Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Hello Esaka

Being a 360 owner isn't easy if you play fighting games. You'll go into an IRC channel for the first time and ask if anyone's up for some games on XBL, only to find out that nearly everyone owns a PS3 instead.

Don't let that opening paragraph fool you: this isn't about console wars or any petty bullshit like that. If I had my way, I'd have a PS3 in addition to my 360 and I'd be mashing Gundam netplay day and night.

It's just nice that, for once, being a 360 owner pays off.

PS3 owners are going to have to wait until next month to get their hands on EX Kyo, due to a "technical problem" (whatever the hell that means). 360 owners, on the other hand, were able to purchase him yesterday.

I've already had a tremendous amount of fun with EX Kyo, and I haven't even used him against a live opponent yet. If you ask me, he's stronger than regular Kyo due to having a better neutral game (thanks in no small part to his rekkas) and better HD combos. I may even go as far as to call him... the best character in the game. But! If it turns out to be someone else (my second bet is EX Iori), I'll gladly eat those words.

But god damn, just look at this. He has ways out of his own safejumps for fuck's sake.



Don't worry, I've already asked Santa for a tripod.

Friday, December 2, 2011

KOF Training: Month 1

Well, XIII has only been out for two weeks, so I guess this technically isn't a month, but whatever.

Mostly just been grinding out HD combos in training mode like a real Mexican. I have Andy's Zaneiken -> Kuuhadan break loop down pat, as well as the confirms for it. Not terribly difficult stuff, mind you, but very useful.

For Shen I've just been practicing random HD combos, though I honestly don't think I'm even going to use most of them. I also am fundamentally against ending combos with explosion, but whatever.

I actually feel pretty silly over my troubles with Vice's HD combos because I entirely forgot that C shoulder combos into D Decide. Whoops. Well, now I know again and it's really piss easy.


I just finished playing 98 online for the first time in months. I played (and lost) about 40 games against Laban, which is typical fare whenever we play. While I know my sense of spacing is still weak in KOF (and bad habits carrying over from Guilty Gear isn't helping with that), I do feel that I am improving. I just need to play more, which isn't easy when you can't travel and your internet sucks.

After our matches, Laban told me to fundamentally change the way I approach my spacing game. This advice struck a chord with me because a large part of the reason KOF appealed to me when I first tried it last year was because it felt like a game that could change my fundamentals for the better. Of course, it would be much easier to adjust my playstyle if I knew exactly how my options were supposed to be used, but that's something I guess I'll have to work on.

It's times like this that I regret ever playing Guilty Gear. Had I started playing CVS2 when I first started playing fighting games instead, I'd not only have played against much better players, I'd be a much better player myself. Not to say that everything I've learned is fundamentally wrong, but unlearning 3.5 years of experience isn't an easy thing to do. But, if I didn't think I could do it, I wouldn't be trying. Here's to hoping I can play a lot of KOF this month.

Monday, November 28, 2011

~ KOF Is Here Again ~

Now that I'm able to practice KOFXIII, I don't think I'm going to be playing much of anything else for awhile.

Having not played it since April, I had forgotten a lot. While it didn't take me long to remember HD combos, it took me a few days to remember how to hit people. Once I went to RAMNation the gears started turning again and by the end of the night I was right where I left off months ago; mashing j.CD and hitting people out of stupid rolls.

One of the things I like about KOFXIII (and one of the reasons I fear for its life in the US) is that you can't bullshit your way out of the neutral game. It's not like UMVC3 where you just teleport or AE where you just divekick; you need to know your active and inactive hitboxes in order to win. You see a lot of CVS2-style footsies where people walk/run forward and then block low, which is exactly how I like the neutral game to be. The only real caveat to this is hops, but those are easy to beat as long as you know they're coming.

The one major problem I had with the arcade version of KOFXIII was that many of the characters simply weren't fleshed out. They had a few go-to pokes, maybe a good jump in, and one or two HD combos worth doing. What made that particularly annoying was that you had characters on the other end of the spectrum who simply had too many options (K' comes to mind) and then you had characters who were good for stupid reasons (Raiden and Elisabeth), neither of which were particularly fun to fight against.

Although the system changes made in the console version were all for the better, what really sets it apart from the arcade version is the revamped roster. So far, I can't say I've seen a single character that's as incomplete as arcade Mai or as braindead as arcade K'. The jury is still out, of course, but things are looking good.

Other significant improvements over the arcade version are the fixed width of standing inactive hitboxes and increased meter gain. Due to the width of the standing inactive hitboxes in arcade KOFXIII, crossups were particularly ambiguous and sometimes the attacking player would land on the side opposite of which he hit. This was particularly annoying for characters who confirm into command normals since, well, you don't know which side you're on until you hit the ground.

Increased meter gain is self descriptive, but it's easily the best change made to the system. Once people start doing HD combos with consistency, matches are going to be considerably shorter.


The port is arcade accurate and looks fucking amazing on a decent display, but it is lacking in features. Training mode is ripped straight from the arcade version, which is great if you want to practice combos and nothing else. However, the lackluster action settings don't make up for the lack of a record function, making it more or less useless for anything else. NEVERMIND, it does have a record function, you just have to manually map unused buttons to record and playback. I wasn't able to find it in the training mode menu and just assumed it wasn't there. I never had to set my buttons yet (just watched other people do it) so I didn't notice that the record and playback commands were there. MAH BAD.

Another annoying thing is that the game uses The Wrong Kind of button config, where you hover over a button and scroll through a list of commands to map it. The Right Kind of button config can be found in Guilty Gear and Blazblue, where you hover over a command and press the corresponding button to map it. In a tournament environment where everyone uses their own controller, this saves a tremendous amount of time and frustration. The fact that a game released in 2011 has the functionality of a game released in 2001 is just irritating and it's an appalling show of laziness on SNKP's part.

As predicted, the netcode is garbage. They announced just a few days before the game's release that it was using the same netcode as KOFXII. I was able to find one person with a 3 bar connection, and even then there were at least 5-6 frames of lag. Let's not even touch 1 or 2 bar connections.

On a final note, I'm pretty irritated this port doesn't support 4:3 native, when not only does the arcade version of KOFXIII support it, but so does the console port of KOFXII! Once again, SNKP shows just how clueless they are when it comes to porting games. At least they didn't force a sprite filter like they did with KOFXI, lol.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

HERE COMES DAREDEVIL

I've been saying I'm gonna change characters for a long time now. At first it was just for the sake of trying a different flavor, but now it's gone a bit beyond that.

The thing is, I've been trying to find a character that would force me to improve in the ways I desperately need to; namely, a character that would force me to become more familiar with the intricacies of the GGXX engine as well as change the way I make decisions on defense.

And to be perfectly honest: I don't think Johnny plays to my strengths as a player to begin with. Sure, I've gotten better at poking and controlling space in general (airthrows, ho!), but I don't think I can make people respect me to the point I need to in order to mount a formidable offense. To top it all off, I can still occasionally get caught mashing 2HS when I have no better ideas.

I've had stints with Eddie, ABA and Ky, but I just didn't see myself improving in the ways I need to with any of them. Eddie and Ky weren't gonna teach me how to improve my defense game, that's for damn sure, and ABA was gonna teach me to play offense like an idiot.


HERE COMES DAREDEVIL: Enter Baiken



If you had asked me a year or even a week ago to list every character in the game in order of which I'd like to play them, Baiken would have placed near the bottom. I mean, her combos are all the same, her oki is too rewarding for me to play her, and ew she's a GIRL.

But once I got past all that, I realized she's a perfect fit. She's an inherently defensive character and a technical one to boot. I'm gonna struggle at first, of course, but eventually I think I'll see myself playing better than I ever have. I'm already well on my way to that with Johnny, but I think Baiken is gonna force me to get even better. I won't have Johnny pokes, but I'll have way better defensive options and oki. It's gonna be a hell of a change of pace, but it'll be for the better.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Shitty Blog Post #3

This blog hasn't exactly gotten off to the start I wanted it to. Between real life shit, joining the military and catching up with old friends, I just haven't had much time to play videogames, let alone give a flying fuck about this blog. I did have a small gathering at my house a few weeks back, but that's about all the games I've played since I last posted an entry.

That being said, I do still plan to pick up KOFXIII and I do intend to keep playing fighting games for as long as I'm motivated to improve; I just won't be nearly as dedicated to them as I thought I would be a few months ago. Which is fine by me, considering I have more important things to deal with at the moment.

I'm gonna try to make it to the GGAC tournaments at Southtown Arcade as much as I can between now and when I leave in May, but it's become damn expensive to get around the Bay. I may very well end up biking all the way from the bottom of the peninsula to downtown SF at this rate, lol.

In any case, stay tuned as I do intend to finish those articles I promised; it's just going to take longer than I said they would.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Shitty Blog Post #2

I don't want to give up my old consoles (namely the Saturn) once I get my new monitor. In order to use them on a VGA monitor, however, I'm going to need to get an upscaler. The more I looked around, the more the prospects of getting a SCART RGB -> VGA upscaler seemed bleak. There's always the XRGB3, but that thing costs as much as a candy cab.

Then I stumbled upon a new upscaler made by the same company as the XRGB3, Micomsoft. It's physically smaller and has less inputs/outputs, but it'll (probably) still get the job done. Price hasn't been announced yet, but they've said it's going to be cheaper than the XRGB3. The best part? It's called the fucking FLAME MEISTER.

So yeah, once I get my FLAME MEISTER, I'll be sure to let you all know just how good it is. It looks promising, though. If it upscales comparably to the XRGB3, keeps the lag below 1 frame and emulates scanlines, it'll be a winner in my eyes.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Netplay 101: Prologue

As you all know, I'm hyped for the console ports of KOFXIII and Gundam: EXVS. There is one thing, however, that is eerily looming over my anticipation of both releases. You may have already guessed from the title: I am talking about netcode.

Looking at the track records of both SNKP and Bandai-Namco, I can't help but be a little scared DEATHLY AFRAID of both games having shitty netcode. The 360 ports of KOF98UM and Garou: Mark of The Wolves have some of the worst netcode of any videogame I've ever played. If you didn't know any better, you could be forgiven for thinking you were playing them on a Dreamcast via dialup. It's that bad. Tekken 6 didn't exactly set the world on fire with its netcode, either.

KOFXIII is only a little over a month away from release, and there's still no word on how good the netcode is, or even if it's rollback or delay based. I and everyone else that's buying the game are going in completely blind as to what the online experience is going to be like. While I'll be disappointed if the netcode sucks, at least I'll still have arcades to play at. But what about the rest of the non-Japanese world?

While you may be able to live without netplay in Japan, it's essential for the rest of us. It's a good way to play with local players on short notice as well as a good way to expose yourself to unfamiliar matchups. I'll go more in depth on this at a later time, but needless to say netcode matters a whole hell of a lot if you have no other way to play.

The question we should all be asking fighting game developers is this: if I can't play my friends just 20 miles away without the game turning into a slideshow, then what's the point of even including online play? 

The excuses of "Japan has the best internet in the world" and "they're making games primarily for their domestic audience" are bullshit. First and foremost, a good connection doesn't fix shitty netcode. If you've ever watched a Godsgarden SSF4 netplay stream, you know that they conduct lag tests before every match (both players are in Japan, mind you). On average, they lag anywhere between 2 and 6 frames.

Additionally, if a game's being released in the US market, it's not unreasonable to expect netcode that performs acceptably on American internet connections. While GGPO is probably too much to ask for in most situations, could we at least start to see some steps in the right direction? Can we just phase out delay based netcode already? We won't miss it. Really, we won't.

I realize that there will always be a market for bad ports because people will always buy them, but this shit has really gotten out of hand. SSF4 and MVC3 both have bad netcode (MVC3 especially) and they're the two most popular fighting games in the US right now. This may give our friends in Japan who make these wonderful games the impression that either the netcode is fine or that we just don't care if it's bad; neither is true. If KOFXIII has bad netcode, I'll be playing KOF98 on GGPO instead. If Gundam has bad netcode, I'm going to rage because I'm getting a PS3 just for that game. Also, it's going to cost $100+ to import, lol.

Bottom line: if a game is unplayable online, it's unplayable to the majority of the world. Online play doesn't have to be perfect (nor is it ever going to be), but it should be good enough that you can still learn from it. It's clear that Japan wants to sell fighting games to the West; what's unclear is whether or not they care enough to give us a decent product we can play online. Hardcore fans of fighting games will buy them no matter what, but what reason does Joe Gamer have to play SSF4 over the latest COWADOODY if he can't even play it online? Plus, isn't Joe Gamer exactly who they're trying to win over by releasing these games in the West?

To be continued...

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Shitty Blog Post #1

So I've decided on my recording setup for KOF and Gundam. It's modest, but it'll get the job done. 
While I know I'm going to rage at the colors (especially the blacks), it beats letterboxing. Also, that first part can be taken way out of context. I should be more careful.

I'll probably play my own music over the replays for Gundam, since I don't want to listen to ANIME OPS, and neither should you.

On a different note, if you're reading through the previous posts and noticing that they've been edited, it's probably because they have been. That last post in particular was a trainwreck because I went semicolon crazy for no reason.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Chipp Chipp Chippin

A friend of mine wants to learn Guilty Gear and the character he's decided on is Chipp. Likewise, I've been learning a bit about Chipp myself so I can help teach him.

I've always considered Chipp to be a bit of a weird character. In a game where most characters have both basic okizeme (meaty normals/projectiles) as well as more advanced stuff (fuzzy guards, short hop mixups, etc.), Chipp doesn't really have any of that. Instead, his oki is almost entirely based around safejumps and ambiguous crossups. In that sense, he almost reminds me of a KOF character.

Still, Chipp's a pretty fun character. TK Alpha Blade combos are pretty satisfying, especially since they feel so weird and hard at first. It's also pretty great to be able to actually do run in -> throw mixups because of how fast he runs. And, last but not least, catching someone at full screen with Gamma Blade is probably a hell of a gratifying experience. I wouldn't know, since I haven't done it on anything other than a training mode dummy. BUT I CAN ONLY IMAGINE.

I'll probably keep grinding Chipp for the next week just to stay sharp. Past that though, I don't think he'll even be a secondary character of mine. I think I'm just gonna stick with Johnny and maybe keep Eddie as a secondary to cover the stupid matchups (Potemkin and Zappa).

Actually, what the hell am I talking about? I don't even play this game anymore.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Back in Action

I went to NCI on Saturday. While I didn't enter any tournaments for a few reasons (broke, headache, generally don't care), I did finally get my stick back. The first order of business?

The most important mod you can do to your stick.


Perhaps koogy and haunts will appreciate the free advertising, even if it means sharing space with a 90's skater brand that features ANIME GIRLS.

I hope some people laugh and give me a thumbs up, but more importantly I hope some people RAGE. Also, I'm so glad I discovered the macro lens on my camera. Not my fault it's so fucking vague! What the hell is a flower supposed to mean to me? Should've read the manual, lol.
While it was nice to play Guilty Gear with some people I hadn't played with in awhile, the highlight was easily playing Gundam NEXT on a cabinet for the first time. Oh, and Gamecenter EX is a pretty cool place. Good games, lots of space, lots of console cabs for new games that get console exclusive revisions. If you're in Norcal, you owe it to yourself to go at least once. I've still yet to go to Southtown, but I'm gonna try to make it this weekend for the KOFXIII ranbat.

Speaking of which, I did play one match of KOFXIII on Saturday — though I really didn't want to — and I paid for it dearly. I really hate going in to that game cold, lol. You think you're okay, and then the other guy does a fucking EX DP; and even if you manage to safe jump, you miss the fucking HD activation link (which isn't even hard, lol). Console release really can't come soon enough.

Now that I'm back home, I must say it's nice to be able to practice GG again. Even if I'm not really going to play the game for much longer, it's still therapeutic to be able to go back and grind training mode; I can't tell you how many lazy summer days going back to 2008 I've spent doing just that. Oh, and I'm learning a new character. I think I've already told one person, but I'll just give you the hint that he covers my two most hated matchups.

I might go back and edit that last entry tonight, maybe tomorrow. I don't know. It was something I wanted to do at the time, but now that I'm writing more important articles it's taken a back seat. If only that wretched site wasn't down when I was about to sit down and do it. Oh well.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Every journey...

I've been thinking about starting a blog for awhile now, and today I finally decided it was time.

There's two reasons I've decided on starting this blog. First and foremost: forums and the people who run them suck ass. Before now, I had no place to freely speak; on forums and in IRC channels, I always have to worry about who I'm offending and often times have to censor myself just so I won't get banned. This isn't really my fault, as most people that moderate forums and IRC channels are simply huge ass losers who will take any opportunity to exercise power over someone else, even if they didn't break any of the rules (which frankly mean fuck all on practically any forum; most of the times I've been banned from forums and IRC channels it's been because someone "didn't like me", or the catchall excuse of "trolling").

But now, I can freely respond to stupid people (and whoever else happens to catch my attention) while avoiding moderator circlejerks and the white noise of forums. The best part? I can remove their comments or outright disable comments if I ever wish to. Not that I'm planning on doing this very often; I'm reserving it for extreme cases in which the people "arguing" with me are the same type of obnoxious, know-it-all geeks that helped me develop my distaste for forums. Otherwise, feel free to leave comments on anything I post here; I'll treat you as well as you deserve to be treated.

Now don't let all that make you think I'm just a big meanie; I'm in fact a rather nice guy! The second reason I started this blog was so I could share my knowledge with the world and help promote a better understanding of fighting games. I plan to accomplish this by documenting my own progress as a fighting game player.