Zella

I find it necessary for a fighting game like Injustice 2, where there aren't rounds but instead each fighter gets 2 health bars. The clash function allows you to try even the field a bit after losing your first health bar. It is very costly too, you only get one per match and to really regain much health with it you need to spend a good portion of your super meter. Even if you spend no super meter than at best you just break the opponent's combo, or you could take decent damage if the opponent spends their meter. Also like any "cheap" thing in a game, especially a fighting game, nothing is stopping you from using it yourself.

From less of a gameplay mechanic point of view clash also works to help bring the comic book style battles to life in the game. Banter between comic book characters is classic and clash allows for them to naturally integrate that into the battle, and make it a focus rather than just having the characters banter over the sound effects as they fight.

I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum kind of. I wouldn't say I am a fighting game expert by any means, but do consider myself fairly experienced with them and interested in them. While I am planning to grab Injustice 2 at launch I don't plan on going too deep into it. Both Injustice 1 and MKX I enjoyed but never to much of a competitive degree, the general play style for them also tends to really go against what I enjoy and am good at in a fighting game. With that said NRS games let you do dope combos and look great so yeah I still find them fun. Only planning to do the single player stuff and the occasional lobby with duders.

I will also be the one to plug the official unofficial Giantbomb Fighting Games Community/Thread: Fighting Games General EX Plus α

You can find links to the different PSN/Steam/etc. groups and a link to our discord server there. We are pretty active, with game lobbies running every night or two. Pretty varied interests in games too, lots of Guilty Gear players, SF players, NRS players, etc.

@mocbucket62: SFV's story mode wasn't paid DLC, I mean unless you count the cost of the game. It was free but released a few months after launch.

I don't love the art style but think it is fine. For those saying it doesn't look like the comics I would disagree. A lot of the modern Marvel comics are not that highly stylized and the characters shown so far fit the style fairly closely.

My laptop's track pad is off center. Well it is off the center of the full body, but is centered for the main keyboard portion (my laptop also has a num pad, so the trackpad is centered for the non-num pad portion). I don't mind it at all. I don't use it that often because I have a mouse for when I am at home, but when I am using it the position doesn't bug me. Not sure if I adapted to it or my preferred hand position just worked out well but I like to have my right hand fairly angled towards the laptop when using the trackpad so having it off to the left ends up working well as I can rest my palm on the laptop while using the trackpad.

Another vote for the HyperX Cloud from me. Picked them up maybe a year and a half ago and they have been great. Sound quality is good for both games and listening to music or movies. They feel fantastic and I have worn them for hours at a time without any real discomfort (I sometimes rest one headphone on an ear so I'm not totally isolated from my surroundings and that can be a little painful after extended use). The cord is also incredibly long, and even more so with the extender so I can plug them into my speakers and then just walk around my entire room without them pulling. Removable mic is a plus too.

Day one I think it will be pretty tough if not impossible to buy off the shelf. Give it two to four weeks and I am pretty confident you will be able to grab one fairly easily at retail where I live. I think this is just Nintendo trying to create more hype with the scarcity, and try to prevent a larger amount of negative Launch Day impressions (not saying the Switch will be bad but just that more units in customer hands means more possibility for more people complaining online).

My thoughts exactly. At first Show Yourself seemed a little bland but as I listen to it more I've been appreciating it for being a fun straight forward strong to groove to. Still think Sultan's Curse is much better but I also think Sultan's Curse might be one of their best songs ever so that says a lot. Super excited to hear more off the album, really like the more proggy instruments with the more modern Mastodon cleaner vocals.

Other new stuff for 2017 I've dug is:

John Garcia - The Coyote Who Spoke in Tongues: In general a totally solid album, but man the acoustic covers of Green Machine, El Rodeo, Gardenia, and Space Cadet are wonderful. Gardenia in particular is just a totally different song but still fits the whole desert feel to it.

War Baby - Coma Kid EP: One of my favourite (semi) local bands. Modern Grunge/Noise/whatever from Vancouver. I adored their 2015 album Death Sweats and this EP just gives more of what I love. Driving bass lines, crazy distorted guitar, hard hitting drums and a great mix of cleanish vocals and screams (like the punk/grunge kind, not the metal kind really). Seriously check them and their kind of insane videos out.

I watched Kingsglaive and Brotherhood before hand so the beginning stuff I had no trouble with. I would say to watch at least Kingsglaive at some point while playing though, it does help flesh out the story and while not a wonderful movie in the classic sense it is pretty damn cool.

The game certainly has some plot issues in the latter end but I still say to go ahead and play it. Are there some plots holes or unexplained things, yeah but I didn't find them that detrimental to my experience. I do think the overall plot of most FF games is dumb and not very good in general though and that the story enjoyment more comes from the character interactions and set pieces so the plot issues in XV felt similar to the same issues I see in many of the 3d FF games.

From Marvel I would be excited to get:

• Winter Solider, could use guns as specials and also his BIONIC AAARRRM
• Daredevil, pretty likely as he is the biggest netflix character and can design around his batons/grappling hook
• Magik, sounds like they will include some X-Men and I think she could work really well as she has variety in her skill set of using magic, summoning limbo demons, and using the giant soul sword, maybe even have her level 3 be her calling in the other New Mutants

From Capcom I would like to see:

• Rashid, his move set would translate really easily into Marvel and he one of the few new characters from Capcom
• Necalli, my main in SFV and I also think his moves could work well in Marvel (think stomps as launchers, seismos as OTGs) and is also new to Capcom
• New Dante, YES I SAID IT, I think he would work incredibly well in Marvel with the whole grappling hook style of Rebellion in DmC, also you know you want Old Dante to be able to fight New Dante
• Leon, Switch him out for Chris and change up his move set a bit

While I can see Disney making Capcom make MvC4 without any X-Men due to the whole MCU stuff I also think they are smart enough to know that only costs them money. Disney is the one profiting off people buying the game so while it is a possibility that the game will help keep the X-Men popular while Fox owns the movie license, they are still going to sell more with those characters in the game. Marvel Comics is also highlighting the X-Men at the end of this year and next year, with the next event having them as central characters and with a bunch of new series starting, with the general theme being that it is a rejuvenation for the characters. The profits from including the X-Men far outweigh the potential costs of forcing them to be excluded.