Before summer started I had gone on a very big migration. To give you a hint of some of the better parts of my summer, here are some pictures.
and
I feel super rejuvenated now and for the few times I got online access over the summer I have been thinking....
Nostalgia - a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time
And yet I have seen some threads bashing fighting games for trying to be nostalgic all the time. Well, at least the way I understand the definition, of the word, anything you are referring to has to be in a different place and when it finally goes full circle it is app to say nostalgic. But then again I would disagree with this notion anyway since most people that complain about this don't really see the finer, subtle things that is like night and day to a more hardcore fan of fighting games.
Honestly I don't think I'm gonna work on it anymore. There are a bunch of other guides that does a much better job especially when most people are looking for character specific guides. I have the main points of what it means to play SF4 already and any further addition would just take too much time for not enough substance.
Finally I leave this perch with a question for you. Is there any more interest in having a PSN tournament for SF4 or MVC2? (I still haven't gotten BlazBlue Yet since I was gone the entire summer. Until I get BlazBlue that won't be an option). Leave your opinions please.
PS: If any GBers want to kick my ass in SF4 or MVC2, just message me or something. I am horrible at MVC2 and it feels like ages since I played SF4 so now would be a prime time to get some wins over me. I am so over playing random people online anymore.
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Ever since my last blog of any kind, I have been working on a project that I've been putting off for too long and of course videogames.
/// The biggest one as of late: UFC 2009
Even if you went through the tutorial and know what to do to get out, its damn near impossible when your opponent knows your trying to get out and just reverse all you attempts at getting out until you tire your self out for a submission or more GnP.
Having played Street FIghter 4 for the past couple of months and now this, I gotta say I am impressed. There are a lot of things they did right but after a couple weeks of playing it, I gotta say nice try, but you ain't no Street Fighter. Now, don't give me any bullshit saying this game is deeper or what not. The only thing that UFC 2009 does better than SF4 game mechanics wise is have a super kick ass tutorial so show everybody how "deep" the game is. To that I give them an applause and credit. However, this "deep" game is trounced by the lack of game balance. You could be winning a match and out of nowhere get suckered punched for a KO or get your throw revsersed for an instinct Flash submission even if you have full stamina bar. Honestly, there isn't much "skill" involved when everything boils down to twiching the right analog stick. Add to it the online is a game of who can mount the other person first (because even if you know what you're doing, if you get mounted its very hard to get out of), if I didn't have the damn connection error problem that never keeps track of my win/lose record.
But!!!!!! I will say there are some redeeming factors though, that does make this game good enough for a purchase if your friends are into it as well. The game is basically a big game of rock paper scissors, so spamming your knock out punch isn't going to do anything. The only real game of skill here is mindgames of rock paper scissors put to the theme of UFC and violence. Despite the fact that you don't have to have actual skill in doing the harder and instinct victory moves, it makes for great casual fun. I would definitaly not play online since since lag and people spamming instinct win moves are not a good combination, but I have bought the game and am still glad I did since I am having a blast with my friends.
///
The project that I have been working on since SF4 came out was of course writing up a guide for SF4. I started just taking random notes (while I played) here and there and before you know it, I have a skeleton to an actual guide. Then in week or two off after school ended, I used all my notes and put it in real words for all to see. I am still technically working on it since I have yet to finish all the characters and I would want to put the Pros @ work section in the similar vain to what I did with my previous guide. I hope you guys all love it, cause here comes the bad news.
My summer plans basically make it so that I cannot be in front of the computer or my PS3 as often as I was before. This means a somewhat goodbye to Giantbomb and gaming for a while as I would be lucky to be able to download the bombcast on a weekly basis even. I honestly don't know how many of you recognise this profile or care enough to miss me. Whether you agree with me or not, I had contributed and shared my love for the fighting game genre writing various guides and of course hosting the monthly PSN tournaments for SF4.
Well, at least until the end of summer there will not be another "Power of nothingness, Rage-quit demon...." tournament; so hopefully somebody takes the initiative and keep the PSN SF4 scene alive on Giant bomb by hosting thier own. Honestly its not that hard, all you need is an excel sheet to keep track of people and IMO league play (round robin) style is better than single or double elimination. Since anybody from all over the world can join these tournaments, lag will always be an issue hence going round robin by timezone (or if not that many people join and everybody has to play everybody) nobody would be eliminated in the first round placing them dead last when it was lag that killed them. Its an online tournament first of all so putting it in the same "hardcore" tournament setting as the real tournaments is IMO the wrong way to go. Treat it as a Bombing run and just tally up the scores at the end of the day to declare a winner. Even though I had only ran two GB tournaments (and yes we always seem to run into some problems), these are the lessons that I learned to bridge the gap so that even if you suck at the game, you will still have fun. Or crap all over my ideas and do it single elimination paring up people as far away as possible; as long some form of SF4 PSN community is alive I'll be happy.
Despite not having regular internet connection over the summer I will still continue to write the SF4 guide and update it when I can. Til then, time to hop off this perch and fly away; peace.
Can't seem to find matches, giving up and going to blog instead. But from the 5 matches i had in the past hour or so these are the flaws I still see.
You can still see who your opponent is and kick them out if your hosting. You get some super disconnected "tournament" system which may be great if I can fight enough matches to see how it works. (this will be edited once I get to explore this mode some more)
EDIT: So the reason why people can't find a match is because everybody is broken up by where they are in the "tournament" (1st match, 2nd match etc.) So if you're in the 2nd match but everybody else is in their 1st match you won't find a match. Like with any new system everybody starts off at zero right now, when any computer has more matches (data) to analyze everybody will be sorted out to their actual rank. Freakin Justin Wong still starts off with no points before his first battle. Overall I'd say this patch just fixes what should have been there already and doesn't actually add anything new.
On another note, the SF4 Patch did have some tweaks.
Fei Long's Chicken Wing kick has more start up frames now making all his infinites gone.
Zangief's Lariet has had its hitbox changed so that its smaller but doesn't have as much invincible frames.
WTF Capcom, I want to be able to save my own replays to see on my own FN console. Why the fuck is that so hard for you to understand?
The PS3 has the voting system? voting system? Are you on crack Capcom? AND the only videos that gets saved are the people in the top tournament. Sure that may be great if you want to see high level play (and the 360 version so fucking lucked out by being able to see the inputs of each player). But what most of us really want to see is our own matches. Yes they may not be super high level play, so don't make it public then. Seeing videos of our own matches raises our game since we can see our own flaws and fix them without playing it at the same time. But no, instead if anybody wants to really see their own videos they have to either point a camera at the screen like a bootleg movie or make us hook up a capture card. Honestly Capcom, I don't care about uploading the damn replay, I just care to save and see my own replay. At this rate if we are good enough to make it to the finals, then we can theoretically get to see and upload out own replay. Looking at the "manual" for the update, it seems even if you do win a tournament you can only upload your replay; as in the replay is saved on Capcom's servers. Fucking moronic!!!! Capcom, you can save a lot of money by letting us save our own replays on our own consoles. But no, instead we can only upload one video at a time and it only is going to be one video since it always saves over the older one if we upload a new one.
Ok, to end this on a positive note, I will say this. Capcom has made a new system of evaluating how good a player is. The BP system got broken pretty quick when the upper players had no incentive (or every disincentive) to keep playing. The new system will track disconnectors and is double blind. You cannot change the parameters to one round 30 seconds BS, so something was done right. Despite, having the replay function totally botched (I honestly want to see for myself if lag killed me or my own mistiming which would be great if I could save my own replay and see all the inputs as well), and the tournament mode doesn't really feel like a tournament. Hopefully CP and GP points will be a better indicator of how good a player you are instead of the abandoned BP score.
To reiterate: Good things:
New evaluation system (may be crap, but I have hopes for it for now)
Double Blind selection
Disconnecters are tracked
Things that could have been done so much better that I honestly think Capcom shouldn't have even dropped these key words to get our hopes up.
super disjointed "tournament" system
replay function
Still being able to kick people in lobby (you shouldn't be able to see who you're figthing til the match starts)
Any difference that the PS3 and 360 consoles get. Its like Capcom wants to give the flame war people some jet fuel. Both voting and seeing the inputs of both players should be in both consoles.
So quick update, I've been going back and forth on trying my hand in the local tournament scene for SF4. Some days I feel like I'm the King while others I develop stupid fingers syndrome. I never have done the tourney scene before but seeing as SF4 has (hopefully) brought in so many new players a $10 buy in to spend my weekend afternoons doesn't seem to bad once a month (I only do the ultra local tournies).
Anyway, so I went to my local arcade where the next tourney is held (for scoping purposes) and thought I should get used to their sticks. Goddamn, I looked like a scrub under the different sticks. My stick is a HRAP3 (Super Japanese configuration), but the arcade was of course american with the circle gate and stick shift lever. Not only that, moving the stick almost felt like move the stick shift lever of an old truck. Oh wells, I never expected to win that tourney anyway, for me it's going to be about the experience.
With midterms looming around I can never seem to spend as much time as I want with SF4 (I wonder how much time the Pros spend playing SF4?), but after being raped at the arcades today I came home feeling I should redeem myself online. Because of last weeks midterms and another one next week (and I'm hosting the Power of Nothingness tournament,) I thought I should have to get over my stupid fingers syndrome I had this entire week (and especially before the tourneys start this month <like my own>), and regain some of my lost BP points. I had a initial goal of hitting 3k, but stupid fingers stopped that and made me lose even more points. I thought I should at least redeem myself to get 2.5k and really focus on getting over stupid fingers. Slowly and surely, my combos came out and made smart choices. Then came my very last game which:
At first I just saw the points redistribution and I had a big smile on my face. Not only that though, I then thought about that opponents skill, then I really LMAO since I had just realized I beat a BP farmer. Whats more was he messaged me and I LMAO even more. Seeing as how that made my day after a lousey week of playing, I decided to send it in a website that keeps track of sore losers. Apparently this little troll loves any attention he can get; but for some reason I can't help but to feed into it.
Last words: For those of you that liked my previous guide, I am writing one up for SF4 but so many things are delaying it as well as the fact that I feel I should wait til my tournament is over to see if what I wrote (so far) is actually valid and helpful. Or most liekly it'll just give me more things to think and write about before I finally publish it online.
Ok, after reading so many horror stories of sticks breaking down and people finding out they don’t like fighting games after all, I have mainly been off the boards for two reasons. One is I don’t want to get banned for calling everybody out there for making stupid decisions like spending way too much on a stick or just general complaints on the game. The other thing is that I have been playing SF4 myself and realistically don’t find enough other fighting game fanatics on the GB boards compared to other sites lets say.
First thing first, I just want to say I had totally failed and lucked out all in a single week of the SF4 release. I had planned to get the game at launch, but it didn’t happen. However I lucked out and found an online store that had the game and a stick as well.
I have my set up of the stick and monitor to be like an arcade cabinet. The Stick is resting on the box which is resting on my table. At that height I can stand to play with the sticks at a reasonable height. Also the monitor is so high up that it actually is at eye level. Overall this makes for a set up that reminds me of the arcades.
On to the stick itself, the stick is called Real Arcade Pro 3 made by Hori. This stick has Sanwa stick but Hori buttons. The plus side though is that this stick is real mod friendly with the same quick disconnects as the official SF4 merch.As you can see the base is nice and wide to that my entire wrist and then some has all the room it needs to rest. Holding the stick in a claw/wineglass fashion, I no longer risk super giant callous on my thumbs but rather arthritis instead.
The buttons may not be top of the line, but they will do for now. Perhaps when SF4: Super Off the Hook Tournament In your Face edition gets released in a year or two (or any other big fighting game), I would be more inclined to upgrade. I have seen people complain about the layout, but I simply don’t get it. Sure it may be different from what the arcades set up may be. A simple counting fact of seeing 8 buttons instead of 6 is a giant indicator. But the slight curve is actually welcomed to me since it follows the natural curve of my hand. To each their own I guess.
For future reference I probably will mod the stick, but it makes little to no sense to write about a stick as a review after you mod it. I plan to use this stick in its original form for at least a year to test out the durability. Then any modifications I make I should be able to tell the difference immediately. I mean after all why stop at the buttons? Perhaps I want to put a new kick ass graphic art face plate and even spray the overall box Candy red or blue topping it off with clear coat for extra shininess...
I just want to say thank you for all those that either PM me or made comments to my guide. If it wasn't for some recognition that people actually appreciate and read my work, I wouldn't have even fixed the typos in my guide much less expand on it. I do read all your comments and PMs, but unless you had a very specific question I generally will not reply since I just don't know what to write.
My first expansion for the guide, I have added a video of the Pros at work and a somewhat long write up explaining all the facets of the game and why its a high level of gameplay. Expect more similar expansions write ups just showing all the theory I have written out.
You know I've had nights when I woke up in a totally different position from when I slept I almost wonder what the heck was I doing when I was asleep. Well at least I don't have it as bad as this girl.
yeah I'm pretty sure this is just a music video for some band, but the artistic merit behind it is so good that the music is all background to the real attraction (sorry for those of you that actually follows this band).
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This is not a technical manual nor do i want it to be a technical manual. The only purpose it serves is to give beginners a crash course on fighting games and some perspective from someone that has played fighting game for a while now.
Depending on how much reception is gets, I may write more, or it just may be dead as is.
After hearing the bombcast for this week, I have come to the realization that Fighting games as a whole is as Ryan puts it, only becoming more niche. With constant people on the forums asking for help lately and enough email bombardment to make it on the bombcast emails even, it seems we are at revitalization of the fighting game genre it seems.
However I realize I am old, when there are so many new young gamers that are trying to get into the fighting game genre now.
So just as Jeff had briefly tried to explain to Brad on the bombcast about fighting game mechanics; I am going to make a general guide that will hopefully help out those that truly need it.
To be original my guide will not be specific to any one fighting game so it will not have how to do fighting moves or how to be cheap, etc. What I aim to do is give the readers a crash course to the fighting game genre as a whole.
So while I am going to take what Brad asked on the bombcast and what I think most people would have a hard time getting heads around as a starting point; I am definately open to any questions that any noobs to the fighting game genre has. I will probably be done enough to get a first publish draft by the end of the week; til then chime in on anything you feel you don't get about fighting games, and I'll see how much I can incorporate it in the guide.
EDIT: My guide is now up and I've attached it to just about every fighting game I have ever played, just because.
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