Hailing from San Diego, Jay “Viscant” Snyder is truly one of the godfathers of Marvel as we know it. When you’re given one of the most unrestrained sandbox games ever created, molding tactical structure out of those tiny grains is no easy task. He’s one of the few people whose SRK posts i always go out of my way to read, and everyone i know does too.
Maj: What got you into fighting games and the tournament scene? Are you surprised that you’ve been a part of all this for as long as you have?
Viscant: What got me into the tournament scene was more circumstance than any kind of grand design. On the one hand, I’m a very competitive person and I’ve loved video games since I was a little boy. One of the earliest pictures of me that I have is a picture of me standing on a chair and a stack of phone books playing Donkey Kong while my Dad looks on and gives a thumbs up. So in some respects you could say that Street Fighter was just the next game.
But really it’s more than that. Circumstance played a big role in it. I started playing Marvel games and SFA2 in local hole-in-the-wall arcades. Eventually I could beat all my friends and anyone else who came in. I started getting the reputation as “that guy who’s unbeatable at this game.”
There are a lot of local dominators though; where I differ is that I grew up within driving distance of SHGL and some truly high level competition. So eventually someone told me “Yeah, you’re good at this game, but you can’t beat this Alex guy. He plays out at some arcade near Long Beach!” So I made a day to drive out there and beat him and claim the mythical title of greatest video game player to ever play. And Alex (who turned out to be Alex Valle) beat the holy tar out of me.
Instead of wanting to quit the game, I just wanted to play again until I could beat him. That’s what kept me going with Street Fighter for close to 15 years of competitive/tournament play. There’s always somebody better out there; there’s always another challenge.
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