Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Street Fighter has always been embraced by a more urban culture. Go to cities like New York, or L.A  to find the top casual/money matches.  With Hip-Hop originating from those cities it is not surprising to find that Hip-Hop, and Street Fighter combines occasionally.  I present some fun rap music videos all relating to Street Fighter.  They are actually pretty well done. Enjoy the music, the culture, and the nods to the hardcore Street Fighter community these songs reference.
 
*I did not make any of these videos*
 
 
  
 
  
 

 Serious Blogging Episode 2: Save your money!  

   
I look at games for what they are, and there are some games that make SO MUCH MONEY that really should not. Of course I am going to use Madden as my example. You see children (quoting Three Dog if you did not catch that) our society loves to buy these games, but it begs the question... WHY? Why buy a recycled series that almost does nothing for you. If you like these games that is great, but do not keep buying them one year after the other. What I mean is, if you bought '08, it is so similar to '09 that you do not need to buy '09. Why not wait for '010, because hoprefully by then they have made enough changes to spend $59.99 on the product. Yes I bashed Madden last blog and I have the power to do so again. 
 
  

                                                                                                               This is a good way to asplain it!

This is obvious for most behemoth sport realistic games (i.e. NHL, NCAA, NBA, NFL, and so on). The reason why I chose Madden is because it makes SO MUCH MONEY. They are practically stealing candy from a baby! Now be advised, I am not telling you what to buy, I am just setting out the circumstances, and if I were a frequent buyer of realistic sport behemoth games, I would want more for my money. You can spend your money on it if you really want to, because odds are if you bought '01 you bought all the following. I am trying to say that you should demand more for your money, especially if you like the series.  This all brings me to a very iffy bit of opinion: Super Street Fighter IV.  
 
OBVIOUSLY Street Fighter IV was an amazing game, but will it be in the same dilemma that <insert stupid sports game> is in? Why not? People bought the hell out of SFII and all of its remakes, I am even guilty of buying SSF2THDR. Look how many add ons (this version does not include tournament and other SFII advancements) this went through to get to that. Can't SSFIV be taken care of through DLC people? It is too much money to buy 5 different versions of SFIV! Yet people are still going to buy it. You know what that tells Capcom? MAKE MORE!  

Yesterday Capcom announced Super Street Fighter 4, an announcement that has fans of the series asking numerous questions. Well, for starters, this new installment is going to be a brand new title and not a piece of downloadable content that can be downloaded from Xbox Live or Playstation Network. Apparently, there are enough changes to this new installment that warrant it being its own game instead of an update. The first big thing introduced is an additional 8 characters tacked onto the original roster. Characters T.Hawk and Dee Jay who were MIA in SF4 are making their appearances in SSF4. Secondly, all of the characters are going to be re-tweaked and re-balanced in order to even up the matches as closely as possible. Characters will be given more super and ultra attacks in addition to the ones they already have, in order to give more options in battle and to add some variety. Also, the online multiplayer is going to be drastically improved.

Other than that, not much else is going to change. There will be some additional stages and I assume some new tracks. What will win some fans over on this deal is that you will not have to dish out another $60 to get your hands on this newest installment. There will also be some sort of secret bonus for SF4 owners when you purchase SSF4 as an incentive to keep your copy of SF4.

Personally, I was originally set against this being a brand new game, and part of me still is. However, if the price of this new game is reasonable enough then I may be able to look past it; and from the sounds of it, SSF4 is definitely going to be a refined experience.

We can expect to play Super Street Fighter 4 in Spring of 2010. Till then, check out the link below for more details:
 
http://tgs.gamespot.com/story/6230625/super-street-fighter-iv-impressions-first-look?tag=topslot;thumb;1

Fighting games are not my thing. While I have played some Tekken in the past, some Soul Calibur here and there, I've never really been into the learning of moves and tactics. Instead it's been more about trying to beat friends in local multiplayer while pretending I know what I'm doing. Ultimately playing such game often seemed to come down to a meta-game of sorts, involving disguised button mashing.

The release of Street Fighter IV brought about a renewed interest in the fighting game genre within the gaming community. While for many it was the latest fighting game released for the home consoles, the generation of gamers who grew up in arcades full of 2D fighters saw it as more than that. A generation who are well represented by gaming journalists both on the web and in print.

Due to this, I was always a little suspicious of the coverage given to Street Fighter IV. As with all news stories, reviews and opinions, I interpreted the coverage with my relationship to fighting games (and often that of the journalist) at the forefront of my mind. In general coverage seemed to have a lot of hype behind it due the games strong history. A history I personally have no connection with. So despite the strong reviews and positive buzz surrounding the game, I dismissed it.

That wasn't quite the end of it though. Recently, over the Easter break, some friends back home had started playing Tekken again on the PS2. While I've always had the edge (being the best at disguising my button mashing, and having some knowledge of the move set at least), this time I didn't do as well as I would have liked. This started to make me consider the fighting genre again. Without going into detail this eventually led to me downloading Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD remix (Based on it being the cheapest option, and therefore the least lost if I really didn't like it).

Turns out it didn't really change my stance on the genre. I spent some time in the training mode, tried to learn the special moves, look into some of the strategy involved, but all it did was confirm my suspicion that there was some kind of secret knowledge required, hidden from the general population. So I put it on easy and went into the arcade mode and was awful at it (yeah, easy difficulty - That's what I mean by fighting games not being my thing). Not particularly enjoying the experience, I wasn't too keen on replaying matches over and over either. The end result being a failure to make any real progress.

A few days of frustration went by, and some friends came over. Together we worked through the arcade mode and made much more progress than I would have alone, as I would have given up. I was astounded by how my friends were doing better than me (with a similar level of fighting game experience). About the 6th match into the arcade mode, my friend suggested that I was thinking about it too much. This was, of course, exactly my problem, and returning to pretending to be able to play fighting games worked much better than trying to learn.

While I'm not going to be taking the game online anytime soon (read as: ever), it at least made the game a little more enjoyable. Even if I am still only on the easiest difficulty. Even if fighting games still really aren't my thing, and probably won't ever be. At least now I know for sure, and can filter gaming coverage as before without doubting whether or not I'd given the genre a fair chance. I also realise that considering myself as someone who enjoys gaming a lot doesn’t mean I have to master everything. All that does is take the fun out of playing games.

Well I finally finished Grand Theft Auto IV today. I breezed through most of the game, but i failed that last misson something like 20 times. The bike section had so many hidden bumps and invisible walls that i ran into, and the few times i sucessfully jumped onto the helicopter, that douchebag Jimmy P shot me down with his rocket launcher, usually in one shot. And why in the world did my restarts always start at night time, regadless of when you originally started the mission? I couldn't see that stupid boat at night, thus couldn't hit it with my machine guns. anyway, its finally over. Now i've got about a week to finish Mirrors Edge, Bioshock AND Chrono Trigger before my own copy of Fallout 3 comes in the mail, which will render me completely useless until i go back to college.