FIGHTING GAMES BRO (couldn't think of a better name lol)

The Road to Apex 2012


So I've registered for Apex 2012. For those of you not in the know, Apex 2012 is a HUGE Smash Bros. Tourney that will be taking place in Rutgers University in New Jersey on January 6, 7, and 8. It will include the games Super Smash Bros. (N64), Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

"But those aren't fighting games."

That's a completely different type of blog post that I may tackle one day.
Fact is, I'm in there. I entered for Brawl singles, Smash64 singles, and All Brawl.

For Brawl singles, I was originally going to go MetaKnight without hesitation. However, since MetaKnight has been officially banned after Apex (more on that later), I'm going Marth. I may play a little Sonic in "serious friendlies" and money matches, but in tourney, I'm probably going Marth.

For Smash64, I'm going either Captain Falcon or Fox. Now, I'm not even all that good in this game, but I actually play it much more than I do Brawl (something about this game actually having hitstun...), so I figure I might as well try it out in tourney. I'm also going to have to secure an N64 controller for this, as I play Smash64 on *gasp* a PS2 controller. And yes, it works. It works well.

What the fuck is All Brawl?

That is All Brawl.
Basically, the rules are all items are on, everything is chose at random against three other opponents, and you gotta win two games before everyone else does. Clearly, this is a lottery, but you know what? Easily the most fun lottery you can enter. So I'm game.

MetaKnight has Finally been Banned

Well, it's too late for me (especially since MetaKnight's ban doesn't go into full effect until after Apex, which is theoretically the last Smash Bros. tourney I'm entering in my life), but you know what? I still feel like this will be good for Brawl in general. It took, like, five attempts, but you know what? This might be a case of "better late than never." Apparently a number of players had left the community because MetaKnight was such an obviously broken character that might have been left in the game solely because of one player (seriously. just one guy) (like, if this guy admitted that MetaKnight was, in fact, broken, MetaKnight probably would have been banned much, much sooner) and it's possible that now since this character is banned people may come back. Of course, there may be players that leave due to the banned MetaKnight, but... well... you get what you get what you get.

Seriously, I do like this move. I do think that Brawl is a very balanced game outside of MetaKnight, and I think that characters will be coming out of the woodwork in tournaments and stuff since MetaKnight is no longer there to lock characters down. Seriously, MetaKnight was so badass that they had to make rules to keep him in, and then adjust said rules because MetaKnight didn't give a fuck. One such rule was the "ledge grab rule" or LGL. It states that if an opponent grabs the ledge more than x amount of times, that player lost. At first, it was, like 70, I think. Didn't mean shit, because, you know, MetaKnight has, like, 5 jumps. Then it was 50. Still didn't mean shit. I think there was a 40 (don't mean shit), and I think it eventually settled down to 35, although the lowest my eyes remember seeing it was 25 at one tourney (although that may have been either a joke or a typo, since 2 is so close to 3 on the keyboard). Stages were also banned because MetaKnight existed.

With MetaKnight gone, maybe some of those rules can be removed and maybe some of the stages that aren't really a problem can return.

Of course, what if MetaKnight was just the optimal abuse of all the issues that Brawl has in terms of being a competitive fighting game? Well, with the "honor code" that smashers seem to have, I don't think it'll be that big of a deal. I mean, if smashers played to win like, say, street fighters, MetaKnight would have a 97% tourney win rate, since Mew2King wouldn't lose.....

Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3

So whenever I play this game, my team, as it stands, is going to be Blue Zero, Blue Vergil, Blue Strider. Yes, I know, I'm never going to have meter, because I'm going to be blowing it on my Zero combo, blowing it on the Vergil surrounding sword super, and blowing it on Strider's orbs. What I may do is play a relatively straightforward game with Zero and Strider, and then have Vergil come in with 5 bars and attack hard, especially if he's the last man standing... so that dat level 3 X-Factor can kick in...

Although I heard that X-Factor took quite a nerf... doesn't last as long and, while still damaging, isn't as powerful as it was in MvC3. X-Factor was one of my biggest issues with MvC3, and honestly, I kinda wish it just didn't show up in UMvC3 at all. However, I'll attempt to reserve judgment since it's been nerfed.

Oh, and have you guys seen Ryu gameplay? They definitely based this guy off of Goku. Dude even has a Kaio Ken attack lololol.

Street Fighter X Tekken


This is a game that, the more I look at it, the more I feel that if there's nothing below the surface of la, ma, ha, launch, la, ma, ha, *insert attack here*.

This probably won't be the majority of all the fights though. It's just that everything I've ever seen about the game is just that.

And honestly, that's no better than MvC3's la, ma, ha, s, ma, ma, ha, s, *insert otg move here*.

But, we have 6 whole attack buttons here. It can't be all bad. But if it is........

I'll just resort to Chun Li footsies and pokes and stuff... that'll work... right?

What happened to Mortal Kombat?


Like, Mortal Kombat had crazy hype behind it from its initial release to the decision to feature it in Evo2k11 right up to the big tourney itself. And then, I pretty much heard nothing about it.

Did it die? Impossible... the game is constantly patching up botches in the system and between the five featured games of Evo (SSF4:AE, MvC3, BlazBlue what the most recent one is, Tekken 6, and MK9), it had arguably the most balanced roster with BB coming in second I believe because MvC3 had Phoenixes running rampant, Tekken 6 had a Bob mirror for Grand Finals, and SSF4:AE's top 8 had Vipers and Yuns all day (even though a Virtua Fighter player won with Fei Long).

Maybe it's just me not following the game so much. Maybe the hype itself died but it's living on very quietly. I don't know what the case may be, but Mortal Kombat was not a bad game...

Oh wait... I remember when I was at a friend's house and wanted to play the game, shit took about an hour to update itself. Unfortunately, time is of the essence. We didn't wait for the update.

So maybe that's why I stopped caring. Silly consoles and their desire to become computers... can I just have a Super Nintendo Entertainment System 2 already?

Trollcom Strikes Again (aka the reason Bob is in Street Fighter X Tekken)

BOB SAGAT?
Capcom obviously knew what they were doing.

Shoutout to Luke for showing this to me.

Quick Review: WWE All Stars

So I played WWE All Stars at a friend's house last night.

That game is weird. I play wrestling games and I play fighting games, and it's like a sick little combination between the two genres. (Note: one could consider wrestling games fighting games, but I feel there's a difference between the two that justifies my separation of them... trust me, I've been playing wrestling games since like 2005 and fighting games since 1995 or something like that)

One thing I will say is that this game definitely has this old school game design feel to it. You can easily pick the game up and play it, press buttons (two strike attack buttons, two grab buttons, two reversal buttons), and hope to see some really cool stuff, and you will. However, I can feel some form of depth to this game. You can reverse reversals, you can toss characters up and juggle them (and then you can catch them into another toss mid-juggle to juggle them again... whether or not you can do this forever if the opponent doesn't reverse is something I don't know), I'm guessing you can do some kind of mix ups, you can press a given sequence of buttons to consistently perform the same combo... there is definitely a fighting system here that can be explored. Time will tell if it's deep, if it's good, if it's broken, etc.

The one thing that may keep the game from being too broken is reversals. You can reverse certain moves, but fear not; if you're good, you can reverse your opponent's reversal. That's pretty sick, as while the opponent may break up a potential big time combo with a reversal, you can still maintain control of the match with your own reversals.

So there's definitely going to be a tier list of some sort if people decide to take this game seriously like that: Andre the Giant is a big problem (literally and figuratively, powerful hits, lots of life, hard to knockdown), Edge has the quickest finisher by far in the game (finishers can and will end matches, so to have one that much faster than everyone else's...), and the combo potential right now seems huge... simply because I have no idea how to time reversals in this game yet.

So I totally skimped out on the bells and whistles that most players care about... the graphics are cool, the sound is awesome, although theme songs get cut short compared to other wrestling games so that the matches can begin, created characters is simple compared to other wrestling games, and the controls... well, the controls feel weird to me, but they are responsive during game play. There's a bit of lag on certain menus, but that's what you get when your console pretends its a computer anyway.

Overall, it's a fun game. I like its first impression, and I'm definitely willing to learn it if given the opportunity, which is more than I can say for MvC3. /cheapshot.

Still, I'd recommend that you tinker with it for a while before deciding to purchase it if you can... I can tell that eventually, I'm gonna have a lot of fun with this. :)

EDIT: BAM! I KNOW NOW!
WWE All Stars feels like a "looser," more over the top version of Def Jam: Fight for NY. Okay, there's actually a number of significant differences between Fight for NY and All Stars upon second thought, but that's pretty much what kind of brand of fighting game you're dealing with here.

Quick Review: Super Street Fighter 4 EZ... I mean, 3D Edition

So a friend of mine copped a Nintendo 3DS with SSF43D. I played it for a bit and I can tell why people are calling this the best launch title, even though its a port of a game that's been out for about a year now.

The game is beautiful, 3D mode for Street Fighter is awesome. There's actually two ways to view the fights; in normal mode, which is the standard way to view fighting games, and in dynamic mode, which turns the camera to a behind the fighter type of angle that's literally kind of like what you seen in the commercials (if you've seen theme). Chun Li fans, rejoice, she looks amazing in Dynamic mode.

Still, this is not a game for serious competition at all... you might as well play it on the consoles if that's what you're going for. The d-pad works fine, I guess, and you're definitely going back to the SNES setup when it comes to mapping your buttons and whatnot. But the easy mode buttons? That changes everything, and is essentially the reason why the game can't be taken seriously in my opinion.

I had read an article about how this is the first step of how Ono, the producer of Street Fighter, wants to reduce fighting games to a casualized attack fest (well, that's not what he said exactly, but that's clearly what he implied). Talk about a first step... anything you ever seen anyone ever do in this game, you can probably do it. If you're Sagat, you can set a button for EX Tiger Uppercut, set a button for a Focus Attack, and set up a button for the Ultra. Then you can do the combo with no problem... all you gotta do is know how to dash.

Don't even get me started on Guile... Sonic Boom and Flash Kick without having to charge?

All in all, it's a fun experience, which is what I guess they were going for. But it's seriously too easy to take seriously... so simply put, your ability to enjoy this game will be in your ability to not care about being competitive.

And remember, according to Ono, this is the future of fighting games..........