostly just lies without anything really interesting about them. Sometimes there's a Photoshopped box art or something (like the first thing that's shown when a new game is announced is the box art) but that's about it.

I figure I just won't post any game news tomorrow because most of it will be hateful lies.

April 1, 2009 12:16 AM

LBD "Nytetrayn" said:

Actually, on X9, it seems someone was trying to prank us (and other MM sites), hence the extremely tongue-in-cheek manner in which the post was written.

But that doesn't matter now, as we've <a href="www.themmnetwork.com target="_new">tossed Mega Man to the curb</a>, and found a <em>real</em> hero to worship.

April 1, 2009 1:33 AM

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