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?

Hello.

This blog has been sitting in the warehouse for mad long now. I guess I might as well just post it before I leave for work... *silence* @ work.


Amy Winehouse and Mega Man


So Amy Winehouse passed away recently... I might come off as an insensitive bastard for this, but honestly, I feel more pain in the idea that Capcom might not be making anymore Mega Man games due to his creator, Kenji Inafune, leaving Capcom on terms that aren't in fact the greatest than Amy Winehouse's death. Why?

1. Amy Winehouse had it coming. She didn't even wanna go to rehab. And then had the nerve to make a song about it. (You could argue that Mega Man, as Inafune's creation, had it coming as well, as he was doing some questionable things over there at Capcom...)
2. Mega Man has contributed much more to my life than Amy Winehouse. There's Mega Man 1-4 (never beat 4, actually), 7 and 8, Mega Man X 1-7 (never played 8... what the hell), and Mega Man Xtreme on the Game Boy Color. Not to mention his showings in the Marvel vs. Capcom games.
3. The death of celebrities just don't shock me anymore... my father passed in 07, my grandmother in 09, and my aunt in 2010. I've had friends deal with family deaths in similar impacts, and you can feel them struggling to maintain and trying to keep their heads up with that initial absence. So yeah... could hardly care. I haven't even heard any one of her songs. I only know of the rehab song via facebook statuses...

Work is Killer, Man.

These assholes... they fire someone without the proper manpower to replace him, so let's shuffle the fuck out of everyone's schedule. My schedule keeps me from doing any SCW shows (at the moment... maybe it'll change? I don't even know), and I worked a ridiculous 6 consecutive days since last Thursday, and only had yesterday off since. The fact that I'm still here is nothing short of a win in my book.

And yeah, that's why I hardly blog as much as I used to... it's getting ridiculous. I really need to mark a plan to get the fuck outta there. Interestingly enough and partially unrelated, I see a number of friends in interesting predicaments that have them making interesting decisions... it will be interesting to see how our futures' play out. 

Did I mention that I openly talk to myself with no remorse? Yup. Totally lost my sanity.

Did the Overall Quality of Entertainment go Down Drastically?

So about a week or so ago, I was randomly talking to my brother about how terrible the TV show "House of Payne" is and how the only character that's worth anything is Curtis Payne and how if you remove Curtis Payne, you have nothing. My brother responds on some dumb shit like you only need one good character... like, why would you need more than one funny character? So then I break down how sitcoms like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and the Cosby Show had more than one really good character, and how even if you remove the main character, you could easily write a funny show involving the rest of the cast that would obviously still be lacking, but still be watchable than House of Payne. And he's like, that's not good, cause then you're expected to laugh all the time... and I'm like, is that not the point of a sitcom?

So then he says some shit like, "what if the WWE had more than one John Cena?" 

Once upon a time, they did. Undertaker, Steve Austin, Rock, HHH, etc... what happens when you have more than one John Cena? You get a bit of unpredictability, where anyone of those good wrestlers can take the title, duh.

And that's when I think to myself... has the overall quality of entertainment gone down? And have people learned to appreciate this terrible quality of entertainment?

Which brings me to my next point...

I Think the Movie Industry is Out of Ideas...

Transformers

Green Lantern

Captain America

Chipmunks

Smurfs

Spiderman (again)

There's more... I just don't feel like going through it all.

Now I know, there are original movies. And I'm willing to bet that when I was young, there were remakes and such... but am I wrong for believing that new ideas are just running on fumes these days?

MvC3 > 10 months > UMvC3

So I was gonna do a blog about how this is stupid, about how Capcom did this with Street Fighter 2 and Street Fighter 3 and how it's different from doing this with Street Fighter 4 and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 because of the technology available and stuff... and then I stopped caring. 

10 months, however, isn't unprecedented, however. The gap between SF2: Championship Edition and SF2: Hyper Fighting is something along the lines of 8 months. The gap between SF3: New Generations and SF3: 2nd Impact is something along the lines of 9 months. Of course, the big difference is being in an arcade vs. being on consoles that are damn near computers and shit.

But like I said... I stopped caring. At least they'll be making the game "better" unlike what they did with SSF4: AE... SSF4 was arguably the most balanced SF game since Street Fighter Alpha 2, and they just destroyed it. How exactly is beyond me because I don't play the game enough. Some say is because they nerfed the fuck out of everyone that isn't Makoto and Fei Long. Some say is because the twins are just too good. Personally, I don't give a fuck.

MvC3 needed an update. (Personally, I think MvC needs to hit 4, already, but I digress) The game was getting stale, the X-Factor was too powerful, and outside of X-Factor, strategies were leveling out to exactly the same shit to the point where the beginning of matches in the same set were starting to look exactly the same. UMvC3 looks to add more new moves and shit, nerf that with which was considered stupid shit (like Sentinel and Phoenix), and ultimately, provide the illusion that this will be something awesome.

And I'm still backing the shit out of SFxT. Yet, I wouldn't be surprised if it gets a new edition in a year or so. That's the Capcom way... I remember when SF4 was first announced that I said it would have at least 3 versions. With SSF4, I thought I'd be wrong, but... you know.

I promise you that I have, like 10 blog ideas...

... just waiting to be written. But... you know... work and shit... maybe someday.

Even more about work...


so I've decided I'm not putting out a 100% effort until they make things right. Nothing works, and I'm out here busting my ass, but if I put in less effort, I get the same amount of money anyway, so there.

I swear, there's a beautiful relationship waiting to happen here, but I got no chance in hell to make moves because when I'm not working, they're working and when they're not working, I'm working. Awesome turn of events.

This blog in and of itself....


Has been written in like, 3 different parts, differing from three different days. The reason why I'm actually about to post this is because I'm totally lacking the fuck out of posts right now. I'm also noticing that if I make blogs about video games, they tend to get hits.

But then again...


My DBZ post got the most hits ever... and I definitely have at least one more DBZ related post to put up. You can thank a friend named Kyle for that.

And now I'm just rambling off...


but you know what? I am one sexy muther fucker. Even if I don't have the look of a waiter.

Yeah, like at my job... and I'm willing to bet that this is in most places... you can't really be a cashier or stuff like that if 1) you lack a vagina and 2) you don't have the "look." Oh, you're a dude looking for a job? Oh, you look like that? Here, take this labor bullshit.

I am not a laborer. I am a thinker, a creator. I am also a damn hard worker, and that strength is weakness... I get abused... BUT NO MOAR!

I see a lot of people at my job have, like, another job. Apparently, this one on its own doesn't cut it. Crazy... people have become slaves to the dollar. Even my schedule has attempted to make me a slave to the dollar. For the two days off that I have, they are started by a late night which usually results in my waking up late and followed by an early morning which would require me to sleep early. Meaning my actual day off is cut off.

Cash Rules Everything Around Me.

Fuck that. I'm dethroning this muther fucker. I REFUSE to allow my life to get ruined by this job... at least for the summer. When it gets cold and there's no interest in being out there in 40 degree weather, then it's whatever. But now? Naaaaah... it's too hot outside to be "relaxing" on days off. Naaaah... I gotta be out doing shit.

So I'll relax this once... this last once... and then from here on in? Bugging out on my days off for the rest of the summer. My job is just going to have to put up with bullshit performances... bullshit performances is better than no performance, no? I mean, I don't think they can afford to fire me. They're already low on dish washing man power as it is. Like yesterday... if I didn't show up (which I was thinking about doing due to our new attendance policy and how the 1st of each month provides a god-like loophole type maneuver), they would have been fucked. In the ass. No lube. Except the blood.

Evo was/is this weekend.


I followed it more than I originally thought I would. Well, then again... I'm lying... I only watched it practically all of Sunday. Saw the MK9 finals, Tekken 6 finals, MvC3 Top 8 and SSF4AE Top 8. Congrats to the winners. Lol @ 3-4 Phoenix teams in top 8 in Marvel. Lol @ 2 Yuns, 1 FeiLong, 3 Vipers, an Akuma, and a Seth in Top 8 in AE. MvC3 obviously had more "variety" than Marvel 2 last year, but I'm gonna have to see what exactly happened with last year's SSF4. If I remember correctly, there was the Ryu, a Honda, an Adon, maybe two Akumas, a Zangief, and two other characters. But yeah Capcom. Good job fucking up the balance. Viper did surprise me though, only cause I hadn't been following the game, but Viper definitely fits in well with the new AE metagame.

And that's a wrap.


I think that it all that I've had on my mind over the past era... well, all that I had on my mind that I would want to put this blog and wouldn't get me killed or something like that. Hopefully August will be better for this blog, but with my work schedule... I don't even know.

I did notice that blogs with pictures get more hits than blogs without pictures... so I'll look into that in the future. This blog suffered with post numbers, but still got an interesting number of hits...

Strider Hiryu is comfirmed for Ultimate MvC 3... but...

So I'm doing very, very early speculation on Strider via these videos.

Why? Because when I speculated that Zero's combos would be ridiculous and easy due to seeing a pre-release video of Zero vs. She-Hulk, I was right. His combos are ridiculous and relatively easy.

So I'm looking at Strider... here's what I like...

I like that after he teleports, he can still attack relatively immediately afterwards like in MvC2, as opposed to MvC1 where he had to land helplessly. 

I like that his single orb shot OTG's.

I like that when he does the move that allows him to cling to the wall, he can apparently combo you for a bit and then even continue the combo.

I like that his teleport kick is a knockdown if it hits you in the air and can be combo'd out of if it hits you on the ground. It doesn't knock down, but you can still attack immediately afterward. I don't know if that means its recovery is better than it used to be or if it just has a lot of hit stun when it hits.

I like that Legion OTGs. (it always kinda OTG'd, but you know... in the past, it was a bit more difficult to OTG into a Legion... or anything for that matter... and when you could OTG in the pass, there were much better things to OTG into... like something that lead into an inf or into Orbs).

Of course, nothing can be perfect. Here's what I don't like...

I don't understand why both Orbs and Ragnarok are Level 3 Supers. 

Like... okay, I can understand why Ragnarok would be a Level 3... it looks awesome, it looks like you'd need 3 levels of meter to actually do it, and it looks like ridiculous damage. I can understand why Orbs would be a level 3... the pressure game put up by Orbs is nasty intense, and having 5 opportunities to use Orbs while having a Level 3 X-Factor just sounds broken.

But I don't understand why both of them have to be level 3 supers. What the fuck am I supposed to do with my meter when I wanna style on people? Spam Legion?

Ultimately, though, I see Strider being Top Tier material. With his teleport moves and his ability to just pick a side of the stage that he wants to be on, he has plenty of mobility and mix up options. He definitely looks like he'll be easier to move around with than in previous iterations (which is crazy because Strider was already nasty to move around with), and he's definitely going to be a problem. Which is good. He's Strider. He should be a problem. I just wish he didn't have two Level 3 supers.